If Hezbollah Was Behind The Hariri Assassination--How Involved Was Iran?

Daled Amos
16 August '10

That is a question that Amir Taheri asks in Lebanon and Nasrallah's Trinity. In addressing the issue of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Taheri notes that neither Lebanon nor Iran are signatories to the ICC treaty--which is why during the past 30 years pro-Iranian Lebanese militants make a bee-line to Iran when they are indicted in Europe, with about 30 indictments still pending.

More to the point, consider the nature of Hezbollah and the tight connection it has to Iran:

Although the ICC is focusing on a number of individuals, it would be hard to pretend that Hezbollah as a whole will not be affected by such grave accusations. The Lebanese branch of Hezbollah, like all other branches of the pan-Shiite radical movement, is known for its iron discipline and highly centralized decision-making. It also has a seasoned intelligence service of is own which trained and supported by Iranian services.

No one would believe that individual members could organize a sophisticated operation to carry out a high profile assassination in the heart of Beirut without anyone in their party knowing what was going one.

And, if someone high-level in the Lebanese branch knew of the plot, is it possible that Tehran was not informed? Would a branch of the movement go for such a high risk operation without obtaining at least a nod from the 'mother country'?

The point is that Hezbollah is more that merely associated with Iran. Hezbollah is more than tightly associated with Iran.

(Read full post)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

A man with a matchbox

Op-ed: Nasrallah trying to buy time while persevering image of crazy regional thug


Smadar Peri
Israel Opinion/Ynet
16 August '10

Nobody, even in Lebanon (with the exceptions of his cronies,) buys into the “proof” and “new evidence” presented by Nasrallah in his unconvincing conference last week in Beirut. We can bet that Nasrallah himself does not believe that Israel killed Lebanon’s prime minister. Why in the world would Israel assassinate al-Hariri?

But what stops Nasrallah from having a little fun? As far as he’s concerned, Israel can loudly declare that he showed himself to be an even greater liar, prattler, schemer, and swindler; he may have also looked anxious. However, he is not a fool. While moving from one hiding spot to another in the past four years, what’s most important for Nasrallah now is to stay in the game and preserve the image of the crazy, threatening, and dangerous neighborhood thug.

If nobody wants to see a civil war in Lebanon, And Saudi Arabia’s king bothered to travel all the way to Beirut in order to secure a lull between the frightened and the threatening – Nasrallah was not frightened. There, the Lebanese are shaking in their boots, fearing a military confrontation with Israel, but he threatens to fire missiles (which he indeed possesses) on Tel Aviv.

The most important thing for him is not to be blamed for the Hariri assassination. Such charge may shake up Nasrallah and his organization. First of all, the government would collapse, the wave of assassination will make a grand comeback, and Hezbollah fighters would have to take over Beirut.

Nasrallah’s nightmare scenario also includes the worst option: Commandoes (guess where they would come from) embarking on a manhunt for the group’s leadership (and thanks to all the agents and spies) and kicking it out of Lebanon. Nobody would shed a tear should such operation succeed.

(Read full article)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Hizballah Claims Israel Murdered Lebanese Leader? That's Enough to Convince Dutch TV

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
13 August '10
Posted before Shabbat

Unfortunately, nothing about the Middle East and the growing inluence of its worst elements is too horrible to be true. A case in point.

A few hours ago--that is, before writing this note--I posted an article on Lebanon that included this passage:

"Hizballah leader Hasan Nasrallah charges that Israel killed former Lebanese president Rafik Hariri, the act that set off the short-lived Lebanese national revival against Syrian domination. Everyone in Lebanon knows Hariri was killed by Syria through Lebanese agents, who seem to have included Hizballah officials. But no one in political life has the courage to say so...."

I went on to say that people in the West would laugh at this and the other outrageous lies told by radicals in the region but that--hard as it might be to believe--people in the Arab world would accept it as true.

(Read full post)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Hizbullah: Hating Israel... and Palestinians

While waving Palestinian cause flag and supporting ‘right of return to Palestine,’ Shi’ite group has been obstructing every attempt to improve livelihood of Palestinians in Lebanon.


