by Yusuf Fernández, Al Manar
An important question about Rafiq Hariri´s assassination, which sometimes is concealed by other questions, is “why”. Although some few ones in Lebanon, for purely political reasons, have played down the significance of Sayyed Nasrallah´s revelations, most Lebanese (about 70%, according to the polls) have understood the importance of this evidence. Even without it, many Lebanese remember the golden rule of any criminal investigation: who the crime benefits. The answer is not difficult to find out; the powers that most clearly were able to advance their strategic aims due to Hariri´s murder and blaming the crime on Syria and/or Hezbollah were the US and Israel.
Actually, with the full political, economic and military support from the US, the Zionist regime had been attempting to transform Lebanon into an Israeli protectorate for many years. Since its forced withdrawal from this country in May 2000, Israel had two primary goals in Lebanon: forcing a withdrawal of Syria, and, thus, reducing its influence, and disarming the Resistance. The first goal was achieved shortly after the Hariri murder but the second one has been impossible to achieve despite a military aggression in 2006 as well as mobilizing local, regional and international political powers for that purpose.
Damascus became a main target because it had offered a sanctuary to Palestinian organizations that had opposed Israel, including Hamas. Moreover, it had strong links with Hezbollah, which had forced Israeli troops out of southern Lebanon in 2000 after 20 years of occupation. The Lebanese Resistance became a main obstacle for Israeli plans to dominate Lebanon and the Middle East.
Tel Aviv thought that the withdrawal of Syria from Lebanon could bring to power a new Lebanese executive that would be more docile to Israeli demands. In particular, Israel wanted Lebanon to grant citizenship to around 400,000 Palestinian refugees who live in the country, a move that would destroy their right -never recognized by Israel- to return to their homes from which they were expelled during the process of the creation and expansion of the Zionist state. Israel also wanted to take control of the Lebanese economy, a key financial and tourist centre in the Middle East with important connections throughout the Arab world and a major competitor for the Israeli tourist industry.
In order to accomplish these objectives, Israel sought to promote sedition in Lebanon and trigger to a sectarian civil war by exploiting the Sunni-Shiite divide. The Zionist entity also tried to create friction between Hariri and Hezbollah through one of its agents, Ahmed Nasrallah (no relation to Sayyed Nasra’Allah). He made contact with Hariri’s security forces and told them that he was close to the former chief of Hezbollah’s security forces, Imad Mughniyeh, and that he had credible information that Hezbollah was attempting to kill him. Sayyed Nasrallah said that in 2000 the Israeli agent was set free by Lebanese security forces and that he fled Lebanon and now lives in Israel.
The US Administration fully supported these Israeli plans. In 2005, after invading both Afghanistan and Iraq, Washington had set its sights on other countries, particularly Iran and Syria. At the time, Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed that top Iraqi leaders had fled to Syria, where they were being given refuge and protection. The US passed diplomatic and economic sanctions against Syria and Bush also made unfounded statements that this Arab country possessed weapons of mass destruction -the same deceitful strategy as they used against Iraq and that they are employing now against Iran.
Ending Syrian control of Lebanon, as part of an effort to foment regime change in Syria itself, was something long desired by neocons in Washington, who are closely aligned with Israel. In 1996, future Bush administration officials, Douglas Feith, would-be undersecretary for policy at the US Defense Department; Richard Perle, the former chairman of the Pentagon´s Defense Policy Board; and David Wurmser, who would become Vice President Dick Cheney’s adviser on the Middle East, joined with others in the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies in drafting a document for the Israeli government that called for “weakening, containing and even rolling back Syria” and recommended Israeli strikes against “Syrian targets in Lebanon” and within Syria itself.
Some few hours after Hariri´s murder, Washington issued a statement blaming Damascus. At a press conference, then White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that the US would talk to other members of the UN Security Council “about measures that can be taken to punish those responsible for this terrorist attack, to end the use of violence and intimidation against the Lebanese people, and to restore Lebanon’s independence, sovereignty and democracy by freeing it from foreign occupation.” For him, “foreign occupation” meant the presence of 15,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon. Later, McClellan spoke clearer, declaring that the Lebanese had to be “free from Syrian occupation.”
