The explosion in Beirut’s port was a human tragedy. Hundreds died in the blast, and thousands more were wounded. The victims transcended Lebanese society: Christians, Sunni, Shi’ites, Druze, supporters of Hezbollah, and Hezbollah’s most diehard opponents. Conspiracy theories erupted — Hezbollah munitions stored in the port, an Israeli airstrike, even a nuclear bomb — but the reality was more mundane. The reason for one of the largest accidental explosions since the 1917 Halifax explosion and the Texas City disaster three decades later was simple incompetence: Authorities offloaded highly explosive cargo into an unsecured warehouse, largely forgot about it, and then allowed welders unaware about the danger they faced into the warehouse to conduct repairs.
The government has put port managers under house arrest while the investigation gets underway. But if there is any lesson from recent Lebanese history, only the weak and never the powerful face accountability for their actions. That was what occurred when Hezbollah detonated a bomb in the heart of Beirut in order to assassinate former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. In the aftermath, Lebanese were outraged in much the way they are today. The resulting Cedar Revolution forced the withdrawal of Syrian troops and gave Lebanon a chance, albeit one squandered by Lebanon’s self-serving elite, at a better future.
The evidence in the Hariri bomb pointed overwhelmingly to Hezbollah as a group and to specific operators within its network. Hezbollah, through a combination of overt threats and posturing and covert pressure, largely sidetracked the tribunal. Rather than become a mechanism for justice, Lebanese fearing the cost of holding Hezbollah to account transformed it into a tool for obfuscation and delay.
What happens in Lebanon never stays in Lebanon. While Hezbollah and the Saudi monarchy are on opposite sides of the Middle East’s ideological, sectarian, and diplomatic divide, Hezbollah’s ability to shirk accountability for the murder in broad daylight of one of post-civil war Lebanon’s most prominent and popular leaders likely inspired Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman to believe he could act with similar impunity against journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The best thing the United States and broader international community can do right now is ensure accountability as Lebanon picks up the pieces and rebuilds. There should be judicial accountability not only for authorities in the port who may have been negligent but also for the political leaders who turned a deaf ear to warning about tons of ammonium nitrate stored within a stone’s throw to the heart of the city. There should also be accountability and transparency to ensure that groups like Hezbollah responsible for so many ills in Lebanese society today do not enrich themselves off the construction contracts that will flow into the city, and that elite politicians and power brokers do not likewise siphon off funds as they so often have in the past.
Beirut was once the Paris of the Middle East, and it is easy to fall in love with the city that represents the Middle East at its cosmopolitan best. That the Lebanese have suffered so much both for reasons beyond their control and because of the fickleness of their political machine is a tragedy. Some Lebanese will try to blame Israel, others Syria, and others Iran for their plight before Tuesday’s events, and for their desperation today. Only, however, when the Lebanese people shirk off corrupt and incompetent elites and a political culture where too many act with impunity will the country thrive, and its people achieve the justice they so much deserve.
Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official.
