News of Al-Hariri's assassination took the Syrian capital by storm, and accusations that Damascus ordered his elimination are empty, writes Sami Moubayed* All Syrians who lived, worked and studied in former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Al- Hariri's Beirut, mourned him wholeheartedly because they knew what a great man he was and how abundantly he served Lebanon during his lifetime. I lived in Al- Hariri's Beirut and belong to a generation of Syrians who witnessed and proudly took part in the reconstruction of Beirut alongside Al- Hariri. We went to Beirut in the early 1990s and watched its resurrection with pride and envy -- envy, that is, because we had no similar resurrection in Syria. But today we no longer envy Beirut. We just want it to maintain the stability and progress it achieved under Al-Hariri. But such a possibility has been rendered slim by the brutality of his assassination. Bewilderment reigned among us as accusations were fired against Syria by satellite television commentators, the Lebanese opposition and angry mobs that took to the streets of Beirut, storming and burning a Baath Party office. They claimed that Syria had either directly or indirectly ordered the elimination of Al-Hariri because he had come to head the opposition to Syria's presence in Lebanon and was believed to have triggered the United Nations Resolution 1559 through his connections in Washington and his friendship with French President Jacques Chirac. A swift condemnation by President Bashar Al-Assad, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Sharaa and Information Minister Mehdi Dakhlallah did little to defuse the emotions that were soaring in Beirut. But the question remains, why would Syria, which is desperately in need of tranquility in Lebanon, want Al-Hariri dead? Such speculation claims legitimacy from the notion that Syria and its allies in the Lebanese government wanted him out of the way to re-affirm their hold over Beirut's political life. Yet in fact his death achieves the exact opposite for Syria. In fact his murder is a disaster for Damascus, because only Al-Hariri had the legitimacy to hold the balance between the government and opposition in Lebanon. No other politician had the charisma which he had, or the wealth, or his international legitimacy, or his influence among Muslim circles, or the respect which he commanded among the Christians. In fact, Damascus regrets having done nothing to prevent his resignation in September 2004, especially in light of the fact that Prime Minister Omar Karameh has drastically failed to create the balance of power required to maintain stability in Lebanon, but rather that he has increased opposition to Syria and Lebanese President Emile Lahoud's regime. Al-Hariri's death only provides a suitable platform for the opposition to criticise Lahoud and Syria, claiming that they failed to protect him, or even that they facilitated his killing, and to the United States to further criticise Syria's role in Lebanon. Certainly, Syria knows that the assassination comes as a blessing in disguise for Al-Hariri's former enemies, including the exiled Maronite General Michel Aoun, who will abuse his death for political reasons to pursue his anti-Syrian agenda. It is clear that Al-Assad's regime would not approve of a move that would do nothing but generally undermine Syria's influence in Lebanon -- something that he is badly in need of -- and eliminate a seasoned and reasonable politician whose record attests that he can have a good working relationship with Damascus. It is true, it must be said, that Syria wanted to marginally limit Al- Hariri's power in order to increase that of Lahoud, but the methodology was to include sidelining him, manipulating his followers, undermining his opposition and promising him reward if Syrian influence in Lebanon was maintained. If Syria did have an assassination agenda -- which it did not -- it would have eliminated louder and more troublesome opponents like Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. Or it would have eliminated others who have been anti-Syrian all along, like Aoun, Amin Gemayel or Maronite Patriarch Mar Nasrallah Sfeir. But killing Al-Hariri would be like Syria shooting itself in the foot, because ultimately his death means one less cooperative politician to deal with. Over the past 15 years, Al-Hariri's objectives have been clear: power, money and for Lebanon's interests to coincide with his own. He would have tolerated a Syrian-sponsored Lebanon so long as he was prime minister, as he did from 1992 to 1998 and then again from 2000 to 2004. Had Lahoud's mandate not been extended, or had Syria not empowered the president at Al-Hariri's expense, he would not have joined the opposition in the first place. He would have willingly maintained the status quo, not because it maintained Syria's influence, but because it guaranteed his own. For it was under Al-Hariri's premiership that Christian warlord Samir Gagegea was arrested in 1994, and by his orders that the security bureau cracked down on anti- Syrian demonstrations from 1994 to 1996. In April 2003, as US pressure on Damascus grew following the take-over of Baghdad, Al-Hariri immediately re-shuffled his cabinet -- in a gesture of good will towards Al-Assad -- to include Syria's strongest allies in Lebanon, such as Karim Pakradoni and Assem Qanso. In fact, a more likely suspect is Israel, as stated by Syrian Information Minister Mehdi Dakhlallah. For Israel, a war-torn Lebanon would provide fit ground for it to infiltrate to carry out covert operations in the Middle East. Israel would also benefit greatly from eliminating a man who re-built Beirut, Israel's traditional enemy, making it, in his own words, the "Singapore of the Middle East". By killing him, it would also help incriminate Damascus and give more reasons for the neo-cons in Washington to pursue their agenda against Syria. Israel has a history of carrying targeted assassinations in Beirut. In 1992, Israeli helicopters assassinated Sheikh Abbas Al- Musawi, secretary-general of Hizbullah. And in 2002, unconfirmed reports blamed Israel for killing its one-time ally Elie Hobeika in Beirut, weeks before he was to reveal evidence before an international court incriminating Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the 1982 massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Also in 2002, during the heyday of Lebanon's security and Syria's influence, Israel murdered Jihad Jibril, the son of Palestinian resistance leader Ahmed Jibril, in Beirut. Other likely, yet less obvious suspects, are Al-Hariri's many enemies within the framework of Lebanese politics. Although he harboured no war-time enemies, he nevertheless earned many foes for political and financial reasons since he first came to power in 1992. Lebanese politicians, despite their culture, education and class, have a long history -- in both times of war and peace -- of killing off their political opponents. Perhaps, had Al-Hariri been a politician operating in a peaceful country, where the shedding of blood is uncommon, then accusing external culprits would have been very logical. Yet Lebanon is a country whose politicians, even those like Al-Hariri, are in constant danger of dying by the sword. But for now, nobody knows for sure who killed Al-Hariri, and it is likely that a long time will pass before the real culprits are captured, or even known. The only truth available to all of us today is that a great man died in Beirut, and that a great city, witness to magnificent human progress, is in danger of falling as a result of the brutal assassination. We also know that neither Lebanon nor Syria will ever be the same again. * The writer is a Syrian political analyst.
