BEIRUT — The assassination Wednesday of pro-Lebanese government and anti-Syrian member of parliament Waleed Eido and at least nine others, in a powerful car bomb along the Beirut seafront, promises to catapult an already turbulent Lebanon into ever greater cycles of violence that many here see as being linked to regional actors and dynamics. The fact, timing, and context of Eido’s death may all be significant, and surely spell more dark days ahead for Lebanon and the wider Middle East.
Two prevalent accusations quickly engulfed the Lebanese scene in the hours after his death. One common view accused Syria of killing him as part of its alleged string of other assassinations and bombings that have sought to destabilize Lebanon since shortly after the Syrians were forced out of the country just over two years ago.
Another novel view heard in Lebanon today charges the United States with indirectly fomenting strife in the entire region — Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine all suffered terrible violence and attacks Wednesday — as a means of reasserting American-Israeli hegemony in the region by forcing more Arab governments to reply on American support in order to fight Syrian-Iranian-supported groups.
The reality is that nobody knows who is behind this killing and other attacks in Lebanon, though all seem increasingly connected in a spiral of political violence that now defines much of the region.
This assassination is doubly troubling because Eido (pronounced ‘ee-doh’) is the first Sunni prominent person assassinated since the late former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed in a similar bombing in February 2005. All the other prominent politicians and journalists killed or injured in bombings since then have been Christians who were openly critical of Syria — which is why many Lebanese reflexively see Syrian hands behind these killings. The Syrian government vehemently denies its involvement, but it has also rejected the UN-mandated international tribunal that formally came into force Monday to try those who will be accused of the Hariri and other killings in the coming year.
Some Lebanese politicians immediately accused Syria and its Lebanese allies of killing Lebanese MPs and cabinet ministers as a means of whittling away at the pro-government parliamentary majority, in order to keep the country in a state of tension and instability so that Syria could reassert its dominance or control of Lebanon.
A few prominent pro-government ministers and MPs openly accused the deeply isolated Lebanese President, Emile Lahoud — whose term was extended by Syria for 3 years in October 2004 — of being equally guilty by association with this alleged plan to prevent a parliamentary majority from being able to convene to choose the next president this October. They fear that lack of a parliamentary quorum due to this string of deaths might prompt pro-Syrian Lahoud to try and remain in power. They also point out, for example, that Lahoud refused to sign the required documents to hold a special bye-election to replace assassinated pro-government MP Pierre Gemayel last November.
Eido was a member of the Future Movement headed by MP Saad Hariri, son of the late Rafik Hariri, who added his voice Wednesday evening to those who charged the killers of Eido with aiming to strangle Lebanon’s constitutional structures and bringing the state to a standstill. Without mentioning Syria by name, he called on the Arab League to assume its responsibility in stopping such attacks against one Arab country by another.
Some Lebanese also fear that Eido’s killing may spark new Sunni-Shiite tensions, which have not featured prominently in political dynamics here. Lebanon’s consensus-based governance system — when it works — is based on agreement among the Sunni, Shiite, Christian, and Druze groups that comprise the population. Political and communal tensions recently have crossed sectarian lines, and coincided more with pro-American or pro-Syrian-Iranian sentiments.
Another growing fear here is that Lebanon is now being deliberately destabilized along three simultaneous fronts: the Qaeda-like group fighting the Lebanese army in Nahr el-Barid refugee camp in the north; the successful or attempted assassinations of ten prominent figures who have been critical of Syria in the past two and a half years; and a dozen nighttime bombs in recent months all around Beirut and nearby suburbs that seem aimed more at terrorizing and destabilizing citizens rather than killing large numbers of them.
The United States has openly and decisively supported the Lebanese government in its fight on all three fronts, often explicitly siding with government accusations against Syria for allegedly promoting the attacks in Lebanon. Many pro-government Lebanese officials and ordinary citizens have accused Syria of sending the Fateh el-Islam gunmen to north Lebanon, which Syria also denies.
The facts of who is behind the three levels of violence and death in Lebanon will almost certainly ultimately become known, but for now the only thing that is certain is that Lebanon has become the most ravaged battlefield where regional and global warriors are facing off in an increasingly brutal contest that shows no signs of slowing down.
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: 13 June 2007
Word Count: 824
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