Mudar Zahran
Op-Ed/JPost
12 August '10

In his latest press extravaganza, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah exposed what he called evidence of Israel’s involvement in the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. The footage Nasrallah presented showed that Israel was monitoring areas in Lebanon since the late 1990s, a fact Israel has never denied. Nonetheless, the footage failed to tackle the most critical element of any crime; motive. Since day one, Hizbullah has been viewed as the prime suspect in Hariri’s assassination, and for good reason; Hariri was a Sunni leader who revived the strength and momentum of Lebanese Sunnis, as well as Saudi influence in Lebanon as a major Arab Sunni force, thus making himself a significant obstacle in Hizbullah’s quest to control Lebanon.

Still, the fact that Hizbullah has been successful in intercepting Israeli UAVs proves, once again, its access to advanced military technology. Furthermore, Hizbullah stands out as a very organized terrorist group with a clear strategy. Much of this stems from the fact that it receives substantial financial and logistical support from a very capable country – Iran – which has a lavish history of state terrorism and a relatively advanced military.

Today, Hizbullah is also well-established militarily. Yet what gives the group its edge is its propaganda tactics, which is exactly what Nasrallah was demonstrating with his latest press conference. In fact, Hizbullah has been playing the media game in a manner unprecedented by any other terror group.

(Read full article)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Cinders of Lebanon

The United States abandoned Beirut, and Israel takes the blame


Lee Smith
tabletmag.com
11 August '10

What do Americans know of tragedy? Our pattern for tragedy is theatrical, Shakespearean. Would Americans know the difference, for instance, between Hamlet’s story—a prince who cannot decide whether to kill the man who has murdered his father—and a real tragedy: having no choice but to make peace with the man who killed your father, like the current prime minister of Lebanon, Saad Hariri, had to do? Tragedy is Lebanon’s Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, having no choice but to make peace not only with the man who killed his father but also the murderer’s son, so they won’t kill his son. Tragedy is meeting your fate with little room to maneuver, like Lebanon.

Last week’s incident on the border between Lebanon and Israel suggests that even if war between the two countries is not imminent, Hezbollah is making good on its strategic aims regarding not only Israel, but its host nation, Lebanon. Where the Lebanese government and its assorted allies, regional and international, had once hoped that Hezbollah could somehow be persuaded to abandon its arms, become a regular political party, and integrate its units into the army under the control of the Lebanese government, precisely the reverse has happened, and a monster is being born—just as Hezbollah predicted. The Lebanese state, its army, and even its people are being swallowed by the resistance.

It is ironic that Israel has also seen Lebanon as overrun by Hezbollah for some time, so that if (or when) war comes, Hezbollah won’t be the only group to suffer the consequences. Official Israel calls this strategic posture the Dahiya doctrine, after the Hezbollah stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut that was laid to waste in the 2006 war. What the doctrine means is that in the next round of fighting, all of Lebanon will be devastated.

(Read full article)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Hezbollah Can’t Pin Hariri Murder on Israel

Michael J. Totten
Contentions/Commentary
11 August '10

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah is now officially blaming Israel for assassinating former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in downtown Beirut on Valentine’s Day in 2005. I doubt he will convince many people.

I’ve been working in Lebanon on and off for years, and I’ve never once met a single person who thought Israel murdered Hariri. Not even the Hezbollah officials I spoke to before they blacklisted me thought so. Once in a while I met a Hezbollah supporter who said he didn’t know who killed Hariri and silently left open the possibility that Israel might have done it, but that’s the furthest even any of them were willing to go.



Hariri was one of the least anti-Israel Arab leaders on earth. His vision for Lebanon was one of peace and prosperity, not terrorism and war. Jerusalem had no reason at all to want him out of the picture. The Syrian- and Iranian-led Resistance Bloc, on the other hand, needed him out of the way, dead, or at least suppressed.

(Read full post)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Israel TV names top Hezbollah member as suspect in Hariri murder

Elder of Ziyon
01 August '10

From JPost:

The UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon is reportedly set to announce that Mustafa Badr al-Din, a senior Hizbullah operative and close relative of the former Hizbullah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh, is the main suspect in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

According to an Israel TV report on Thursday night, Hariri’s son, the current Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, asked the tribunal to postpone releasing Din’s name, because of the potentially incendiary implications for Lebanon of such an announcement.

Zvi comments:


This man was no "undisciplined element. [as Hezbollah leader Nasrallah hinted in a recent speech about possible Hezbollah involvement in the assassination.] " He was very, very well connected within Hezbollah.

