BEIRUT — When a small Arab country detains five top security big cheeses before breakfast, you know something worth watching is going on. This happened Tuesday morning here in Beirut, when the police, in an unusual but widely welcomed fit of political and judicial self-assertion, detained five key former and current security chiefs, to question them about the assassination six months ago of the late prime minister, Rafik Hariri. This is a dramatic moment for Lebanon and its UN-run international investigation into the Hariri murder. Yet, as in so many other aspects of modern Arab political life, this is not only about Lebanon. It is also about the intersection of wider issues of Arab identity and sovereignty with foreign interests, which pertains to many Middle Eastern countries.
The arrests here happened while we were closely watching the political tug of war on the new Iraqi constitution this week, with Washington cajoling, prodding and fretting from afar. The events in these two countries should be monitored simultaneously, because they bring into sharper focus two important and common challenges that face most countries in the Middle East: What is the appropriate balance in our societies between the rule of law and the power of the gun? What is the legitimate role for foreign influence in sorting out our countries’ problems?
Lebanon and Iraq are important test cases in these respects. Both countries are trying to reconstruct their political systems, after decades of war, ideological distortions, economic bleeding, foreign interventions, and an immobilized domestic political culture. They do this while accommodating a very active, direct, and intrusive foreign political and military presence.
The dramatic development here occurred early Tuesday when Lebanese police, at the request of the U.N. investigation into the Hariri assassination, detained for questioning Maj. Gen. Jamil Sayyed, former chief of General Security; Maj. Gen. Ali Hajj, former director general of the Internal Security Forces; and Brig. Gen. Raymond Azar, former director general of military intelligence. Former pro-Syrian Lebanese MP Nasser Qandil and the incumbent commander of the Presidential Guards, Brig. Gen. Mustafa Hamdan, were also summoned to report to the U.N. investigation headed by German investigative prosecutor Detlev Mehlis.
These security commanders served in the era when Syria dominated Lebanese political and security affairs. Many in Lebanon have accused Syria and Syrian-appointed Lebanese security officials of being directly or indirectly responsible for the murder of Hariri and the 20 others who died with him, and also of writer Samir Kassir, politician George Hawi, and other less prominent victims of recent mysterious explosions. Syria consistently denies the accusations. The world has mandated a professional investigation to discover the truth.
The detentions Tuesday were the first major move by the Lebanese police and courts since the February 14 Hariri murder. They are noteworthy because they are the first time in a generation of numerous assassinations of public and political figures that the state has moved decisively against suspects who are close to the seat of power in Lebanon or Syria. The significance and symbolism of this move cannot be exaggerated, in a modern Arab world where security organizations have ruled with unchallenged supremacy.
The detentions represent a major step forward in a march that started a year ago, in summer 2004, when a few brave Lebanese political figures openly challenged the Lebanese-Syrian leadership’s plan to extent the term of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud. They also openly charged that the Lebanese and Syrian security services’ heavy-handed mismanagement of Lebanon was a national trauma that had to end. The Syrian withdrawal and the dismissal or resignation of most of these Lebanese security chiefs followed in quick succession, and now some of them are being questions as “suspects” in the murder, according to the Lebanese prime minister. Never before have Arab security sectors faced such a powerful political challenge.
It is rare, and refreshing, to witness such a case in the modern Arab world, where the rule of law and political accountability are openly challenging the more common modern Arab legacy of the rule of the gun. The news is both good and bad, though. It’s bad news that indigenous Arab political forces on their own cannot assert the rule of law over the power of guns, and that these resignations, detentions and questionings could only be done through the international investigation mandated by a UN resolution; but it’s good news that legitimate international interventions such as this can be used to investigate murder, and hopefully bring to justice those who are identified as the killers.
The foreign, mostly American, intervention in Iraq’s constitution-writing process is a very different kind of affair in its particulars, but not in its overall packaging and consequences. As Iraq and Lebanon, in different ways, try to rebuild their political governance systems, contentious domestic players in Baghdad and Beirut make equally selective use of foreign political forces. The mixture of indigenous warriors with foreign governments and armies is usually a dangerous one, and often ends badly. But domestic power grabs and foreign intervention alike have both become very common phenomena, given the volatile conditions in many Arab countries. Foreign powers invented and configured the modern Arab world, with very uneven results, and it’s no surprise that they are back to fix some of their more glaring messes.
It is very difficult to imagine major world and regional powers (the USA, France, Iran, Turkey, Egypt) staying out of local affairs in countries like Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, for two reasons, one defensive and the other offensive. Defensively, they feel vulnerable because much of the modern Middle East has reached a state of political incoherence and security instability that also threatens foreign interests, mainly via mass political radicalization, terrorism, energy instability, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, illegal emigration, and criminal global gangs. Offensively, they see societies in dynamic transition after years of stultifying uniformity, and they want to maximize their own self-interest and national strategic gains.
How local Arabs and others in the Middle East use foreign intervention for legitimate goals looms increasingly large on the horizon of this region. This represents both a danger and an opportunity that must be studied very carefully.
Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.
Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
—————-
Released: 31 August 2005
Word Count: 1,023
—————-
For rights and permissions, contact:
rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.336.286.6606