The American media outlets openly speculate about Syrian involvement in the attack and the possible retribution that would be carried out by the US government. The New York Times published an article under the headline, “US Seems Sure of the Hand of Syria, Hinting at Penalties,” by Seven Weisman. The article claimed that “Mr. McClellan and other administration spokesman said they had no concrete evidence of Syria’s involvement in the killing of Mr. Hariri.” However, it quoted an unnamed senior State Department official as declaring, “We are going to turn up the heat on Syria, that is for sure.” Under US pressure, the Security Council passed Resolution 1559 in September 2004, demanding that Syria withdraw its troops from Lebanon.
Actually, the Syrian government was among the least likely authors of the attack. It had nothing to gain from the assassination, which would only strengthen the Lebanese opposition and provide a pretext for the US to intervene in the area, something Syria had been seeking to avoid. Damascus knew that Washington had long been searching for excuses to increase its pressure on Syria.
Sam Hamod, an expert on Middle Eastern affairs, wrote in the site informationclearinghouse.info, “We must do as they do in other criminal cases, look at who had the most to gain from the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri. The Lebanese had a lot to lose, as did the Syrians. No matter where else you look, no one else had anything to gain except Israel and the US. America quickly pointed the finger at Syria, as did Israel, which was tantamount to convicting themselves because they are the only two countries that would gain by creating unrest in Lebanon.”
This opinion was shared by another expert, Patrick Seale, who wrote in the British newspaper The Guardian: “If Syria killed Rafik Hariri, Lebanon’s former prime minister and mastermind of its revival after the civil war, it must be judged an act of political suicide. Syria is already under great international pressure from the US, France and Israel. To kill Hariri at this critical moment would be to destroy Syria’s reputation and hand its enemies a weapon with which to deliver the blow that could finally destabilize the Damascus regime. So attributing responsibility for the murder to Syria is implausible. The murder is more likely to be the work of one of its many enemies.”
By the end of 2009, the whole case against Syria collapsed and the four “pro-Syrian” Lebanese senior security officers, who had been imprisoned for over four years were consequently released. In the meantime, the false witnesses who had supported the case against Syria and the four generals were relocated outside Lebanon and given protection and new identities in different European countries.
Despite the Syrian withdrawal, the political situation itself produced disappointing results in the eyes of the Israelis and Americans. Although under the terms of the Resolution 1559 co-sponsored by the US and France, Syria was obliged to withdraw its troops from its neighbor, the power of Hezbollah, however, remained intact. Indeed, at the height of the anti-Syrian campaign, marked by well-publicized protests in Beirut organized by 14 March forces, Hezbollah organized far larger counter-demonstrations that brought hundreds of thousands of Lebanese into the streets of the capital. Therefore, the US and Israel´s plan for a political restructuring of the country, in which the Resistance was to be crushed and the power of pro-US forces -especially, the 14 March Christian forces- hugely expanded, failed.
After this, Israel launched the July War in the summer of 2006 in order to destroy Hezbollah and eliminate any opposition within the country to US and Israeli domination. Israel carried out an indiscriminate bombardment of the south, one of the strongholds of the Shiite population and a main base of support for Hezbollah. The Israeli military deliberately targeted the civilian population, destroying whole villages and seeking to make the entire region uninhabitable. But Israeli cities and towns also came under fire and a large part of Israel became paralyzed with hundreds of thousands of Israelis living in shelters. Hezbollah won again and Israeli plans disastrously failed again.
It is noteworthy to point out that the US sponsored the UN resolution which set up the international tribunal on Hariri’s assassination. Significantly also, it was passed under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, which refers to threats to international peace and allows for the use of military force. Ironically, its chief architect -the Bush administration- refused to recognize the authority of international tribunals to prosecute US citizens. Syria denounced the resolution and the invocation of Chapter Seven. An unnamed official said, “The formation of the international court under Chapter Seven is considered a degradation of Lebanon´s sovereignty …”
Therefore, Israel´s military efforts since 2005 to wipe out Hezbollah, including the summer war against Lebanon in 2006, not only failed, but the Resistance party became even stronger and better armed. Thus, Israel and its US ally changed their strategy to try neutralizing the Hezbollah through the international pressure and more specifically, the Resolution 1701 and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
Currently, Israel and its allies hope that, at the minimum an indictment against Hezbollah members would put it on the defensive, thus forcing the disarmament of its militia or at least curbing their influence. However, most Lebanese are aware of this plan and are not ready to sacrifice a key pillar of the security, sovereignty and stability of Lebanon in order to fall into the Israeli trap.
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