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THE
ROVING EYE
From Baghdad to
Beirut
By Pepe Escobar
Blame it on Syria. Blame it on al-Qaeda.
Better yet, blame it both on Syria and al-Qaeda.
Without a shred of evidence - or perhaps profiting
from "intelligence" amassed by the Pentagon, the
Israeli Mossad, or both - the Bush administration
immediately blamed Syria for the bombing that
killed "Mr Beirut", former Lebanese prime minister
Rafik Hariri. And Washington recalled its
ambassador to Damascus, Margaret Scobey.
Taking Baghdad to Beirut may be read for
what the denomination implies: the destabilization
of Iraq - a key Washington neo-conservative
objective - exported to the wider Middle East.
What many had feared - the "Lebanonization" of
Iraq, bringing back the tragic memories of the
Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990 - might be forced,
with this assassination, to happen in reverse: the
Iraqification of Lebanon.
Sectarian
tension will most likely be exacerbated -
especially when one knows that sectarianism is
enshrined in Lebanon: the president has to be a
Christian Maronite, the prime minister a Sunni
(like Hariri) and the speaker of parliament a
Shi'ite (the parallel is inevitable with
Shi'ites/Kurds/Sunnis trying to carve up the new
Iraqi government).
The Saudi
connection
An unknown "Group for Advocacy
and Holy War in the Levant" at first assumed
responsibility on al-Jazeera television for the
bombing, before another unknown group, the
"al-Qaeda Organization in the Levant" dismissed on
an Islamist website any Salafist/jihadi
involvement. "This is clearly an operation that
was planned by a state intelligence agency ... and
we blame either the Mossad, the Syrian regime or
the Lebanese regime," its statement said. The
Levant (Bilad as-Sham in Arabic) historically
included Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine,
before the creation of Israel.
As far as
"al-Qaeda" is concerned, it is well known in the
Middle East that Palestinians working for the
Israeli Mossad have been captured before and posed
as members of a fake al-Qaeda cell in Gaza - a
perfect justification for Israeli intervention
there. The only credible al-Qaeda connection might
be related to the fact that Hariri was a Sunni,
Saudi-Lebanese billionaire involved in all kinds
of deals, some of them shady. He remained heavily
connected with Saudi Arabia, and still kept his
Saudi passport. Thus the assassination might have
been an external operation connected to al-Qaeda's
internal offensive against the House of Saud.
Who benefits?
Only Israel
appears to benefit from Hariri's assassination.
Significantly, one of Hariri's consultants,
Mustafa al-Naser, told Iranian state news agency
IRNA on Monday that "the assassination of Hariri
is the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad's job,
aimed at creating political tension in Lebanon".
An array of Arab Middle East analysts, as well as
the Lebanese government, point out that the blast
was eerily similar to previous
Israeli-orchestrated bombings against former
Palestinian leaders.
International public
opinion may forget that it was current Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, then a general, who
invaded Lebanon in 1982, supported by falangists,
practically destroyed Beirut and plunged Lebanon
into civil war. Hariri was Sharon's opposite:
almost single-handedly he guided Beirut's
reconstruction.
Sharon's government may
now blame its fierce enemy Syria - as it has
already done - for Hariri's assassination. Syria
and Israel, technically, remain at war. Moreover,
if the accusation sticks, Sharon benefits from
public opinion turning to revulsion against Syria
in the wider Middle East. The logical progression
would lead to a joint Israeli/US attack against
the Syrian regime by early 2006 at the latest -
which, in conjunction with an attack against
Iran's nuclear facilities, compose what is no
secret to anyone: the ultimate neo-con dream
ticket.
The neo-con agenda - which happens
to be Sharon's agenda - is once again pure divide
and conquer: the aim is to destabilize what
neo-cons see as the emerging "Shi'ite crescent" in
the Middle East - Iran, the new Iraq and Lebanon,
with Syria as a key transit point. A key component
of this strategy is to strike a blow against
Hezbollah. It's important to note that the new
Shi'ite-dominated government in Iraq will be a
keen supporter of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah
plays a very important political and social role
in Lebanese life. As for the 16,000 or so Syrian
troops, they are in Lebanon basically to protect
it against another Israeli invasion. Israel
occupied part of southern Lebanon until it was
thrown out by Hezbollah. The Syrian regime is
instrumental in helping Hezbollah, as well as an
array of Palestinian armed groups. Hezbollah may
be aligned with Iran, but its intelligence,
weapons and most of all financing flows from Iran
to Lebanon via Syria. The White House and the
State Department's key agenda in the current
offensive calling for Syria's troops to leave
Lebanon is to cut support for Hezbollah -
therefore leaving Israel worry-free as far as its
northern border is concerned. Washington's
interest has nothing to do with "spreading
freedom" to Lebanon.
Looking for a
smoking gun
Locally, everybody is a loser
with Hariri's assassination: the Lebanese; the
Syrian government; and other Arab neighbors as
well (Hariri was widely respected as a strong
leader and a factor of stability).
Syria,
with its military stranglehold over Lebanon, may
be the usual suspect in the assassination. But the
fundamental question - evaded in the Bush
administration's drive to blame Syria - is which
Syrian faction might have profited from it.
From the point of view of Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad, the suspicion is a public
relations disaster because, if proven guilty,
there's no way Damascus could get away with it
unpunished. On a more street-level perspective,
many Syrians are quick to point out that the
preferred method for the assassination would not
have been a car bombing. Syria has the best
snipers in the world - something even the Israelis
admit.
Last September, Hariri was called
to Damascus by Assad and the head of Syrian
intelligence in Lebanon, General Rostom Ghazale.
Hariri had very good relations with Assad. But
Damascus had imposed on the Lebanese parliament a
constitutional amendment extending for three years
the mandate of the current president, the
pro-Syrian General Emil Lahoud. Hariri said he was
quitting as premier. Damascus pleaded with him not
to. Hariri then joined the opposition to Lahoud.
A few days ago, Syrian Foreign Minister
Faruk al-Chareh told Terje Roed-Larsen, the
special envoy in charge of applying United Nations
resolution 1559 - which calls for Syrian
withdrawal from Lebanon - that the resolution was
"en element of tension" in the Middle East.
The official strategy in Damascus may be
of a gradual military pullout from Lebanon. But
there is much chatter in diplomatic circles and
over the Internet that a serious internal power
struggle is going on. Hardline military/security
service factions, undermining Assad, might in this
case have been responsible for the assassination.
Assad would never have authorized a target killing
with disastrous consequences for Syrian national
interests.
What remains is the evidence of
Baghdad in Beirut. Asia Times Online has been
repeatedly told by sources in Baghdad close to the
Sunni Iraqi resistance, as well as by Shi'ite
sources in Najaf, that the paramount response of
both Sunni and Shi'ite clerics to the wave of
"mysterious" car bombings in Iraq has been to call
for no revenge. The iron-clad certainty, on both
sides, is that these have been perpetrated not by
"terrorists" as the US claims, but rather by
Israeli black ops or Central Intelligence
Agency-connected American mercenaries, with the
intent of fueling sectarian tensions and advancing
the prospect of civil war. Now if only someone
would come up with a Beirut smoking gun.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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