The assassination of Rafiq Al-Hariri targeted Lebanon's reconstruction. Next in sight will be the resistance, predicts Hassan Nafaa* Our worst nightmare has come true. Those who have a vested interest in destabilising Lebanon have succeeded in dealing a blow they hope will plunge the entire region, and not just Lebanon, into chaos. The target was carefully chosen: Rafiq al- Hariri was a man who held the entire country together. The assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister was carried out by forces hoping to upset the delicate equilibrium in Lebanon and set loose the monsters of sedition. The aim is to drive the entire region into the arms of horror and despair. It did not take much foresight to understand what was in store for Lebanon. Immediately after the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1559 in September 2004 I wrote an article in this very publication expressing astonishment at Syria's backing of the constitutional amendment that would allow Emile Lahoud another term. Syria's position allowed for the internationalisation of the Lebanese affair, for meddling by the Americans and the French who unexpectedly acted in unison. Syria's conduct, I said, was in the interests of neither Lebanon nor Syria, let alone the region. The way the current US administration behaves clearly suggested that, once occupied Baghdad was occupied it was simply waiting for the right moment to get rid of the Syrian and Iranian regimes. The US may have been held back due to the turmoil in Iraq but its agenda has not changed. The Syria Accountability Act was but a small step on the way to turning the Lebanese against Syria, after which the US would be free to move in for the kill. Nor, this time, did France get involved alone in Lebanon. It acted as a US ally. This changed the picture, pushing Syrian and the Lebanese national forces into a corner. Resolution 1559 was a political defeat for Syria, and one for which Lebanon would pay dearly. It promoted US and Israeli interests at the expense of Syrian and Lebanese. At the time, I wrote that France "looked like a country engaged in a high-stakes wager, hoping to win everything but willing to risk all". My analysis was far from being anti-Syrian. Syria's security motives, which largely accorded, at least for the moment, with the requisites of pan-Arab security, are easily enough understood. But while Syrian foreign policy on the whole makes sense it is not easy to understand how the protection of Syrian national security could hinge upon the continued presence of Lahoud in the office of the president, even at the risk of crossing redlines and venturing into a dangerous zone. A major error in Syrian calculations, I wrote, would "allow all those who hate Syria and the resistance, all those who loathe pan- Arabism and Islam, a rare chance to argue that the true problem in this region is not that of US and Israeli occupation, but of despotic and innately anti-democratic regimes". "I prefer to look forward and try to avoid the worst though the worst seems to be a curse heading inexorably our way. It is imperative for all Lebanese national forces that care about the future of Lebanon and the Arab world to come together. This goes for those who opposed the extension of Lahoud's term as well as for those who supported it. These forces need to find a purely Lebanese solution to the current crisis, independent of Syria." At the time I was confident any Lebanese decision would take into account Syria's strategic and security interests -- they cannot, after all, be separated from Lebanon's own true national interests. I called on Syria to accept the Lebanese decision "even if it had to abandon the amendment of the constitution and hold presidential elections". It is not, after all, impossible to agree on a Maronite figure capable of achieving national reconciliation while at the same time maintaining the status of the resistance in advance of a full settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. That particular article ended on a hopeful note: that the current crisis, for all its difficulty, could provide "a rare opportunity for the Syrian regime to prove that it is capable of following a policy that is different from the after-me-the-deluge approach favoured by all other Arab regimes". "That policy should involve the launch of full and genuine political reform, as well as plans to shore up social and economic conditions. What is needed is not chaos and political demagoguery, but a policy aimed at protecting state and society, even if the price to be paid at the end -- once the objectives are all achieved -- is a change of regime." I concluded the article by saying that it is "more honourable for any regime with a sense of patriotism to pass on the standard voluntarily to a regime selected by the people than to hand it over involuntarily to an agent regime that rides upon the US and Israeli bandwagon". The reason I quote at length from a four- month old article is that I wish to remind everyone of a simple but tragic fact; namely, that official Arab reasoning remains as obscure as ever. There is no sense in the way parties react to crises. Often, they seem incapable of seeing, understanding or taking in what is happening around them in any coherent manner. This is true despite the obviousness of US and Israeli intentions in the region. The latter are a book open for all to read. Resolution 1559, as expected, produced divisions on the Lebanese scene. Instead of attempting to put things in order before all hell broke lose with everyone hurling accusations of treason, this opened the door for the forces of darkness to strike. It was no coincidence the target of the attack was Rafiq Al-Hariri. A former prime minister and towering political symbol, he was also the pillar on which all serious hopes of traversing the crisis rested. He embodied Lebanon's hope of independent decision without abandoning pan-Arab, including Syrian, interests. Those who planned this assassination wanted to destroy the pillar. They wanted to end any hopes of settling the crisis and deepen the rift among local adversaries, pushing them to the point of no return. The local, regional and international ramifications of the atrocity all seem to be pushing Lebanon down a slippery slope. It is now urgent that patriotic and pan-Arab forces, both inside and outside Lebanon, help the country emerge from a crisis that bodes ill for all Arabs. Should the enemies succeed today in turning this small but splendid country into a scene of factional strife they may succeed tomorrow in turning the entire Arab world into mini-states living in rancour, mini-states manipulated by Israel for its own purposes. The Arab world must not forget that the Lebanese civil war marked the beginning of regional and international schemes to abort the achievements of the 1973 war. And it was this small country, in the end, that prevented Israel from achieving victory, from having the last word in the conflict. Over the past 15 years Lebanon engineered two miracles -- the miracle of reconstruction, which boasted Rafiq Al-Hariri as its symbol and champion, and the miracle of liberation, with Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah playing the leading role. Each complemented the other. Reconstruction could not have been achieved in the absence of resistance, and liberation could not have succeeded without reconstruction. Reconstruction provided the resistance with national unity, and the resistance provided the reconstruction with a deterrent. Until recently reconstruction and liberation coexisted in a domestic and regional environment based on Iranian-Syrian solidarity. But 9/11 and the US occupation of Iraq have introduced new elements to the scene, new factors that endangered the Lebanese formula of coexistence. The crisis over the extension of Lahoud's term was a wake-up call. Now that Lebanon's symbol of reconstruction has fallen, the next victim will be the resistance, for it is the resistance that is the prize sought by the enemy. It would be naïve to imagine that Israel has forgotten the day when it had to run away in shame, abandoning its dearest allies in Lebanon. All those who helped bring about that shame -- the Lebanese resistance, the Syrian and Lebanese regimes -- are targets for revenge. Israel's path is now open. It will try to destroy Lebanon's national cohesion and the Iranian-Syrian-Lebanese alliance. The margin of manoeuvre for the Syrians is narrow. Al-Hariri's murder harms Syrian interests more than it harms anyone else. But Syria cannot recapture the initiative unless it succeeds in disclosing the identity of the perpetrators of this crime. This must be Syria's first priority. * The writer is a professor of political science at Cairo university.