Mughniyeh himself was arguably Hezbollah's most important military/terrorist figure, and was THE liaison between Hezbollah and Iran. It is inconceivable that in the strictly controlled Hezbollah organization, the assassination of an enemy would occur without the active participation of either the "head of the security section" (Imad Mughniyeh) or the organization's top leadership (Nasrallah and his cronies).

Is Hezbollah really tightly controlled? Of course it is. Hezbollah members don't even fire off the odd random rocket into Israel. They don't engage in random gun-battles in which they kill each other. When the Hezbollah leaders say "attack," they attack suddenly, showing a great deal of preparation. When the Hezbollah leaders say "vanish," they vanish. Contrast the tight control under which Hezbollah members operate with the chaotic laxity of Fatah or the "zeal" and lack of control displayed by Hamas. Nobody in HA assassinates the prime minister without instructions from above, and ultimately without obtaining either instructions or permission from Tehran.

(Read full post)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

The "Undisciplined"

Soccer Dad
23 July '10
Posted before Shabbat

The New York Times has a brief item:

Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, said Thursday that he had been told that members of the group would be indicted by a United Nations tribunal investigating the 2005 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon, left.

There's very little more in the Daily Star:

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his party expected the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) would charge some Hizbullah members with involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Speaking via video link during a news conference he had called for in the Beirut southern suburbs on Thursday, Nasrallah said he had information that such an indictment had been decided upon before 2008, but its announcement was being postponed to await more suitable political circumstances.

He expressed surprise that the decision to indict had been made

And there's this little bit:

Nasrallah said that Prime Minister Saad Hariri had visited him prior to his trip to the United States and informed him that "undisciplined" Hizbullah members would be indicted.

What does "undisciplined" mean?

(Read full post)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Ambassador to Syria?

Michael Rubin
National Review Online
26 April '10

Increasingly, it seems the State Department is grasping at straws as it tries to explain why it needs to send ambassador to Damascus. (I took some of these on a bit earlier.) The latest is that the Syrian ambassador to Washington isn't passing accurate messages back to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, something the Washington Post hints at.

It's absolute nonsense — as other Arab diplomats based in Washington will acknowledge — that the Syrian ambassador isn't relaying messages. Ambassadors for authoritarian dictatorships relay information frequently and accurately. When the authoritarian dictators do not respect the seriousness of the administration nor do they believe that the White House will take any serious coercive action, they sometimes choose not to listen. Bashar al-Assad was convinced he could get away with murder (literally) as Congressional Democrats (and, at the time, Arlen Specter) tossed aside the multilateral isolation imposed in the wake of Rafik Hariri's murder. We increased our groveling for relations after Syria's secret nuclear plant was exposed and destroyed. We sent senior State Department and NSC officials to Damascus after it was already apparent that Syria had rearmed Hezbollah with tens of thousands of rockets.

(Read full post)

Please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

As if they’d never left

NOW Lebanon
New Opinion
26 April '10

(Another insightful article from NOW Lebanon.)

Five years ago today, after a brief ceremony in the border town of Aanjar that tried to paint a patina of respect on a total of 29 years of military and security “presence”, the last Syrian soldier left Lebanese soil. Until that moment, and for more than a decade after the Lebanese civil war ended, it was hard for first-time visitors to Lebanon to determine who actually ran the country.

From the moment they landed at Beirut Airport to when they reached their hotels, tourists would see that the walls and roads of Beirut were dotted with portraits of former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, sometimes alongside those of his then-Lebanese counterpart, Elias Hrawi, but in many instances alone.

Even more mystifying to the neophyte would have been the three days of mourning for Assad’s son and heir, Basil, who was killed in a car accident in Damascus in January 1994. Soon after, a statue of Basil in uniform on one of his beloved horses was erected at the entrance to the Bekaa town of Chtoura.

And all the while the Syrian army lived in abandoned buildings and controlled the strategic intersections around Beirut and the rest of Lebanon. There was very little respect or courtesy from the occupying army. Shopkeepers would be careful not to fall foul of their neighbors, while at the checkpoints, petty extortion was practiced on commercial vehicles. Elsewhere anxiety was added to humiliation as drivers would be “asked” to give lifts to Syrian soldiers. Then there were the summons for those who dared speak out against the presence. They could range from a verbal reprimand to abuse and intimidation that could last for days.

