Another Israel-Hezbollah war?

Another round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is certainly likely, but I don’t consider it inevitable, particularly in the short term. There are several reasons for this.

The first is that we have to understand the importance of Hezbollah in Iranian strategy at present. The party is not there to get caught up in repeated conflicts with Israel, let alone a new Lebanese civil war. It is mainly there to act as an Iranian deterrent against an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and more generally as a valuable lever in the Levant to use against Israel and the United States. In that context, war poses risks. With every conflict, the party loses some of its deterrence capability; at the same time, a conflict may impose unbearable human costs on the Shiite community, in such a way that Hezbollah’s ability to fight is further eroded. (Indeed, we are already in that situation today.) And, any new war will have deeply negative repercussions on Hezbollah’s domestic position, as a majority of Lebanese and Lebanese political forces reject the idea of again entering into a devastating war with Israel.

Add to that the time factor. Hezbollah is probably not yet ready to fight a war with Israel today, despite what Hasan Nasrallah has said in public recently. Shiites are deeply anxious about a new conflict a mere two years after the summer 2006 war; Hezbollah’s defensive infrastructure north of the Litani River appears to be incomplete; and the party cannot guarantee geographical continuity between south Lebanon and the southern and northern Bekaa Valley, though this is not essential for it to fight. These are all reasons why Hezbollah has to be careful in how it retaliates for the assassination of Imad Mughniyah. Provoking a major Israeli offensive is almost certainly not something Nasrallah wants to do today.

As for Nasrallah’s claim that the next war will involve an Israeli ground offensive, that’s not necessarily true. Israel has the potential to once again primarily employ air power to wreak the destruction it did in 2006—but also in 1993 and 1996—provoking a massive exodus of Shiite civilians and bombing infrastructure targets. This gruesome policy would create a humanitarian catastrophe that would mainly affect Hezbollah, and the party would find it difficult to respond in such a way that it could impose a balance of terror on Israel. Meanwhile, Lebanese anger with the party would have only heightened, further undercutting its support in society.

What about Israel? There may be a rationale for striking against Hezbollah before it’s too late. However, the Israeli priority today appears to be less Lebanon than Iran and its nuclear capacity. Lebanon is a sideshow—an important one, but a sideshow nonetheless. Paradoxically, Hezbollah’s reluctance to launch a war might encourage Israel to avert a conflict too. Why? Because both sides would calculate in terms of costs and benefits. Israel knows that it would be very difficult to score a knockout blow against Hezbollah in Lebanon. It does not want to risk getting caught up in a wider regional war via Lebanon. And a new Lebanon war would only make it more difficult to strike against Iran.

Given such uncertainty, each side is more likely to focus on its fundamental aims: Israel, on neutralizing Iran’s nuclear capacity; Hezbollah on partly deterring an Israeli attack against Iran. That means both may well try to avoid an unmanageable escalation in Lebanon.

Still, the most likely cause of war remains miscalculation. Here the risks are higher. Too devastating a Hezbollah response to the Mughniyah killing might provoke a fierce response from Israel. Conversely, another assassination of a Hezbollah official could prompt Hezbollah to react in increasingly less calculating ways, making a clash more probable. Even an Israeli offensive against Gaza may force Hezbollah to take steps in southern Lebanon to back its brethren in Hamas, and this may widen the conflict with Israel.

Then again, Hezbollah would have to calculate whether this might lead to a repeat of 2006, which also followed a Hamas raid in Gaza, the net result of which was to Hezbollah’s considerable disadvantage—all claims to a “divine victory” notwithstanding.

Missing the point in Lebanon’s stalemate

Rarely a day goes by without someone writing an article protesting against the incapacity of Lebanese politicians to come to an agreement on the future of their country. Why can’t they just all get along? That’s the lament running through these principled and naive pleas. But the continued failure of the Arab League plan suggests there is more to the deadlock than leaders perpetuating a status quo for self-seeking reasons.

There is still great incomprehension about what is sinking Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa’s apparently impossible mission. There is incomprehension, too, about what Syria’s true intentions in Lebanon are. One line of argument is that the Assad regime accepted the end of its Lebanese presence in 2005 and today seeks only to "influence" affairs in Beirut, to "protect its interests." Syria has no intention of driving its tanks back into Lebanese territory, controlling all aspects of the state, placing senior Syrian officials in lucrative business and smuggling networks, crushing all latent challenges to its domination, and so forth.

