Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah is right to call for the consolidation of ties between Syria and its Lebanon for the sake of regional security. The assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri last February came as a blow to Saudi Arabia, which considered him as a dear friend, but while every effort must be made to discover the perpetrators, such endeavors should not impinge on Syria's sovereignty or territorial integrity.
Syrian President Bashar Assad is currently traveling throughout the region in an attempt to shore up support among his fellow leaders. On Sunday, he flew to Saudi Arabia to meet with King Abdullah before continuing to the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Bashar needs all the support he can during these troubled times so as to avert a crises in his country. This reached a crescendo when Syria's former Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam attempted to implicate his former boss in Hariri's assassination during an interview on the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya network.
From luxurious self-imposed exile in Paris, where he has set up headquarters in the George V hotel, protected by French security agents, Khaddam accused Bashar of threatening Hariri prior to his demise and accused the Baathist regime of corruption.
This revelation caused a furor in Damascus. Khaddam has been expelled from the party and is likely to be tried for treason and corruption in absentia. In the meantime, his Syrian assets are being held in escrow.
"You don't deserve to be a Syrian," said one Syrian parliamentarian. "You can go to hell because no Syrian can ever forgive you who hoped to return to your country one day on an American tank."
Khaddam's accusations further added grist to the mill of the UN investigation into Hariri's death, with the investigatory team now demanding direct testimony from Bashar, with which the Syrian leader refuses to comply unless there is solid grounds in international law.
Prior to Khaddam's offensive, the case against Syria was flimsy. Detlev Mehlis, who heads the UN team, had based his report's conclusions largely on the testimony of Zuhair Ibn Mohammed Said Saddik, a deserter and an embezzler, who had been introduced to the Mehlis by the Syrian President's uncle Rifaat Al-Assad, said to have designs on the leadership position himself.
Saddik was exposed by the German magazine Der Spiegal, which reported Saddik having called his brother in Paris to say, "Good news! I've become a millionaire." Saddik later went on Syrian television to recant his testimony.
Now Khaddam has gone a step further and is openly calling for regime change in his homeland, a call that is being echoed by his pal Druze veteran Lebanese politician Walid Jumblatt.
Speaking on CNN, Jumblatt described the Syrian leader as "a sick man", who should be prosecuted, while accusing Syria of being behind the deaths of Hariri and the Lebanese editor Gibran Tueni.
Syria's banned Muslim Brotherhood has now opportunistically got in on the act, saying it is prepared to work with Khaddam and Syrian opposition parties to oust Bashar from office.
The Brotherhood's leader Ali Sadreddine Bayanouini told the Financial Times that while he wasn't convinced by Khaddam's stated democratic credentials, he was willing to assume that Khaddam "had woken up and decided to defect because the regime is leading the country toward a catastrophe".
On the face of it, such statements sound noble. These are people with their country's interests at heart. Or are they?
Take Khaddam for instance. Here is a man who has spent his life devoted to the Baath Party, which he now says is corrupt. Thanks to his lifelong friendship with Hafez Assad, he rose through its ranks to become vice president, only to be elbowed out of power by his friend's son, whom he probably once bounced on his knee.
Khaddam's current stance may be popular in Lebanon but the Lebanese should remember that he was the architect of Syria's de facto occupation of that country.
Moreover, when Hariri's assassination was first announced, Khaddam was quick to point a finger at the Israelis, which says little for his credibility now. One must, therefore, wonder whether Khaddam has truly experienced an epiphany or whether he is eyeing the top chair for himself.
Walid Jumblatt also has a personal bone to pick with the Syrian leadership, whom he accuses of being behind the death of his own father in 1977.
As for the Brotherhood, the only way that they can get an official foot in the door of Damascus is by shaking the hand of the president's enemies and working out a deal whereby it will receive recognition as a political party.
In the meantime, the US and its Western allies are silently cheering from the sidelines. Bashar fell from grace when he openly opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. From then, he could do no right. Syria was variously accused of giving succor to Palestinian "militants", harboring Iraq's fictitious weapons of mass destruction, and of allowing insurgents to freely cross its frontier into Iraq, even though it had called for US assistance with securing the border to no avail.
But the current demonizing of Syria has roots which go back long before the Iraq war.
In 1996, "Clean Break: A strategy for securing the realm" calls for the weakening of Syria. It was penned by prominent US neo-conservatives on behalf of the former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is the precursor to the 2000 Project for a New American Century paper, pinpointing the Syrian regime as "dangerous". There is, therefore, a much larger agenda at play than a simple dispute between neighbors.
Would an enforced regime change in Syria really benefit Lebanon? How would that impact upon Lebanon's internal stability? Wouldn't it be divisive when Hezbollah is likely to support Bashar, while so-called reformists would be tempted to fall in behind Khaddam? Worse, mightn't the door once again be opened up to foreign intervention in the shape of either US troops or the Israelis?
Like it or not, Lebanon and Syria are always going to share a border and in many cases will always be blood cousins. It's time for the Lebanese to remember that blood is thicker than water and to beware of foreigners bearing gifts.