The events leading up to the withdrawal have been well documented. Rafik Hariri, the man who had come to represent post-war Lebanon, had been murdered in an outrageous assassination that took the lives of 21 others, and this time the Lebanese were not going to take it like they had with previous killings. They took to the streets, blaming Syria for the murder. This time, with the US army camped in Iraq and a US administration that would not brook any insolence from the region’s despots, there was no crackdown on the huge and unprecedented demonstration of people power, arguably the biggest in modern Arab history.

(Read full article)

Please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Shadow Play

Lee Smith
Tablet
21 April '10

Ambassador Robert Ford is a career foreign-service officer with a distinguished record who now finds himself under a strange spotlight, one that illuminates one of Washington’s most heated debates: What direction should U.S. policy on Syria take? Some argue that the United States should continue to isolate a regime that has declared itself our enemy, as we did during the Bush years; others contend that we should turn the page and engage Damascus. Ford is the man the White House has tapped as the next U.S. ambassador to Damascus, five years after the last one was withdrawn following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Hariri’s murder touched off the Cedar Revolution that seemed, for a time, as if it might herald the rebirth of a democratic Lebanon, free from the control of the Assad regime in Syria, which saw Lebanon as part of its historical inheritance. The prospect of an independent Lebanon was even less appealing to the Syrians than was the prospect of a democratic neighbor in Iraq, where Damascus also employed terrorism as part of its strategy to roll back the United States and its partners in the Middle East. Syria’s war targeted not only American allies in Lebanon, Iraq, and Israel, but also U.S. diplomats and military personnel. Since 2003, Syria has served as the main transit route that foreign fighters use to enter Iraq, and it has provided financial, logistical, and operational support to a wide range of insurgent forces aiming to kill American soldiers.

Accordingly, Damascus has few friends in Washington. But it nonetheless occupies a unique position in U.S. policymaking circles: Syria kills Americans and our allies, but its strategic significance pales in comparison to China, Russia, and Iran, which makes it a second- or even third-tier issue. And even as Syria policy fosters loud debate, surprisingly, that debate doesn’t break over strictly partisan lines; the split is reflected throughout Washington, even in the U.S. military, and within the Obama Administration.

The foremost proponent of reaching out to Syria is the commander-in-chief, and yet more than a year after taking office, President Barack Obama has been unable to make good on his campaign promise of engaging this adversary. The first step is to return an ambassador to Damascus, a White House campaign spearheaded, oddly, by Sen. John Kerry, who has effectively become Damascus’s voice in official Washington and the most prominent U.S. official with a soft spot for a regime that much of Washington loves to hate.

This past week was a bad one for those eager to reach out to Syria. It was reported that Damascus is believed to have transferred to Hezbollah Scud missiles that would be able to reach any part of Israel. “The threat that Syria might transfer more advanced weapons to Hezbollah has existed for a long time,” says Elliott Abrams, who oversaw Middle East affairs in the George W. Bush White House and is now a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “With respect to Scuds, it has been understood the Israelis would interdict such a shipment. I do not recall the Bush Administration ever expressing disagreement with that view.”

(Read full article)

Please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Will Obama Reopen the U.S. Embassy in Damascus?

Israel gets an ultimatum; Syria gets an ambassador.


John Noonan
The Weekly Standard
21 March '10

In 2005, Syria's Ba'athist dictatorship was accused of supporting the assainination of Rafik Hariri, who was then the prime minister of Lebanon. Hariri's death sparked an internal anti-Syrian uprising in Lebanon--the Cedar revolution--which was both supported vocally by the Bush administration and tangibly when the State Department yanked its ambassador from Damascus.

Now the Obama administration wants to send the State Department back, claiming that U.S. foreign policy objectives would be better served through a locally assigned embassy and ambassador. Both the White House and congressional allies are talking up the qualifications of Robert Ford, Obama's pick for a potential Syrian posting. Ford is a long time State Department veteran who served as ambassador to Algeria and more recently deputy chief of the U.S. mission in Iraq -- neither easy diplomatic postings.

But the debate isn't about Ford's qualifications. Syria's brutal Ba'athist regime is a habitual human rights offender with multiple priors -- and a fanatical enemy of the United States.

(Read full post)
.

Conspiracy and conflict

NOW Lebanon
09 March '10

According to a recent survey conducted by the Dubai-based public relations firm ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller, young Arabs want democracy, jobs and affordable homes. The findings imply that the vast majority – 85 to 99 percent of the 2,000 18-to-24 year-olds polled in nine countries including the GCC, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon – share the same aspirations as their counterparts in the globalized community, clearly rejecting a hidebound Arab world that has failed to get with the program.