But reading that list, you can only conclude that that is precisely what the Syrians want, because Lebanon is of no value to them unless those aims are satisfied, unless the Assad regime has a tight grip over the country’s political power centers, has its army and security forces in place to back this up, can distribute patronage to Syrian officers to ensure their long-term loyalty, and can extract billions of dollars from the Lebanese economy to cushion trying times ahead for a Syrian economy that will soon have to dispense with oil revenues and lift vital subsidies.

That’s not to mention that for Syria to be regarded as relevant by Israel and the United States, its soldiers need to be present inside Lebanon. Why? To protect Hizbullah’s military autonomy against an international community that backs Security Council resolutions 1559 and 1701 and a Lebanese public increasingly critical of the party’s unwillingness to disarm; and to leverage the promise of managing or liquidating Hizbullah in any forthcoming negotiations with the Israelis and Americans.

That’s the real backdrop to negotiations over the Arab League plan. The breakdown is occurring because the opposition is relaying the Syrian position on the distribution of Cabinet portfolios, therefore on the political balance of power in Lebanon. The focal point of disputation is the so-called "sovereign" ministries: defense, interior, justice, finance and foreign affairs. The opposition’s "softest" proposal, a three-way division of portfolios in a 10-10-10 ratio, would effectively hand the parliamentary majority at most two of those key ministries; and, even then, the opposition has prepared a list of conditions to deny the March 14 coalition the means to control them. The Syrians are especially seeking to block the majority’s sway over the defense and interior ministries, because these can provide it with security instruments; and it wants someone friendly at the Justice Ministry to impede progress in the Hariri tribunal. The Assad regime is organizing a creeping coup in Lebanon, and will hinder all progress until March 14 and the Arab states raise their hands in surrender.

But it’s not as if Damascus were hiding its game. Syria’s allies in Lebanon will readily acknowledge its ambitions, both in public and in private. Former parliamentarian Nasser Qandil, a habitual Syrian megaphone, has twice declared that the Syrian Army will return to Lebanon. In his meetings with Arab and European officials, Syrian President Bashar Assad regularly brings up the Hariri tribunal and indicates how central it is to Syria’s playing a more helpful role in Lebanon. Assad meant what he said in March 2005, when he told his Parliament: "A Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon will not mean a disappearance of Syria’s role in Lebanon."

In the coming month, Assad will have to address growing Arab resentment of his regime in order to salvage the Arab League summit scheduled for the end of March in Damascus. It would be a mistake to assume the Syrians will languidly accept the humiliation of a failed conference, and much of their intimidation directed against the Gulf states in Lebanon is an effort to coerce them into attending. But that tactic won’t succeed, which is why March 14 is worried about a possible Plan B: Syria facilitates the election of Michel Suleiman as president, but then subsequently blocks the formation of a new government.

What would the advantages be? By authorizing Suleiman’s election, the Syrians would oblige Arab leaders to go to Damascus, saving their summit. Once a president is chosen, however, the Siniora government would automatically become a caretaker body, with limited constitutional prerogatives. As for the army, it would no longer have a commander. This would leave Lebanon without an effective executive authority, with its armed forces leaderless, and in a dangerous state of limbo.

The beauty of the scheme is that it might trap the parliamentary majority in its own exigencies. The Syrians and the opposition have for months demanded a package deal that includes agreement on the presidency and Cabinet. March 14 has rejected this. The opposition could turn around and accept the conditions of March 14, thereby electing Suleiman without an accord over a new ministry. The practical result might be a situation far worse than what we have today. Suleiman would be in, the government would be out, Syria would have partly broken out of its isolation, and the opposition would have won more pull to impose a favorable government, since any rejection of its demands could only prolong a debilitating vacuum.

Fortunately, there are ways around this plan. Arab states must set as a prerequisite for their participation in the Damascus summit prior agreement in Lebanon on Suleiman’s election and the formation of a new government. Yes, this would confirm Syria’s and the opposition’s package deal requirement imposed on Moussa, but that debate is now largely irrelevant: Negotiations over the Arab League plan are at a deadlock. The point of the Arab move would be not to push for a breakthrough in Lebanon, since that is presently impossible; but to block a Syrian plan to leave Lebanon without any effective leadership.

That is where the parliamentary majority has to be careful. In insisting so loudly that Suleiman must be elected now, it is ignoring the fact that the election could be disastrous if handled improperly. But then why didn’t the Syrians support the army commander’s election sooner, and block the formation of a new government? On the one hand they fear that constitutional procedures would be implemented, so that the president and majority, following consultations, might agree on a prime minister Syria disapproves of. Damascus also realizes that, even in a caretaker role, the Siniora government would still hold all the key ministries. A prolonged stalemate would still leave Suleiman working with a Cabinet dominated by March 14, something the Assad regime cannot stomach.

