BEIRUT — 14 February marks the second anniversary of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Tragically, but not surprisingly, it was foreshadowed the morning before by two bomb blasts that ripped apart commuter buses in the Bekfaya area northeast of Beirut, killing three civilians and wounding many others. This only heightens the intensity of the Hariri assassination commemorations, while further complicating the nature of the political confrontations that now define Lebanon and the region.
If we step back from the tensions and outbursts of violence that define Lebanon and the region, and try to see the larger trends that define the past two years, we would see three principal parties competing for power and strategic dominance in the Middle East. These are: traditional Middle Eastern security-dominated states like Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Iran and Fateh in Palestine; Islamist and militant movements that generally challenge these state powers (even while they work with them in cases, such as Hizbullah’s ties with Syria and Iran); and, foreign governments, mainly the United States, Israel and some part-time Europeans, who increasingly engage in the Middle East with their armies and diplomatic dictates. Advocates of democracy and the rule of law try to poke their head into this scene, with little success.
The Middle East seems like the world’s last frontier, a wide open terrain that is nationally confused, precarious in its security systems, culturally intense in its self-assertive Islamist reaction to secular and foreign failures, and ideologically up for grabs. As local and foreign forces compete intensely to control the landscape and define its ideology, new players enter the scene or expand their roles, such as Russia, China, the international business community, and the UN Security Council. In the past two years — as they have for half a century — these forces that compete to dominate and define the Middle East have converged on Lebanon in many forms: local political and sectarian foes, military battles with Israel, ideological face-offs with regional powers, the direct involvement of foreign armies and governments, and enhanced involvement by the United Nations and its peace-keeping forces.
What deserves the most attention on this second anniversary of Hariri’s murder, as bombings and killings continue to plague Lebanon and the entire region? I would say it is the status of the Lebanese-international tribunal that was mandated by the UN Security Council to try those who will be accused of the Hariri assassination. The historic central dynamic here is that the total, collective force of the international community, working through the legitimacy of the UN Security Council, is confronting head-on the tradition of modern Arab political violence, intimidation, terror and lawlessness. The tribunal, with the ongoing investigation into the Hariri and other murders, represents a serious international will to end the impunity that criminal assassins have enjoyed in the modern Arab world, especially when those killers are part of, or hired by, ruling regimes and security agencies.
The UN investigation into the Hariri murder initially pointed the finger towards Syria a year ago, and provided information that prompted the Beirut government to detain four top Lebanese security chiefs — itself an extraordinary development in modern Arab history that remains insufficiently appreciated. Syria has consistently declared its innocence, and has fought back politically and fervently, using every available means, including various allies in Lebanon.
Friends of Syria say it is leading the battle against American hegemonic aims to control the Middle East by using the UN investigation and international tribunal to bludgeon Arab foes, just as it used its army to change the regime in Baghdad. Foes of Syria accuse it of the serial killing of Lebanese public figures, and being willing to turn Lebanon into a desolate wasteland in the Damascus regime’s desperate, selfish bid to survive and dominate the Levant. Our best hope is that the final findings of the UN investigation this year will provide the solid evidence that might allow us to judge which of these views is closer to the truth.
In the meantime, the last two years suggest that street battles, vicious media confrontations, and even occasional wars will not significantly change the general balance of power in Lebanon or the region, where pro-Syrian/Iranian forces and pro-American forces are equally matched. The struggle over the Lebanese-international tribunal strikes me as the key contest that may change things in the long term, because it holds out the hope of punishing those who have killed with impunity and who, by doing so, have kept the Arab world in the stranglehold of its own violent political retardation. The Bekfaya bombings only heighten our revulsion at Arab political criminality, yet also add to the urgency of ending or containing it.
The Hariri murder tribunal is the first serious local and international attempt to counter the rule of the gangsters in the modern Arab world with the rule of law, and to replace criminal impunity with judicial accountability. Critics of the technical terms of the tribunal must be heard, and their legitimate objections must be met with reasonable modifications. The process must be seen through to completion, though, or the Arab world will face many more decades of death on the world’s last lawless frontier.
Rami G. Khouri is an internationally syndicated columnist, the director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, and co-laureate of the 2006 Pax Christi International Peace Award.
Copyright ©2007 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 14 February 2007
Word Count: 862
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