With brothers like Syria, who needs enemies?

 

For the sixteenth time the Lebanese elections of a president for the republic have been postponed by the pro-Syrian Speaker Nabih Berri and all fingers are pointed at Syria for blocking the vote.

 

Lebanon has been without a president since November 23, when the pro-Syrian president Emile Lahoud had to step down at the end of his extended term. During its occupation of Lebanon, in 2004 Syria forced the Lebanese parliament to extend Lahoud”s term. At the time, Syria”s president Bashar al-Assad threatened to destroy Lebanon if former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri would not extend Lahoud”s term.

 

Hariri was assassinated on February 14, 2005 in a massive explosion in downtown Beirut. Syria has been widely accused of being behind the murder.

 

The Cedar Revolution erupted following Hariri”s murder, and held the largest protest in Lebanon”s history on March 14, urging Syria to get out of Lebanon. Under the pressure of over 1 million Lebanese citizens marching in downtown Beirut, and helped by international pressure, Syria was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon in April 2005, ending 29 years of occupation.

 

While the Syrian troops may have left, Syrian intelligence remained in Lebanon, and its Hezbollah-led allies continue its influence, and most importantly, the assassinations continued.

 

Following is a chronology of attacks on politicians and other public figures in Lebanon since Hariri was killed with 22 other people in February 2005.

 

 

Jun 2 – Samir Kassir, journalist opposed to Syria”s role in Lebanon, was killed in Beirut by a bomb in his car.

 
Jun 21 – Former Communist Party leader and critic of Syria George Hawi was killed in Beirut by a bomb in his car.

Jul 12 – Car bomb wounded caretaker Defense Minister Elias al-Murr and kills one person in a Christian area north of Beirut.

Sep 25 – May Chidiac, a Christian television journalist critical of Syria, was seriously wounded by bomb in her car.

Dec 12 – Gebran Tueni, staunchly anti-Syrian member of parliament and Lebanese newspaper magnate, was killed by a car bomb in Beirut.

 

Nov 21 – Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel was killed by gunmen. U.N. Security Council approves plans for tribunal to try suspects in the assassination of Hariri and subsequent attacks.

 

Jun 13 – Anti-Syrian parliamentarian Walid Eido and six other people killed by a car bomb near a Beirut beach club.

 
Sep 19 – Car bomb in Beirut kills seven people, including anti-Syrian Christian lawmaker Antoine Ghanem.

 
Dec 12 – Car bomb killed Brigadier General Francois al-Hajj, the army”s head of operations, and a bodyguard in a Christian town east of Beirut. He had been tipped to become the next army chief to replace General Michel Suleiman who was nominated to be the next president.

 

Jan 15 – A car bomb attack in a Christian area of Beirut kills at least three people and wounds 16, in an explosion that damaged a U.S. embassy car and destroyed others.

 
Jan 25 – Wisam Eid, a captain in a Lebanese police intelligence unit, is killed in a bomb explosion in mainly Christian east Beirut. At least five other people die in the attack. Eid knew more about the assassination of Rafik Hariri more than anyone else in Lebanon.

Syria has been widely accused of being behind all of the above assassinations, but continues to deny any involvement.

 

However the Syrian regime, along with its allies, have been desperately fighting the establishment of the international tribunal to seek justice for the killers of Hariri and related murder cases.

 

Many observers believe that Syria”s price for ending the blocking of the presidential elections, is the scrapping of the International Tribunal.

 

The Arab League members met in January 2008 and issued a three point plan to end the Lebanese political crises. The Syrian Foreign Minister was in the meeting and voted for the plan.

 

Arab league Secretary General Amr Moussa visited Lebanon four times since the plan was adopted to try to resolve the crises, but in the end he gave up because he finally realized that the opposition may be physically in Lebanon, but its orders are coming from Syria with the help of Iran. Moussa visited Syria twice since his first visit to Lebanon this year, but to no avail. Syria continues to block the election of a Lebanese president.

 

The three point Arab peace initiative/plan calls for the immediate election of the president to be followed by the formation of a national unity government based on the constitution, to be followed by a new electoral law. A step by step approach for ending the crises.

 

But Lebanon”s Iranian and Syrian backed opposition has refused to elect Army chief General Michel Suleiman as president unless their basket of demands is agreed to by the ruling majority. The basket includes a government of national unity in which the opposition will have a veto power, approval of all the government top appointments and holding parliamentary elections based on 1960 electoral law.

 

All the demands by the opposition amount to the return of the Syrian occupation according to the leaders of the anti-Syrian March 14 alliance.

 

An Arab summit is scheduled to be held in Syria at the end of March and since Lebanon is a founding member of the Arab league, everyone expected that Syria will cooperate by telling its allies to go ahead and vote for Suleiman and end the crises. Everyone was hopeful that tomorrow will be the day when Lebanon will have a president, but alas this won”t happen as evidenced by the 16th postponement by Syria”s key ally, Speaker of the Parliament Nabih Berri. The date is now set for March 25th, 4 days before the summit in Damascus, but few are optimistic about the prospects of electing a president on that date.

 

The majority of the Lebanese remain outraged at Syria”s continued efforts to destabilize the country.

 

Dory Chamoun the head of the National Liberal Party of Lebanon declared Monday after a meeting with Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani, the Mufti of the republic “Damascus is the capital of evil for Lebanon.”

 

Lebanon”s leading columnist MP Ghassan Tueni on Monday sounded the alarm, accusing Syria and Iran of seeking to unleash total chaos in Lebanon and warning that Lebanon”s fire could eat up all the Middle East.

 

“Hands off Lebanon,” out cried Tueni in an article setting the options under the headline “pacify Lebanon or (face) mass suicide” and published by the leading Lebanese daily an-Nahar.

 

Back in October 2007 Egyptian Foreign Minister Abul Gheit urged foreign states not to interfere in the Lebanese presidential vote, echoing an outcry by the late Anwar Sadat: “Hands off Lebanon.” “It is up to the Lebanese people to decide themselves,” Abul Gheit said. The late Egyptian President Sadat launched his famous “hands off Lebanon” outcry in the mid-1970s, during the early stages of the civil war that lasted until 1990.

 

The Lebanese people are going to have to rely on the current Arab leaders to tell Syria “hands off Lebanon” and to tell Syria” there won”t be a summit in Damascus, if the Lebanese president will not be there and that no Arab leader will attend if there is no Lebanese president”.

 

Lebanon”s prime minister Fouad Siniora said last week that it is important to fix the Lebanese-Syrian relations.

Syria does not recognize Lebanon as an independent state, refuses to demarcate the border with Lebanon and refuses to establish diplomatic relations, which is what Siniora was referring to.

 

Siniora also was quoted as saying Lebanon may be too small country but it is too big to swallow.

 

The majority of the Lebanese are sick and tired of Syria”s attitude towards Lebanon. Syria tries to pretend to be a brotherly nation but one concerned citizen decried Syria”s attitude when he asked, “with brothers like Syria who needs enemies?”.