That only shows Syria’s rationale in Lebanon. But it doesn’t alter the fact that there are dangerous unknowns in allowing Suleiman to be elected minus a government. As the situation stands today, it is the opposition that is, plainly, blocking everything. Better for things to stay that way and for the Siniora government to remain in place. Political maneuvering may create instability that only plays to Syria’s advantage.

New U.S. administration won’t mean new Mideast policy

For months, we've been hearing the presidential candidates promise American voters "change." But as the U.S. primaries move beyond their half-way point, here is a prediction:

"Whoever becomes president in 2008 will pursue the same policies as the Bush administration in the Middle East, because there is little latitude to do otherwise."

Iraq is the rare regional issue about which one sees some sunshine between the candidates' positions. On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain's [R-Ariz.] view is similar to that of the Bush administration. The war has to be won, and the military "surge," which McCain backed, has been a success. For the Republican frontrunner, "a greater military commitment now is necessary if we are to achieve long-term success ... [and] give Iraqis the capabilities to govern and secure their own country." McCain prefers honesty to deadlines, and believes Americans need to be told that the war will be a long one, because "defeat ... would lead to much more violence in Iraq, greatly embolden Iran, undermine U.S. allies such as Israel, likely lead to wider conflict, result in a terrorist safe haven in the heart of the Middle East, and gravely damage U.S. credibility throughout the world."

The Democrats, in contrast, have focused their Iraq strategy on setting a withdrawal timetable. Both Sen. Barack Obama [D-Ill.] and Sen. Hillary Clinton [D-N.Y.] promise to begin an immediate pullout of troops after their election. Obama wants to do this at the rate of one or two brigades every month, to be completed by the end of 2009. Clinton is less specific, but promises to direct the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the defense secretary and the National Security Council "to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home starting with the first 60 days" of her administration.

Both candidates leave themselves wiggle room in the event they win the presidency. As Clinton understands, drawing up a plan to remove troops is different than setting a deadline for finalizing a withdrawal. The senator also intends to stabilize Iraq as American soldiers head home. But that link between stability and withdrawal can cut both ways. If a pullout generates instability, this would undermine the logic of Clinton's plan, justifying a delay. Indeed, both she and Obama have waffled on whether they would go ahead with a withdrawal in such a case. When the Illinois senator was asked by "60 Minutes" whether he would stick to his timetable even if there was sectarian violence, he replied: "No, I always reserve, as commander in chief, the right to assess the situation."

The candidates also differ over whether to engage Syria and Iran in assisting to normalize Iraq. Obama has often said he would talk to the two countries, while Clinton vows to "convene a regional stabilization group composed of key allies, other global powers and all of the states bordering Iraq."

McCain disagrees, refusing to enter into "unconditional dialogues with these two dictatorships from a position of weakness." He insists that "the international community [needs] to apply real pressure to Syria and Iran to change their behavior."

Much of this is bluster. For Obama, the rationale to talk to Syria has declined since Iraqi tribes began defeating Al-Qaeda in Anbar province. The Syrian card in Iraq is much weaker than it was when the senator first formulated the idea, making the political cost of opening up to Damascus -- at a time when it is actively undermining Lebanese sovereignty and is isolated in the Arab world -- significantly higher. Clinton's proposal, meanwhile, is mostly old hat. Iraq's neighbors already meet periodically to discuss the situation in the country, and the United States, too, has participated in these gatherings. As for McCain, his instincts are right, but he has no good reason to abandon the current dialogue taking place between Iran and the United States in Baghdad. The Iraqis back it and it might calm the situation on the ground.

In the shadow of Iran's growing power in the Gulf, there is no realistic withdrawal option in Iraq. The United States fought a war against Saddam Hussein's army in 1991 to deny Iraq hegemony over the oil-rich region after the invasion of Kuwait. That goal hasn't changed with respect to Iran. Washington is boosting arms sales to its Gulf allies, but knows that without a U.S. military presence such assistance only has a limited impact. The United States also continues to warn of Iran's nuclear ambitions, with even Russia openly questioning why Iran needs intercontinental ballistic missiles if it doesn't seek a nuclear military capacity.

There is also the matter of Israel. All the candidates loudly support the security of Israel, which regards Iran's nuclear capacity as a strategic threat. To cede ground to Iran in Iraq could harm Israeli interests, justifying the candidates' eventually backtracking on withdrawal.

