It is absurd to think that Syria is behind the well-planned blast that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
It is equally absurd to believe that Syria is not behind the assassination, carried out in a professional manner.
The first statement can be justified because Syria will be the biggest loser if it is the mastermind. This is because the country has been under US pressure and in the international spotlight for a long time.
Any thought of it planning the assassination would only double that pressure to the extent that it can be used to isolate Syria and even launch a military strike against it.
The second statement can be justified by Syria's record in Lebanon and its control of life there. The Lebanese people's anger is increasing every day because of this control.
Now, various political forces in Lebanon are openly calling for Syria's immediate withdrawal and are asking it to leave Lebanon to the Lebanese.
However, Hariri's murder in these explosive circumstances has provided a pretext to the United States and others to take tough steps against Syria.
The American media apparatus and US supporters are going full steam ahead to heap accusations on Damascus.
They are exploiting the situation to attack Syria and implement a diabolical agenda. This is happening even before investigations have ended and the assassins identified.
The murder serves this agenda, and there is not a better opportunity to implement designs against Syria and intervene in its internal affairs.
Confusing Events
Eminent American writer Thomas Friedman is confusing events to justify pressure on Syria. This is just another attempt by the satanic media machine to achieve that end.
He refers to the Syrian regime's record of murders, assassinations and genocide. He singles out an incident in which the Syrian authorities launched a brutal campaign to put down a rebellion by civilians and fundamentalists in Hama in 1982 and called it "Hama Rules".
Similarly, he coined another term "Lebanese Rules" without pausing to think and analyse.
The Hama incident was an internal affair which was overlooked by the United States because it targeted Islamists who if not crushed by Syria would have become suicide bombers targeting first and foremost American interests.
The smoke has not cleared on the second incident. It is an external affair and has occurred in another country and under different circumstances.
A man who did not have great differences with Syria was targeted. In fact, Syria backed him he had good personal and political relations with the ruling regime in Damascus.
There will be speculation about the mastermind of the assassination and this speculation will increase. And in the Arab region the finger of suspicion will point to the United States and its agent in the region, Israel.
This is because the murder under these circumstances and the way it was executed better serves American interests.
The assassination will also suit Washington's plans to attack Syria and discipline it for its opposition to the United States's agenda in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon.
The United States wants to strike Syria because of its close relations with Iran. The two nations have reached an agreement to thwart Washington.
So the American media machine and its band of writers, intellectuals and journalists, such as Thomas Friedman, want to blame Syria early on because it has vested interests it wants to retain its military presence in Lebanon.
They forget in the midst of events that if Syria is guilty of murders, the United States too is guilty of similar crimes.
It is needless to remind these people of America's track record in various countries of the world.
I will mention a few examples in Latin America, its support of dictatorships; its secret killings of those who opposed these dictatorships, its crushing of democratic movements when American interests required the United States to side with these dictatorships.
Its track record is also dotted with masterminding coups d'état, which I think these writers know of. But they may have decided to ignore these facts to achieve the mission of a media campaign, which usually precedes any military strike.
This happened in Iraq and is a characteristic of American politics.
Syria is not free of mistakes. We in the Arab region know this very well. Its military presence in Lebanon after achieving its goals as agreed in the Taif Accord is a mistake, and Syria pays for this mistake today too.
Its human rights record is debatable. Its failure to move ahead with spreading freedom and democracy is yet another mistake.
However, exploiting these mistakes by superpowers such as the United States in the way we see today exposes Washington's double standards once again.
And these double standards are evident when it comes to American projects or Israel and its interests.
Rocket Speed
Is Syria required to give in to the American agenda so that Washington will be satisfied with it, as it happened with the Libyan regime, which decided to go West at rocket speed to protect its existence?
We no longer hear from the West, which flocked to Tripoli to make deals, a single word about human rights and the need for setting up a civilian society, ignoring the entire history of this regime.
If Syria is not free from mistakes and is no fool to murder Hariri, providing its enemies with justifications to attack it, the United States too is not free of mistakes and even has a record of endless mistakes, with Iraq as recent proof.
It is not smart either for selling us theories against Syria to implement the remaining Middle East projects on its agenda.
However, the difference is that the United States's lack of smartness is projected as super smartness by the American media bulldozer, which crushes everything without the need for logic, wisdom or smartness.
We live in the era of these bulldozers and are at their mercy, but bulldozers have no mercy.
Abdul Hamid Ahmad is the Editor-in-Chief of the Dubai-based Gulf News.
