BEIRUT, 16 February 2005 — There is one broad certainty about the highly professional assassination of Rafik Hariri, the billionaire former prime minister who has dominated Lebanese politics since the end of the civil war in 1991. He fell victim to the hapless role this small, politically fragile and religiously divided country is once again playing: The battleground of international conflicts larger than itself.
It played that role in the 16-year war; and while few really expect it to be plunged once more into such fratricidal strife, conflict has, with this murderous deed, reached a dangerous new level of intensity. And everyone fears there will be worse to come.
Some key actors in the civil war, such as the Palestinian guerrilla movement for which Lebanon had become the main base, are barely present today. But one of them, Syria, is, as before, at the very heart of Lebanon’s quickly deepening crisis. Syria, the main external “victor” of the war and virtual overlord of Lebanon ever since, is pitted against a disparate array of forces, ranging from the US, France and Israel to all those within Lebanon who line up more or less openly in the anti-Syrian camp. As ever these are mainly, but far from exclusively, Christian. The pro-Syrians are mainly Muslim. It is Syria, with only one real ally left in the world, Iran, that is on the defensive. So are its Lebanese allies, inside and outside the regime. The conflict is an outgrowth of American strategies in the Middle East, from the war on terror to regime change, democratization and the invasion of Iraq. Syria is not a member of President Bush’s “axis of evil”, but, with Iran, it is increasingly targeted as a villain. It is regularly charged, for example, with aiding and abetting the insurgency in Iraq, interfering with the Arab-Israel peace process and sponsoring the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. The Hezbollah are in turn accused by Israel of aiding and abetting Hamas.
For decades now Syria has been losing card after card in a steadily weakening strategic hand. Its domination over Lebanon is one of the last and most vital of them. Ultimately it will perhaps be a bargaining counter in some grand deal to be struck with America that secures the Ba’athist regime’s future in the evolving new Middle East order.
Conversely, however, Lebanon, as a platform that Syria’s adversaries exploit against it, is liable to turn into a source of great weakness, if not an existential threat. The Ba’athists, now under siege in so many ways, feel that they are struggling desperately to keep their grip on Lebanon.
But the methods Syria uses, such as political intimidation and backstage manipulation by its intelligence services, seem, if anything, only to be backfiring against it. The recent arbitrary extension to a Lebanese president’s constitutionally permitted six- year term enabled General Emile Lahoud, seen as an out-and-out Syrian loyalist, to stay in office for another three years.
That was seen as a Syrian diktat, and triggered a rising tide of opposition, domestic and international, to Syria and its Lebanese protégés. Not just the US, but also France, a traditional “friend of the Arabs”, were moving spirits behind UN resolution 1559, which calls on Syria to do a whole array of very unwelcome things in Lebanon, such as withdraw its troops in accordance with the 1991 Taif accord that ended the civil war, stop meddling in domestic politics and dismantle Hezbollah and some Palestinian militias.
On the domestic front, the unkindest, and most damaging, cut has been the desertion of its former ally, the Druze chieftain Walid Jumblatt. He is also a stout Lebanese nationalist and pillar of its multi-confessional “democracy”, rebelling not against Syria as such, but against what he sees as the rule of the Syrian security services. He has joined, and effectively now leads, the mainly Christian opposition: a trans-confessional desertion that carries great weight.
With the tide moving strongly, internationally and domestically, Rafik Hariri, too, had been showing strong signs recently of moving with it. He it was who, as prime minister, got his parliamentary bloc vote to extend the term of his bitter enemy, President Lahoud. But he did so under immense Syrian pressure and with a manifestly heavy heart. He had been losing Syrian favor ever since and last week, in an ominous escalation, the Syrian newspaper Al-Ba’ath made a scathing attack on him.
Down the years the Lebanese have attributed many political assassinations to Syria, but never dared say so publicly. This time, they have. The opposition — and, what makes it so serious, the full spectrum multi-confessional opposition including Christians, Druze, and Muslims — have come together and solemnly blamed it on President Lahoud’s regime.
