The wail-and-moan communications strategy of Syrian President Bashar Assad exploits the gray area in the Mehlis report, the absence of a “smoking gun” and the presence of an unedited version (which fingered his brother and brother-in-law), to prove that an insidious political (a.k.a. American) campaign is underway to undermine the Syrian regime.
If after scrutinizing all 87 pages of the report you still believe Syria played no role in Rafik Hariri’s assassination, well then, perhaps you shouldn’t read any further.
Clearly, you’ve been conned.
Or is it that you dislike and distrust President George W. Bush’s cabal more than you do Bashar’s?
Now that, I must confess, is a tough call.
But one thing I do know: Bush did not orchestrate the murder of Hariri.
Mehlis is asking questions in Damascus instead of Washington not because he is a puppet of the Bush administration, but because a trail of evidence points in that direction. It’s really that simple.
Still don’t believe me? Read up on the case of another independent prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald.
Yesterday, Fitzgerald delivered his findings after a two-year investigation of “Plame-gate”, the outing of a covert operative who just so happened to be the wife of the Bush administration’s pre-Iraq war nemesis, former US Ambassador and outspoken critic Joe Wilson. I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, was charged with five felony counts of perjury, obstructing justice and making false statements. Each count carries a penalty of up to five years in prison. This is a development that could pose grave problems for Bush in implementing his agenda in the last three years of his presidency. Worse, it returns public attention to Bush’s drive for war in Iraq, an increasingly unpopular cause in the US.
In the US, undermining critics isn’t a felony; deliberately outing a covert operative certainly is. After a 22-month probe, Fitzgerald has not charged anybody with knowingly leaking the name of Plame to the press.
Cheney told Libby that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA. The plan was quite straightforward. Gossip with reporters and hint that Wilson only got to go to Niger and uncover a fraud because of his wife’s influence.
No one bothered to stop and consider that if she could gin up a mission for her husband, she might have a bit of “wasta” herself.
Ah, but why delay? There’s a war to be justified. Critics to be muted. WMD to be found. Democracy to be instilled. Terrorism to be fomented.
I mean fought.
Anyway, much like the Damascus cabal, the one in Washington tried to spin a serious crime into an annoying technicality. According to loyal Bush supporter and veteran Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, “An indictment of any kind is not a guilty verdict, and I do think we have in this country the right to go to court and have due process and be innocent until proven guilty.” This was before Fitzgerald delivered his findings.
Certainly Bashar will use just that strategy when he appeals to UN Security Council members, particularly China and Russia, to forgo sanctions until Mehlis concludes his report. Of course, Mehlis can’t do that without more robust Syrian cooperation and full disclosure from key witnesses.
The Assads are innocent, right? So they’ll comply fully, right?
Sure, I’ll play along. But let’s say that there may be some shreds of evidence that haven’t been incinerated or murdered (suicide, or otherwise) and these point to some sort of Syrian involvement in Hariri’s assassination.
No problem.
The Texas lawmaker said, “And secondly, I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars.” Wasn’t the Monica Lewinsky affair much-ado about a “perjury technicality”?
The palace can breathe a bit easier now.
If certain Syrian senior officials become unavailable for questioning and Mehlis recovers no other corroborating evidence by Dec. 15, there will not be enough evidence to indict the regime.
The fact the regime is guilty as sin won’t prevent them from loudly proclaiming their innocence.
Both Bush’s supporters and Bashar seem intent on kicking up enough dust to distract their critics. In Bashar’s case it’s more akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
As for Bush, strategists note that he is likely to engage in more photo ops on issues ranging from Hurricane Katrina relief to the mortally wounded Middle East peace process. On substance, he’ll have a new Supreme Court nominee to steal a few headlines from the drama surrounding his vice president’s chief of staff.
Bashar, meanwhile, is set about rallying his nation by dropping some rather profound hints. There’s word that Syria’s Kurds may be granted citizenship — after 43 years. In a move a la Mubarak, Bath leaders hint at possible multiple party elections in the future.
But Lady Justice is not swayed by such obvious, self-serving moves. Both leaders could have averted this chapter in their political careers. Hubris is their common curse.
As Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Barbara Tuchman said in the opening of The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam: “A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests.”
Bush is no more immune to outright, unexpected failure than Bashar.
Despite all the technological advances, the satellites and computer gadgetry, the wiretaps and intercepts, no American leader is omniscient. Mistakes are made. Often. Case in point: The war in Iraq.
Do you really believe that over 2,000 American fatalities, tens of thousands of injured soldiers and well over 30,000 Iraqi civilian casualties with no end in sight, that this debacle was the anticipated outcome?
Has Bush tipped the scales toward Israel? Absolutely. But Bush’s misdeeds should never mitigate Bashar’s. There is room for two bad actors, three if you count Ariel Sharon; four, if you include the un-rehabilitated Muammar Qaddafi. The list could go on and on.
Let each one suffer the consequences of his actions. Let no one escape judgment. In the end, no one will. The indictment of Libby is the first sign.
