Last week the leaders of Syria and Saudi Arabia Bashar al-Asad and King Abdullah came to Beirut to meet the President of Lebanon, Michel Sleiman in a hastily-arranged summit. The speed with which the summit was arranged indicated the level of fear in the region about tensions that exist in Lebanon and the need to provide reassurance so that the fragile Lebanese polity does not once again erupt as a result of the tensions. Both leaders came to Lebanon to 'urge stability'. The Emir of Qatar was also in Lebanon for Army Day and urged calm in the face of tensions.
What is the cause of these tensions? The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) which has been charged by the UN with finding those responsible for the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri (knows as ‘Mr Lebanon’) is ready to lay down a second set of indictments for the assassination against some low-level members of Hezbollah.
The STL, set up in late 2005 under Detlev Mehlis and later Serge Brammertz has previously accused Syrian officials and four Lebanese generals who were intelligence chiefs of the assassination. Each of these officials have had the accusations dropped because it was found that in each case, the witnesses who provided evidence bore false testimony. The best known ‘false witnesses’ are Zuheir Siddiq who recanted his testimony and Husam Husam.
The current charges first came to light in the notorious Der Spiegel article in 2009 accusing Hezbollah of the crime. (Der Speigel journalist Erich Follath seems to be well-linked to sources within the STL since he also wrote an article in 2005 which claimed that Syria and the four generals were the real perpetrators.) According to the Der Speigel article, a set of mobile phones were used by the culprits and were identified when one of the users, Abd al-Majid Ghamlush, made a call to his girlfriend using the phone. This led investigators to the mastermind of the attack Hajj Salim, commander of a Special Operational Unit that reports directly to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. According to Der Speigel:
Imad Mughniyah, one of the world's most wanted terrorists, ran the unit until Feb. 12, 2008, when he was killed in an attack in Damascus, presumably by Israeli intelligence. Since then, Salim has largely assumed the duties of his notorious predecessor, with Mughniyah's brother-in-law, Mustafa Badr al-Din, serving as his deputy.
The STL, now headed by Canadian Marc Bellemare, has refused to comment on who will be indicted and what the charges are. The indictments are expected to be laid down in September after the end of Ramadan. According to Hassan Nasrallah, the charges were ready in 2008 but had been delayed for
‘political reasons’.
Nasrallah is working overtime to manage the fallout of the indictments. When Syria was considered the culprit, it was sidelined internationally by the Bush Administration and was forced to leave Lebanon, affecting its capacity to influence conditions in Lebanon. With Hezbollah now the alleged culprit, there may be major tensions between the Sunni and Shiite communities in Lebanon. Hezbollah is considered the strongest military actor in Lebanon and could well, as a maximalist position, take over parts of the country. These fears are credible since the last time there was a threat against Hezbollah when the former PM Siniora attempted to takeover Hezbollah’s telecommunications infrastructure in 2008, Hezbollah took over parts of Beirut.
I don't believe that we have reached that level yet. Nasrallah does not appear to see the STL indictments as a threat to Hezbollah. Hezbollah has the backing of Syria which appears to support cancelling the indictments, whereas Saudi Arabia will support postponing the indictments. Nasrallah is also confident of the support of current PM Saad Hariri in this situation who, according to Nasrallah, has already given assurances that he will personally disavow that Hezbollah as a group is involved in the assassination, which is indicative that the government is not willing to rip the country apart.
Nasrallah ally Michel Aoun and his party are already deflecting by arguing that the STL must resolve the issue of the false witnesses which has affected the credibility of the Tribunal. And Nasrallah is already discrediting the STL by calling it an ‘Israeli project’ and linking the recent uncovering of Israeli spies at the state-owned Alfa mobile telecoms company to discredit the mobile phone evidence against their operatives. As Nicholas Noe states:
...it is clear that the STL process is, sadly, ripe for exactly the kind of concerted and more capable de-legitimization effort that Hizbullah will now lead -- with effects far beyond that which has already been undertaken by tribunal opponents, targets and skeptics.
Hezbollah seems to view the indictments as part of a greater game being played out right now – the attempt to delegitimize Hezbollah as the leaders of the resistance against Israel and to weaken the resistance possibly ahead of an upcoming war. Their conjecture about war may not be wrong. Israel is due to finish construction of its Iron Dome before the end of the year (kinda like Reagan’s Star Wars missile defence shield) and Hezbollah appears to believe that Israel will wish to provoke a war anytime after the completion of the Dome, since theoretically the Dome will protect Israel from Hezbollah's missile attacks. Nasrallah is due to give a speech on August 3rd at 8:30pm Beirut time to address the issue where he has promised new information.
I personally have no view or opinions about whodunnit. I can find reasons and make arguments for several key actors both committing the crime and not committing the crime. I think that it's important for the credibility of the STL and the UN within Lebanon that they resolve the issue of the false witnesses and jailing of the four generals since it will inevitably taint the current indictments. However, this does not mean that the STL has not found the culprits now but it must make sure that it has an iron-clad case otherwise it may not get another chance and it's quite possible that Lebanon will not continue to fund its share of the STL's expenses.
It appears that, right now, political stability is goig to win out over finding the truth. It's frustrating for many that just as Lebanon is starting to make political headway in a whole bunch of progressive causes (like rights for Palestinians, ending discrimination against women in citizenship law, the implementation of an early release scheme for prisoners etc) and is recovering economically from the Sixth War (as the Israeli 2006 attack is called) we have an issue that could, at some point, bring the stability necessary for these and further reforms to come to a halt. The battle between idealism and pragamatism will continue in Lebanon and history suggests that pragmatism will win the day.
Updated to add: Hasan Nasrallah has stated that he has evidence that Israel assassinated Rafiq Hariri. A summary of his speech in English can be found here. He will give a press conference to reveal the evidence on Monday. My own view on this is that he has left himself no middle ground. Either he puts up an open-and-shut case against Israel or he will look foolish and inept and throw support for the resistanc ein Lebanon into chaos. One wonders why he won't reveal the evidence now and what he expects to happen between now and Monday. If there is no other agenda, we will know by Monday whether Nasrallah is the intelligent thinker and strategist that we have all been saying he is or whether we will see a moment of hubris.