Still, old habits die hard. This weekend, while young Arabs were no doubt downloading music from iTunes and wondering how the job interview with the multinational went, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once again bored us by announcing that the 9/11 attacks were a “big lie”, while in Lebanon, on the eve of the national dialogue, his proxy army, Hezbollah, gave the middle finger to Lebanon’s shaky democratic principles by announcing that its weapons, which have apparently tripled in number since the 2006 war with Israel, were non-negotiable.

Ahmadinejad is no stranger to sharing with the world his take on history. He infamously declared that the extermination of six million Jews during the Second World War was a myth. His latest theory, that the US engineered the flying of three commercial aircraft into national landmarks just to have an excuse invade Afghanistan and control the world’s oil reserves, is part of this world view.

It would be funny if so many people didn’t believe him. Tragically, the Arab world is built on suspicion and conspiracy, a paranoia fuelled by one very powerful drug: Israel. Ahmadinejad is a potent peddler of the line that Israeli and US ambitions are inextricably tied, and that a secret Jewish cabal controls Washington and concocts the most outrageous evil to achieve common goals.

(Read full article)
.

The Vision Thing

Emmanuel Navon
For The Sake Of Zion
03 March '10

The man whom George W. Bush used to dismissingly call “The Eye Doctor” seems to be doing fine without glasses. Bashar al-Assad, an ophthalmologist who inherited his father’s hereditary job only because his older brother was killed in a car accident, has turned the tables on the United States. Five years ago, he complied with the American injunction to pull his troops out of Lebanon. Today, he is publicly humiliating the United States.

In February 2005, the US withdrew its ambassador to Syria following the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Assad’s involvement in Hariri’s murder was so obvious that former French President Jacques Chirac, a personal friend of Hariri (and long-term guest in his Paris apartment), has been boycotting Assad ever since. By recalling its ambassador, the US was also expressing its discontent with the fact that Syria hosts and shields Palestinian terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, transfers weapons from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon, lets terrorists crossing into Iraq, supports Iran’s foreign policy goals, and cooperates with Iran and North Korea to develop nuclear capabilities (concerns about Syria’s suspected nuclear program were brought to the world’s attention by the Israeli bombing of an alleged nuclear facility in eastern Syria in 2007).

Last month, five years exactly after the scolding of the Bush Administration, President Obama nominated Robert Ford as the new US Ambassador to Syria. The rationale of the current US Administration is that Assad can be sweet-talked into trading his alliance with Iran for a deal with America. Obama’s gamble has produced immediate results, but not the expected ones. Shortly after the nomination of Ambassador Ford, Ahmadinejad paid an official and pompous visit to Damascus (where he also met with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah). Baffled, Hillary Clinton asked Assad why he was doing the opposite of what her government’s policy was supposed to produce. Assad responded as follows: “We have a hard time understanding Clinton, either because of a translation problem or because of our limited capabilities.” Hillary Clinton is being pushed around by Middle Eastern machos and America is being ridiculed.

(Read full post)
.

How Bashar Assad made a fool of the US

Fresnozionism.org
28 February '10

News item:

The U.S. administration has asked Syrian President Bashar Assad to immediately stop transferring arms to Hezbollah. American officials made the request during a meeting Friday with the Syrian ambassador to Washington…

The move was described as an opportunity to discuss the next steps following the visit to Damascus by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns on February 17. The administration also said the meeting was part of its efforts to achieve a direct dialogue with Syria on issues of interest to both sides.

Haaretz has learned that Burns’ visit to Damascus ended unsatisfactorily for the U.S. administration. During Burns’ meeting with Assad, the Syrian leader denied all American claims that his regime was providing military aid to terrorists in Iraq, or to Hezbollah and Palestinian terror groups.

Assad essentially told Burns that he had no idea what the American was talking about. — Ha’aretz

The US recently presented a gift to Bashar Assad, by nominating Robert Ford as the first US ambassador to Syria since the recall of our ambassador following the Syrian-perpetrated murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

(Read full post)
.

Dithering on Damascus

Matthew RJ Brodsky
Op-Ed/JPost
22 February '10

President Barack Obama's recent decision to name a new ambassador to Syria is puzzling. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs explained, "Ambassador Ford will engage the Syrian government on how we can enhance relations, while addressing areas of ongoing concern." But the areas of "concern" with the Assad regime are deep and will not be improved or resolved by the return of an American ambassador.

