THE UNITED NATIONS, New York — Two nearly simultaneous events Monday in Beirut and New York both complicate and clarify the increasingly tense diplomatic relationships that now bind Lebanon, Syria, the United States and the United Nations Security Council in something akin to a dance of death. But who is most in danger is not clear.
The assassination of leading Lebanese publisher and anti-Syria critic Gebran Tueini in Beirut occurred just hours before Detlev Mehlis, the head of the UN commission investigating the similar assassination last February of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, submitted his second report to the UN Security Council.
From the perspective of New York City and the United Nations headquarters, where I have spent the past few days, it seems likely that Lebanon or Syria, or possibly both, will emerge rather damaged from the ongoing diplomatic tug-of-war. Yet this is also an important test of the ability of the international community, acting through the UN Security Council, to pressure a country like Syria to comply with its legitimate demands, now that Syria has adopted a defiant tone in resisting what it terms American hegemonic plans to bring it to its knees.
Syria’s behavior in recent months reflects its classic tactics of comply and confound: on the one hand is complies slowly but steadily with the key technical demands of the UN investigating committee headed by Detlev Mehlis, while on the other hand it drags out the process for months and simultaneously works to discredit the investigation on both political and procedural grounds.
As one UN official who works closely on these issues told me privately, the Syrians may be scoring some public relations points with audiences in the Middle East, but they are increasingly cornered on the substantive matters that count when the Security Council considers this matter.
Behind all this is another level of perceptions and actions related to how the United States uses its military and diplomatic power around the world. Central here is the Middle East region that Washington has chosen as the crucible for experimenting with various formulae to change the behavior of Arab and Iranian regimes. With the United States in the midst of a slow turn to pull its troops out of Iraq in the coming few years, what happens in the American-Syrian confrontation could have a major impact on American credibility and clout in other parts of the region and the world.
Americans and others at the UN are constantly pondering what kinds of sanctions could be applied if Syria refuses to comply fully with the Security Council’s demands. As one UN official noted, the worst thing to happen would be for the UN to impose open-ended sanctions on Syria without a clear agenda or outcome, which Syria could probably resist for years.
Today as last February, many Lebanese spontaneously accused Syria of Tueini’s death, and many, including government ministers, also want a wider international tribunal to investigate and try those people found to be complicit in these and several other assassinations and bomb attacks in Lebanon since February. While much public opinion in Lebanon has been swift to point the finger at Syria once again, the sentiments in the Security Council and among foreign policy analysts in New York are more cautious, and focused sharply on completing the investigation into Hariri’s death.
The critical arena for this effort is the Mehlis-led investigation, whose second report to the Security Council in the past two months explicitly reaffirmed the basic points made in the first report, which accused Syrian and Lebanese security services or officers of being involved in the Hariri murder. While initial reactions among some American analysts here tended to see the second Mehlis report as containing little new, a closer reading shows it to be more damaging to Syria.
The report said that new information gathered from witnesses and material sources in the past two months “points directly at perpetrators, sponsors and organizers of an organized operation aiming at killing Mr. Hariri, including the recruitment of special agents by the Lebanese and Syrian intelligence services, handling of improvised explosive devices, a pattern of threats against targeted individuals and planning of other criminal activities.”
The report is even more interesting now because slowly, quietly, the UN Security Council in the past three months has expanded its focus from the Hariri investigation to include the behavior of the Syrian government. The second Mehlis report is most intriguing on this count. It accuses Syria of obfuscation, delay and deliberate attempts to sabotage the probe, while noting Damascus’ compliance on the key issue of providing most but not all Syrians whom the investigators want to question.
Damascus will need to respond quickly and unambiguously to the report’s disclosure that the investigation has obtained new evidence that Syria appeared to be shielding two important Syrian witnesses, Ziad Ramadan and Khaled Midhat Taha, had destroyed crucial documents, threatened witnesses, and that a high-level Syrian official had supplied arms and ammunition to people in Lebanon to stage attacks “in order to create public disorder in response to any accusations of Syrian involvement in the Hariri assassination.”
One European diplomat at the UN intimately involved in monitoring the Lebanon-Syria issue expressed the wider exasperation of the Security Council members, and also their determination to pursue the Hariri investigation to its end, when he said privately that the Syrians had clearly “not understood the meaning of ‘unconditional cooperation’ as demanded by Resolution 1636.”
“We passed Resolution 1636 because of the lack of cooperation by Syria on Resolution 1559. We had to change the rules of the game, and Syria does not seem to understand this,” he said.
So, diplomats and officials at the UN note, the second Mehlis report issued here in New York Monday should be understood as a final warning to Syria to comply fully with Resolution 1636, by cooperating more quickly and efficiently with the UN investigators.
The Tueini murder has been viewed with great shock and anger here. Its most likely impact will be to strengthen and deepen the Security Council members’ resolve to complete the Hariri investigation, even if it reaches to the highest levels of the Syrian or Lebanese governments and security services.
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
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Released: 14 December 2005
Word Count: 1,034
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