Remapping the Middle East - the politics of Hariri's assassination

By Naseer H. Aruri

The tragic assassination of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut on Feb. 14 reverberated across the region, evoking vivid memories of Lebanon's 14-year civil war. In itself, the act is a political earthquake whose fallout will have profound local, regional and international implications.

Unlike the days of the civil war, the realignment after Hariri's death now reflects a novel political divide where the fault lines are no longer religious but national. The opposition to the Lahoud/Karameh pro-Syrian government is no longer focused on Maronite centrality; today, the Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir walks hand in hand with Druze leader Walid Jumblat and an undifferentiated slew of Sunni politicians. Druze and Sunnis were, of course, pillars of the Lebanese Nationalist Movement in the 1970s and 80s, which allied itself with the Palestinians against a Syrian/Maronite thrust, united in the need to thwart the emergence of a Lebanese "communist Cuba" on Syria's strategic periphery.

Although the identity of the assassins may never be known, and indeed may prove less important than the consequences, the important questions are: Where will the crime lead, in geopolitical terms; who are the greatest beneficiaries; and what is the likely impact of this heinous crime on the Lebanese political landscape and the regional map? One might even add the global dimension.

Despite the fact that most fingers are pointed at Syria and the government of Lebanon, Syria has the most to lose by the revival of sectarian strife. Given the Bush administration's pressure on Syria, and its declared intent to effect regime change in various Middle Eastern countries, Syria would be shooting itself in the foot by taking any action that invites chaos in Lebanon.

Syria's presence in Lebanon has become totally unacceptable to the US president and Congress during the past four years. The Syria Accountability Act of 2003 and Security Council Resolution 1559 of September 2004 impose sanctions on Syria and require Syria's exit from Lebanon. Thus, Syria has been behaving cautiously.

Syria's situation today is not different from that of Iraq in 2002. Both were accused and/or suspected of supporting terrorism, building weapons of mass destruction, pursuing a policy of strategic deterrence vis-‎-vis Israel, and undermining the growing US hegemony in the region.

Once the United Nations, under pressure from the US, ordered Syria to quit Lebanon, the Iraq scenario came back alive. The only difference is that Resolution 1559 was much harsher in its demands of Syria than were the resolutions which preceded the unlawful US invasion of Iraq in April 2003. Syria is requested to abandon its armed allies in Lebanon, accommodate Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's agenda of evicting Palestinian organisations, even though they are mere press offices, and withdraw its troops from Lebanon. No such expectations are made of Israel even though it has been sitting on top of the Syrian Golan Heights since 1967 and has a nuclear capacity without a shred of regional deterrence.

Simply put, Syria has been under the gun since Sept. 11 and all its overtures to curry favour with Washington - be it delivering suspected Al Qaeda people and cooperating in various ways with the US endeavour in Iraq - have failed to sway Bush's neoconservatives from their strategic goal of balkanising the Arab world in pursuit of a common US/Israeli agenda whose first phase has already been implemented in Iraq. None of Syria's favours have deterred the ongoing extension of the American empire in the Middle East.

There is an enormous contrast between US' policy regarding Syria's regional role in the mid-1970s and the present. A sea change has occurred during the past three decades. When Syrian forces entered Lebanon to support the right-wing Maronite forces and to act as arbiter between the warring sectarian groups in 1976, there were blessings from Israel, Washington and certain Arab capitals. It was agreed that Syria's Arab nationalist credentials would make it a more appropriate "peace keeper" in that area than Israel. Other state actors with a vested interest in regional stability would bestow legitimacy on Syria's anomalous mission later on by obtaining an Arab cover for its unwritten Israeli/American endorsed project on behalf of a strategic equilibrium.

The US-Israeli sanction of a Syrian role in Lebanon, however, was short-lived. The grandiose ambitions of Menachem Begin and Sharon in the Levant were spelled out in the summer of 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon. After the Lebanese resistance foiled Israel's plans for the Lebanese political map, and Syria stayed put, US President Ronald Reagan sent the Marines to replace the Israelis who withdrew to south Lebanon, where they stayed until ejected by Hizbollah in May 2000. Neither Israel nor the United States forgot the humiliation of abrupt withdrawal - the Americans after the disastrous bombing of the US Marine barracks in 1983; the Israelis after their inability to stand firm in the face of Hizbollah's sophisticated resistance.

The equation arranged by Washington for Syria and Lebanon in 1976 has been withering away since the 1980s. Hafez Assad's strategic power play during the 1991 Iraq war may have kept it on resuscitation, but the raison d'حtre is no longer there. Hafez Assad is no longer on the scene, and Washington has no more need for Syrian cooperation to contain Saddam Hussein who languishes in a US jail in Iraq.

Moreover, with US Middle East policy now consigned to the likes of David Wurmser, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams and other Sharon operatives in the think tanks, media and the administration, Syria's regional role will not be seen in the same context employed by Bush the father and James Baker. It should be recalled that Wurmser helped draft a document titled "Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: the US Role?" in 2000, which called for a confrontation with Syria, which it accused of developing weapons of mass destruction. Feith and colleagues counselled Israel in 1996 to clip the wings of both Syria and Iraq in an attempt to eclipse their strategic potential. These operatives' push for an invasion of Iraq in 2002/03 is now being renewed against Syria and Iran, while a new formula for a Lebanon minus Hizbollah is being geared up.

Such a formula would enable Israel to achieve two of the strategic goals of its 1982 invasion which had been foiled by the Lebanese resistance. That is why Lebanon without Syrian troops and impotent. Hizbollah is now a US and Israeli declared objective. A greatly weakened Syria is crucial as long as both Israel and the US are determined to see a nuclear-free Iran.

Washington's various operatives make no secret about the need to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. Bush himself pledged to back Israel in the event it launches an aerial strike against Iran. Thus, the liquidation of Hizbollah is seen as a necessary step for subduing both Iran and Syria. It is an uphill task which should remind Washington and Tel Aviv of the fierce Lebanese resistance of 1983.

Hariri's death, no matter who arranged it, is the perfect opportunity to implement the Israeli/US strategy and revisit Israel's frustrated plans of 1982. What better circumstances could enable Israel to reap the benefits of Hariri's murder? Unlike 1982, Maronites, Druze and Sunnis are all lined up against Syria, and once Syria is weakened, they will line up against Hizbollah too.

Not only would this scenario serve the interests of Israel, by helping it achieve unfulfilled aspirations, it would also pave the way for an extension of the American empire without the kind of European opposition encountered in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It would be a contiguous American empire stretching between the oil of the Caspian Sea and the bountiful wells of Saudi Arabia.

Thus, the tragic death of Hariri is inextricably linked to the ongoing remapping which lies at the cross-roads after the war in Afghanistan, followed by Sharon's war on the Palestinians, and the US invasion of Iraq. Should the grand strategy succeed in the way conceived by the Washington neoconservatives and Tel Aviv's Likudniks, the old pillars which kept a semblance of an Arab world going will have been dealt a severe blow.

The only salvation for an Arab world on its way to becoming a new Middle East is to recalculate the real cost of dependency, fragmentation, misuse of strategic resources and the tenacious clinging to autocracy, as it faces an onslaught which reminds us of 1258, when the descendants of Mongolian leader Genghis Khan destroyed Baghdad.

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The writer is chancellor professor (emeritus) at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. His latest book is "Dishonest Broker: the US Roles in Israel and Palestine", Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2003. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.

This article was published in the Thursday, March 3, 2005 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.