There were many compelling reasons why the Bush administration withdrew its ambassador to Syria in 2005. The straw that broke the proverbial camel's back was the brazen murder in Beirut of the pro-West Lebanese politician Rafik Hariri in an operation that bore all the hallmarks of a politically connected, well-funded, Syrian state-sponsored assassination.

But Hariri's assassination was just the tip of the iceberg. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, Syria has financed, trained, armed, encouraged, and transported foreign jihadists to fight against both coalition forces in Iraq and the fledgling army of the new Iraqi government. The Assad regime has pursued nuclear weapons and continues to support terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hizbullah in Israel and Lebanon, and remains tactically and strategically wedded to Iran.

While the White House says that appointing a new ambassador "represents President Obama's commitment to use engagement to advance US interests by improving communication with the Syrian government and people," nothing indicates that this form of engagement will yield positive results. In fact, a year into the Obama administration, it is becoming increasingly clear that the "direct engagement" he envisioned during his presidential campaign with regimes such as Syria and Iran has produced nothing more than an increase in Syrian support for terrorism and the ongoing spinning of centrifuges in Iran.

(Read full article)
.

As persistent as they wanna be

SoccerDad
15 February '10

If the UN has been persistent in pursuing the Goldstone Report, it hasn't been as scrupulous in a different matter. Michael Young complains about the U.N.'s betrayal in Beirut. Five years ago former Lebanese President Rafiq Hariri was killed.

Half a decade later, however, the Hariri case has made little progress toward justice. Lately, Syria has reasserted its power in Beirut after years of trying to destabilize a government dominated by its political foes. In December, Saad Hariri, Lebanon's prime minister and Rafik's son, met with Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, acceding to the reconciliation between his own political sponsor, Saudi Arabia, and Damascus -- making Lebanon less likely to point the finger at Syria for the killing.
But the more significant problem actually lies within the United Nations investigation itself. While it has been upgraded to a special tribunal, sitting near The Hague, it has suffered from questionable leadership, lost key members and last year had to release suspects for lack of formal indictments.

Young concludes:

Any murder case takes time, but there's reason to believe that investigative incompetence or international political pressure, or a combination of both, has played a role in slowing down, and even rolling back, the search for Mr. Hariri's killers. Whichever it is, the United Nations has done little to ensure success. In our interview, Mr. Mehlis recalled that the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, had warned him that "he did not want another trouble spot."
The impetus to identify Mr. Hariri's assassins is gone; not only has Lebanon sought rapprochement with Syria, but the Lebanese public's expectations, after years of an inconclusive inquiry, have hit rock bottom. Foreign governments fear the instability that might ensue if Mr. Bellemare issues indictments, so few will regret it if he doesn't. But the United Nations pushed for the Hariri investigation; its integrity is tied up with a plausible outcome. If that's impossible, there is no point insulting the victims by letting the charade continue. Better to send Mr. Bellemare home.

(Read full post)

U.S. Marks Anniversary of Syrian Terrorist Act With Major Concession to Syria

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
16 February '10

Not all national disgraces appear in the headlines. February 14 was the fifth anniversary of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, an event which led to a national peaceful uprising in non-Hizballah Lebanon that forced the withdrawal of Syrian troops and produced the short-lived Beirut Spring.

As a result, a moderate, independent-minded, pro-Western government came to power which wanted to minimize Iranian, Syrian, and Hizballah power in the country. That government was essentially betrayed—perhaps let down is a better phrase—by the United States and France, given little support until its enemies who, on contrast, were fully backed by their friends in Tehran and Damascus, made a comeback and are back in the government coalition with veto power. As a result, Lebanon has made a considerable move toward Iran’s orbit.

The investigation of Hariri’s murder has led straight to the highest levels of the Syrian government as having put out the contract on Hariri’’s life, along with other terrorist attacks in Lebanon that killed several members of parliament and dozens of bystanders. But the investigation has faltered due to lack of Western backing.

So while President Barack Obama called Hariri’s son to say the United States wants to find the murderers and encourage the investigation his policies have been the exact opposite. The U.S. refusal to send a new ambassador to Syria has been a key sign of American anger over the murders and leverage to press Syria toward cooperation with the investigation.