In the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, don't expect much new either. All the candidates support negotiations (who wouldn't?) and Israel's right to live in peace and security. Depending on who gets elected, the president might push a bit more or a bit less for a settlement. But the United States has limited scope to do very much, because, more than ever before, the dynamics of the process are much less Washington's to manipulate.

The Palestinian territories are physically and ideologically divided, with rival Hamas and Fatah governments ruling over Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas offers a menu of armed struggle, while the mainstream Fatah movement (the party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas) defends peace talks. But Israel, wracked by its own internal divisions, will not significantly bolster Fatah's fortunes by ceasing settlement building until the Palestinians put their house in order. Palestinian moderates respond that unless Israel makes serious concessions, they will lose all credibility. It's a Catch-22, and U.S. pressure to force a solution would only exacerbate internal contradictions in both societies.

Facing such obstacles, a new administration can, at best, actively pursue the negotiating process in the hope that some breakthrough will take place. But that's what the Bush administration is already doing today. A new administration is also as unlikely as the present one to subordinate political interests to defending freedom and human rights. President George W. Bush is as good as it gets on that front. He may be responsible for what, until recently, was a full-blown fiasco in Iraq, but his actions did overthrow a tyrant, while in Lebanon the United States played a key role in forcing the Syrians out of the country. But Bush's rhetoric on liberty notwithstanding, the deterioration in Iraq and Iran's rise have prompted him to again rely on autocratic U.S. allies such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan as a counterweight. This situation will only persist in a polarized Middle East, and none of the presidential candidates has expressed particular displeasure with Bush's conduct on this front.

Things are more likely to change, however, on the specific issue of how to deal with terrorist suspects. None of the candidates care for the Bush administration's "extraordinary rendition" policy, or its ambiguous position on torture. This will have a marginal impact on human rights in general in the region, but discontinuing such practices will be sold by a new administration as a sign that America cares, even as Arab regimes resort to their old habits by brutalizing their foes.

On Lebanon, expect little transformation, as well. The country is not high on the list of priorities of any of the candidates, which means that no one feels strongly about altering the current approach. To quote a former U.S. ambassador in Beirut, Washington for once has a Lebanon policy. It is mainly focused on consolidating the gains of the so-called Cedar Revolution of 2005. This means that the United States will continue to block escalating Syrian efforts to return to Lebanon; it will pursue efforts to contain Hezbollah and limit its military activity, particularly through the United Nations; and it will press forward with the Lebanese-international court now being set up in The Hague to try suspects in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

Though continuity is likely, candidates will sell this as difference. For example, recently Obama issued a statement on the occasion of the third anniversary of the Hariri assassination. The senator praised the Cedar Revolution, condemned Syrian actions in Lebanon and backed U.N. resolutions seeking to prevent Hezbollah from rearming. However, he framed his proposals as a stark contrast with those of the Bush administration. But what Obama prescribed was almost exactly what the administration has been doing for the past three years.

That's very much a paradigm for how all the candidates approach the Middle East: they differentiate themselves from Bush without acknowledging that even his administration has been compelled in the last three years to behave like its predecessors, once the supposed neoconservative interregnum ended. The region has always been adept at imposing its rhythms on others as a means of resisting change. Barring something dramatic, none of the candidates will disturb that stasis.

Will the Mughniyeh affair hit the Arabs?

Will the Mughniyeh affair hit the Arabs?
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, February 21, 2008

Syria has vowed to soon release the results of its inquiry into the assassination of Hizbullah official Imad Mughniyeh. However, there is increasing likelihood that the findings, rather than explain what happened, will become a weapon in the regional struggle between Syria, Iran and their Lebanese allies on the one hand, and Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan to a lesser extent, and the March 14 coalition on the other.

In the past week since Mughniyeh's funeral, unidentified sources in Beirut and Damascus have been feverishly spinning media coverage of the killing. The Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, which is close to Hizbullah, was the first to identify an Arab angle in the Mughniyeh affair, quoting someone as saying that among those arrested by the Syrian authorities were "non-civilian elements of Arab nationality." Syria's daily Al-Watan, which is owned by the powerful cousin of President Bashar Assad, Rami Makhlouf, also cited a source as mentioning an Arab connection.

In the Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai Al-Aam, a source close to Hizbullah was quoted as saying that the Mughniyeh hit was "Palestinian-Israeli," using American technology and financed by an unidentified Gulf Arab official. Another Kuwaiti daily, Al-Siyassa, which is hostile to Damascus, wrote that Mughniyeh had been residing in an apartment building belonging to a business partner of Makhlouf - in effect linking the late Hizbullah official to people at the heart of Syria's political and economic elite.

