Murder in the Levant
Who assassinated Rafik Hariri, and why? A must read is Rami Khouri's analysis in Beirut's Daily Star. Clearly, the cover of "stabilization" that Syria has been using to cloak its occupation of Lebanon is now well and truly blown as Ewen MacAskill writes in today's Guardian. But could Bashar Asad be so inept as to make such a ghastly misstep? With Iraq on the road to democracy and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process on track again, why would he want to plunge Lebanon into crisis at this time? Surely Asad must know that any such move would be disastrous for the already very rocky relationship between Syria and the US. Here's Rami Khouri on "The ramifications of Hariri's assassination":
"The madness is not just in the murder of a fine man and a true Lebanese and Arab patriot; it is in the ongoing legacy of rampant and often brutal political violence that at once defines, disfigures and demeans political elites and perhaps even Arab society as a whole."
If not Syria, then, who? One theory is that al-Qaeda was behind the operation figuring that assassinating Hariri would damage the House of Saud. Hariri, who was worth $4 billion, made his money in Saudi Arabia and was very well connected in the Kingdom. Another possible al-Qaeda gambit would be fomenting a crisis between Damascus and Washington. Still, the finger points at the next-door neighbour because Hariri had advocated the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. Regardless of who did the deed, however, as Rami Khouri wrote, this is "madness".
UPDATE 12:04 In today's New York Times, Tom Friedman lays into Syria in fine style.
"When Syria's Baath regime feels its back up against the wall, it always resorts to 'Hama Rules.' Hama Rules is a term I coined after the Syrian Army leveled — and I mean leveled — a portion of its own city, Hama, to put down a rebellion by Sunni Muslim fundamentalists there in 1982. Some 10,000 to 20,000 Syrians were buried in the rubble. Monday's murder of Mr. Hariri, a self-made billionaire who devoted his money and energy to rebuilding Lebanon after its civil war, had all the hallmarks of Hama Rules — beginning with 650 pounds of dynamite to incinerate an armor-plated motorcade."
That's good, but there's better to come. Here, Tom gets in some telling jabs against the Arab League and its partner in mendacity, the European Union:
Rafik Hariri stopped playing by 'Lebanese Rules' — eating any crow the Syrians crammed down Lebanon's throat — and openly challenged Syrian imperialism. If the Lebanese want to be free, they have got to take the lead. They have to summon the same civic courage that Mr. Hariri did and that the Iraqi public did — the courage to look the fascists around them in the eye, call them in the press and in public by their real names, and confront the European Union and the Arab League for their willingness to ignore the Syrian oppression."
As the man says, read the whole thing.