Now, however, a high-ranking U.S. official on that very anniversary has leaked that the United States has now made a significant concession to Syria by naming its first ambassador to Syria since that envoy was withdrawn after Hariri’s murder. A State Department official said that the Syrian government has accepted the U.S. candidate though we don’t yet know who is the choice.

(Read full article)
.

Syria Regains Pivotal Regional, Int'l Role – The Triumph of the 'Course of Resistance'

N. Mozes
MEMRI
28 January '10

In a December 29, 2009 speech to the Syrian parliament, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Mu'allem summed up the achievements of his country's political policy in 2009 by saying, "For Syria, 2009 was a year of political success in every sense of the term, and on all fronts..."[1] Indeed, the past year has seen a significant improvement in Syria's regional and international standing; it managed to extricate itself from its isolation internationally and in the Arab world, and to position itself as an influential regional force. By the end of 2009, the Syrian regime had become self-confident and certain of the effectiveness of its "path of resistance" policy, and was challenging the regional order and the world order and acting powerfully to change both.

The following is a review of Syria's current world view and policy, as reflected in statements by Syrian officials and articles in the Syrian government press.
Syria – From Isolation to Key Player in the International Arena
Until 2008, President Bashar Al-Assad's Syria seemed to be a pariah state. Syria had been isolated by the West and by some of the Arab countries, and was under international pressure that spiked following the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Al-Hariri; in the wake of the assassination, it was forced to withdraw its military from Lebanon.

The aggressive anti-Syria line was led by the Bush administration, which saw Syria as part of an "axis of evil" together with Iran and North Korea, and accused it of involvement in terrorism in Iraq. In 2004, the U.S. intensified its anti-Syrian sanctions, and worked in the U.N. Security Council for the passage of Resolution 1559 calling for Syria to withdraw its forces from Lebanon. In October 2008, the U.S. even bombed insurgents on Syrian territory who were suspected of operating from there against Iraq.

The assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Al-Hariri was a watershed in Syria's relationship with many countries in the West and in the Arab world, particularly France and Saudi Arabia, who had until then been its close allies. This change was evidently due to the close relationship that Al-Hariri had maintained with then-French president Jacques Chirac, and with the Saudi royal family. Evidence of the severing of relations and of the anger that the assassination evoked in Chirac was clear in an interview he gave in 2007 to the French daily Le Monde. He said: "There were times I used to speak with Bashar Al-Assad. I used to talk with his father [Hafez Al-Assad]. But to be honest, [Bashar and I] do not talk any more. It is he who caused [this halt to the dialogue]. I realized that there was no point [in dialogue]. It is hard to reconcile Bashar Al-Assad's regime with security and peace."[2]

In the Arab world, it was Saudi Arabia and Egypt that led the aggressive line against Syria, and there were even reports that it was they who were behind the establishment of the international tribunal to investigate the assassination.

(Read full report)
.

Syria Exports Trouble

How Bashar al-Assad is playing the world.

Michael Young
Commentary/Forbes
08 December 09
HT to RPS

Paris, July 14, 2008. On the podium of dignitaries at the bottom of the Champs Élysées one man savors the irony of the moment. He has been invited by President Nicolas Sarkozy to this celebration of Bastille Day, when France commemorates the opening shot in its revolution to end absolutism. Yet for the invitee, Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, this is a consecration, the first major sign that his regime's isolation is about to end, and that his brand of absolutist rule is getting stronger.

After the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri, in February 2005, Syria, the only credible suspect in the crime, found itself accused and was forced to withdraw its army from Lebanon. Its subsequent rapprochement with Iran widened the rift between Damascus and two major Arab states, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. But within three years, Sarkozy, who hoped his efforts would earn France a greater role in the Levant, became the first major Western state to reverse that trend. Assad had surrendered nothing to warrant the embrace.

This has become a Syrian habit. Assad has been getting away with murder, literally. His regime allows foreign jihadists through Syrian territory to carry out attacks in Iraq. Syria has bolstered Hamas's intransigence over a settlement with Israel, and has encouraged the Palestinian Islamist movement to scuttle inter-Palestinian reconciliation. In Lebanon, Syrian meddling has been unrelenting since the pullout of its soldiers, while Assad has armed or allowed the rearming of the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, violating U.N. Resolution 1701 that ended the Lebanon war of 2006.

(To full article)
.