Who Killed Hariri?

I've been convinced from the start that it was the Syrians who did it, but Michael Young, whose first-hand knowledge of modern Lebanon is virtually unsurpassed amongst commenters in the English world, lays out the many reasons why the finger of blame points to Damascus.

Antiwar's Justin Raimondo has taken Tim Cavanaugh and me to task for our views on the Hariri assassination. Fair enough, but he does quote me in a way where clarification is in order.

He writes: "Young reiterated ... 'Certainly, the mood is very clearly that Syria did this. Syria will be blamed for it no matter who did it. They'll be even more isolated internationally than they already are.' Translation: Never mind the facts. Damascus must pay."

For the record, his conclusion implies there is no evidence that Syria killed Hariri, and that I wouldn't search for exoneration anyway. Had Raimondo been in Beirut talking to people, instead of at his desk digging up URLs, he might have known that both Hariri and Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader, were well aware that they were threatened by Syria, and discussed this openly together and with foreign officials on numerous occasions (the same officials also warning them of the danger from Syria); he might have known that Marwan Hamadi, who was almost killed by a car-bomb last October, has repeatedly declared Syria and the Lebanese state responsible for the attack; Raimondo might have known that a majority of Sunni officials close to Hariri, who four days ago would not have uttered a single word against Syria, are now openly accusing it of his killing.

Of course, the answer might be: Well what do they know? It might all be a scheme to blacken Syria. Perhaps, but it might be worth remembering that Syria has a long record of rubbing out its enemies in Lebanon (and invariably denying this afterwards). There were numerous reasons for killing Hariri, most prominently the fact that he was probably going to formally join the Lebanese opposition. This would have almost certainly tipped the balance in Lebanon decisively against the Syrian presence, and likely brought down the pro-Syrian Lebanese government--and with it, I suspect, Assad's stumbling regime.

Incidentally, one of the rare truths one has in life is knowledge of who wants to kill you.

There is also additional evidence, backed up by a growing number of bomb experts here (alas we have more than our fair share), pointing not to a suicide bombing (please Justin, doubt that fairy story being put out by the Lebanese interior ministry), but to a bomb placed under the road--suggesting a far more complex plot than the one being peddled, quite unconvincingly, by the state.

In the end, a duck is a duck, though, and Raimondo's problem is not really with Tim or me, but with the neocons and Israel. That's where I'll stop, because what concerns me is something far simpler and more parochial, namely whether Lebanon--as close to a liberal society as the Middle East has had--can regain that status by removing from its territory the army and intelligence services of one of the region's most illiberal regimes.

Young's concern is precisely my own: Lebanon is far more promising a candidate for a liberal Arab state than Iraq, or at least it would be if Syria weren't so busy destabilizing the place. The great thing about Syria's self-serving rhetoric about its "stabilizing" role is that, like a racketeer seeking protection money, whenever a challenge starts to rise against its presence, the Syrians can simply engineer a little instability and say "Look at what we're saving you ingrates from!"

Comments

[ibrahim]

hay i donot think that syria is responsible for the assasination of R.hariri, cause we can see that there was 2 same kinds of bombing was doned in several places .overmore no one had talked about the assasination of the 4 judjes in saida ! is it america ? knowing that syria donot have such kind of bombs . other wise hariri is a man that own the 2nd sufficant kind of defficancy means aginst such strikes ... so would a country like syria ......kill al hariri .and finally we need just the truth not a civil war.

[moe]

I think that this question should be divided into 3 questions namely who, why, and how!
The 'how' question is indisputably explained on this site:
http://www.lfpm.org/asphalt.php so please let us spear everybody the hassle of 'imagining' it happened otherwise.
Having said that (and i hope that 'most' of the readers got convinced) we tackle the why question.
Killing Hariri may sound beneficial for the Lebanese opposition, the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia and least likely Syria.
The Lebanese Opposition may be accused because they hurried to accuse Syria for murder and organised the logistics of the gathering right after the act.
The US 'might' sound accused because they got fed up with Syrian interference in building the momentum for a civil war Iraq.
Israel is accused by default (go to File -> Options -> Accusations and you'll find out that it's greyed out so you can't deselect it)
Saudi Arabia can be accused of trying to take down the Syrian Baath (ex-communist ideology not based on religion or on Islam) regime in order to re-surround the shiaa arch that is forming in the new Great Middle East that is being built. Note that most of the oil rich side of Saudi Arabia is mainly a shiaa region spanning from Kuwait, Dammam, UAE etc…and the shiaa arch is builing up day after day, threatening the future of the kingdom itself.

Unfortunately, none of these regimes can be put in the accusation box since there are so many unknown variables that surround the plot that renders the end results of the act very un-predictable and least likely beneficial to the plotting party. But whoever killed Hariri is greatly thanked by all of those regimes.

Having put aside the conspiracy premise, this takes us back to thinking that the act was made without and thorough plotting, in a desperate move to keep things under control, by some Inexperienced charismatic Syrian intelligence officer, who does not have a strategic planning team and who simply makes undisputable decisions --the Saddam Hussein way. One can feel this theory in the latest speech of the Syrian President Bashar el Assad in the Parliament last week, saying ‘We admit that we made large mistakes in Lebanon, and we truly apologise to the people of Lebanon’- in reference to the acts that might have been done by the supreme ‘governor’ of Lebanon General Rustum Ghazeleh and his micro-team.

No matter how the Syrian government swings now, it’ll always be seen as guilty, especially after giving its public haters the stick to hit her. Saudi Arabia threatens Syria of unilateral economic sanctions if it doesn’t dismantle (and hence politically suicide) its bases in Lebanon, the US insists on Syrians not interfering in Iraq (and hence letting the long awaited shiaa arche pass right next to its borders), Israel is passing in some public comments about the possibility of signing a seperate peace treaty with Lebanon (rendering the syrian-israeli dispute over the Golan heights indefinitely open) , not to mention other countries feeling the interest in a weaker day after day Syria.

I personally used to defend Syria for a long time, until I started feeling that the leading team over there is simply a bunch lousy strategic planners who can't be given the responsibility of leading their country. I started reading 'Syria' as the bad student in the region after i started feeling, as a moderate Lebanese person, the heavy economic weight they are posing day after day on us –with reference to the unfair laws that they obliged Lebanese lawmakers to make to help the Syrian economy--, after I noticed that most of the educated generation of the country fled away due to the Syrian made law of military service – go out of Lebanon for 5 years and you’ll be free of your military duty service-, after I noticed that most of those who fled Lebanon don’t actually have the right of voting in the consulate of the country who accepted them –due to a ridiculous old law that the Syrians struggled to maintain--, after noticing that repeating spectacular inflation rates rendered the average Lebanese person unable to get the minimum for his family: education, after noticing that the only way young Lebanese girls had to cope with this changing world and with the increasing poverty was to literally prostitute for rich Arab foreigners, and after linking all of the above arguments with tens of others to the Syrian dictatorial presence in our country.

For once, i'm gonna think selfish,
we were never meant to change the region, so why the hell is it always happening in our country!
I hope that the entire lebanese people will get together on the project of building this country,
When i meant entire, i'm implying both the Maronites & the Shiaa, the Druze and the Sunni, the Orthodox and the Armenians, the Catholics and the Protestants, and the remaining 10 religions that this small country harbors.

And as Dale Carnegie once said, today is tomorrow you worried about yesterday!

[mostafa]

very nice point of view indeed, thanks for moe for sharing this with us!

so i'd say the 'who' question needs no further explanations...