There
is no hiding from Mehlis' report
By Michael
Young
There was no easy lesson
to be derived from what Walid Jumblatt said on Monday, after a Syrian publication declared him persona non grata in
Syria, and held him responsible
for the killing of Syrian laborers in Lebanon after the
assassination of Rafik Hariri.
Jumblatt expressed
surprise, responding that he had proved
his devotion to Arabism and to strategic relations with Syria by ascending to Damascus only 40 days after the
assassination of Kamal Jumblatt.
What he meant
was that he had embraced
Syria even though its regime
murdered his father.
What is one to make of the statement, given that Syria
is the main culprit in Hariri's death? Does it mean
Jumblatt will ignore the results of the Mehlis inquiry
and "remain in solidarity with Syria, whoever leads it," as he recently told
a group of visitors? Ironically,
the Syrian broadside was an effort to shoot
down yet another of
Jumblatt's conciliatory feelers
directed Damascus' way - proof positive that making distasteful, even startling choices has become a compulsion with him.
Jumblatt's behavior
offers a larger message for
Syrian-Lebanese relations, which
Lebanon must consider as the likelihood increases that the Syrian regime
will take a hard hit from the UN prosecutor.
The country can follow the Jumblatt
path and say "Syria, right or wrong," which presumably means playing down Syrian culpability in the Hariri murder and hoping
it can be
pinned on Emile Lahoud, the four generals, and other local Syrian peons. (Though the Druze leader is having it
both ways in regularly reaffirming his desire to hear
the truth about who killed Hariri.)
Or, as a second option, Lebanon can continue to insist on the whole
truth and nothing but, whatever the consequences. This is the alternative favored by the Hariri family, reportedly the United States and France, and no doubt by Detlev Mehlis. It is
also probably what most Lebanese
desire, and there is little
doubt that a whitewash, or some sort of deal limiting responsibility to avoid the political
repercussions, would provoke outrage.
Jumblatt's preference
is a non-starter. To be fair, the
Druze leader is not alone
in arguing that it is not in Lebanon's interest to stand athwart a bleeding Syria. He knows that
a disorderly collapse of the
Assad regime may have disastrous consequences for both Syria and Lebanon,
which is true. What Jumblatt
fears is instability and unpredictability, and in that he shows how under all that ersatz radicalism lies a conservative.
The problem is that
fear of volatility should not be turned
into a prescription for stalemate,
or into support for a regime
that has in fact become a catalyst for Syrian instability. Such rigidity might
well bring about a
situation it is intended to avoid. Even political realists in the United States and France - devoted to despots offering reliability - have no faith in Assad. That's why the international community must ensure, if the Mehlis report is indeed a bombshell
for the regime, that Syria can
afterwards navigate through a peaceful transition that would involve
the resignation, departure or trial of senior officials.
In that context, Lebanon is a small fish
in a big shark tank. The bombs may
still be going off in Beirut, but one might remind those
responsible that the Hariri investigation is now an international affair. Once
Mehlis comes out with his findings,
the repercussions, if they confirm Syrian
involvement, will be played out well
above Lebanon's head. The Syrians' problem is that they
still think they can push
buttons in Beirut to protect
themselves; Jumblatt's error
is that he's willing to offer the Syrians buttons to push, through his
assumption that the way the
Lebanese react in the future will determine what happens in Damascus.
In fact, the Lebanese are marginal to the two issues that count most at present: first,
how the international community,
represented by the UN, will respond legally
to a condemnatory Mehlis
report: will it form a special international
tribunal, a mixed international-Lebanese tribunal, or
push the whole file toward The Hague? While Syrian pressure might affect Lebanese participation in a mixed court, by that time the Assad
regime may be in such a bind
that it would
have triggered the second development over which the Lebanese
have little influence: domestic
change in Syria to address the post-Mehlis report reality.
In other words, what precisely
can Lebanon do to ensure that Syria
goes through a peaceful transition? Certainly it can cover
this side of the border, and avoid that Lebanese
territory be a jumping off
point for Syrian opposition groups, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood (though Syria has shown little willingness
to guarantee security next door). Beyond
that, it is unrealistic to expect that Lebanon
can avoid getting caught up in a battle between Syria and the
international community, as febrile
onlookers like Jumblatt would prefer. Even the
kind of about-face the Druze leader favors, where Lebanon would
abruptly drop all charges in the
Hariri case, would do absolutely
nothing: Lebanon is not the main accuser anymore; the international community is. At
best, Lebanon can mitigate the consequences
by sticking to the UN
consensus.
Pushing that logic further,
once Hariri was killed, Lebanon found itself
in the midst of de facto
international trusteeship. This may be disturbing to some Lebanese, particularly those who never had
a nasty word to say about the Syrian
protectorate; however, without assistance of the kind we saw
on Monday at an international gathering
in New York, Lebanon will be unable to extract
itself from its somber economic
predicament.
The Lebanese are entitled to fear the backlash
of the Mehlis report,
because the conclusions are likely
to be as devastating as was the irresponsibility
of those expecting to get away with
Hariri's assassination. But the
only realistic alternative is to follow the
truth to the liar's door; it
certainly is not to betray the dead
in the name of a most useless Arabism.
Michael Young is
opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.