Perhaps most disturbing for what may lie ahead, however, was a report in Al-Haqiqa, the publication of Nizar Nayouf, a Syrian opposition figure. Nayouf was for years brutalized by Syria's regime, before moving to France. However, most observers of Syrian affairs believe his publication is often used by the Assad regime as a conduit for disinformation, or for sending political messages. According to a Syrian source cited by Al-Haqiqa, the Mughniyeh investigation may accuse "official or semi-official Lebanese parties ... allied with [the government]" of having participated in the Mughniyeh operation. The paper suggested investigators might also identify Walid Jumblatt, or more specifically his alleged security chief, Hisham Nasreddine, as having played a role in the killing.

The "official or semi-official" parties the source refers to is almost certainly the Information Department of the Internal Security Forces - essentially the state security apparatus most loyal to March 14. A key objective of Syria and the opposition in the negotiations over a new government has been to ensure that the Interior Ministry, which oversees the Information Department, is taken out of the hands of the parliamentary majority. If the information in Al-Haqiqa becomes the basis of an official Syrian charge, the aim may be to advance this agenda. As for Jumblatt, no one will seriously believe the Druze leader has the capacity to eliminate so secretive as figure as Mughniyeh. However, if the Syrians do level such an accusation, it may exacerbate tension on the ground between Jumblatt's supporters and Hizbullah, without the latter being able to express doubt in the Syrian conclusions. The party has little margin of maneuver vis-a-vis Damascus, and Iran has reportedly indicated it wants no quarrel with the Assad regime over Mughniyeh. Hizbullah has blamed Israel for the assassination, but its secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has also described March 14 as having sided with Israel. If the Syrians play on that theme, Nasrallah may find himself tossed back into the unforgiving alleyways of inter-Lebanese conflict.

The deepening animosity between Syria and Saudi Arabia might mean the Mughniyeh investigation is carried even further to implicate some Arab states. The fear is that Syria would do such a thing to gain leverage and force leading Arab heads to state to attend the Arab League summit scheduled for late March in Damascus, therefore guaranteeing that the event will be a success. The only problem is that the absence of a prior solution in Lebanon will almost certainly mean a failed summit. Assad will probably not bring the Saudis or anyone else to his gathering through intimidation, let alone through a politicized investigation.

Where would Hizbullah stand on this? One message in the Mughniyeh assassination was that while the party was stuck in the viper's nest of Lebanese politics, someone, probably Israel, scored a devastating goal against it. Nasrallah has always tried to keep domestic Lebanese affairs separate from the conflict with Israel, to protect his military autonomy. Whenever the two were somehow mixed, Hizbullah lost ground, most notably after the 2006 summer war, which many Lebanese viewed as unnecessary. That's why Nasrallah cannot find it especially desirable to watch Syria twist the Mughniyeh affair into a new basis for Lebanese strife.

The same holds for Syria's conflict with major Arab states. At a time when Iran is improving its relations with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, there is little real advantage to Hizbullah in seeing Damascus manipulate Mughniyeh's death to score points in its dispute with Riyadh and Cairo. All that would prove, again, is that Hizbullah is cannon fodder for the Assad regime, a reality that has already damaged Hizbullah's reputation inside Lebanon. Nasrallah has always tried to position Hizbullah as an Arab nationalist organization waging a regional struggle in Lebanon and Palestine. Being used as a stick against the Arab states would only lead to its being demoted to the status of sectarian Shiite group threatening Arab interests.

Recent events have shown that Hizbullah, even though many publicists will dutifully underline its independence from Syria and Iran, is in fact mostly a prisoner of Iranian and Syrian priorities. The Mughniyeh investigation will be an opportunity to test this proposition once more. Perhaps this time Hizbullah will manage to avoid becoming another utensil in regional Arab antagonism that is bound to get worse.

A Death in Damascus

A Death in Damascus: After the assassination of Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah finds itself squeezed between Syria and Iran.

We still don't know who assassinated senior Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah in Damascus, Syria, last week. The incident was only the latest setback for the Shiite party as it faces rising anger in Lebanon for perpetuating a domestic political crisis that has lasted for months.

Opponents of President Bashar Assad's regime quickly blamed Syria for the bombing that killed Mughniyah. Because it occurred in a high-security area, they argued, the operation must have been an inside job. Why would the Syrians do this? To cut a deal with the United States amid mounting international pressure against Damascus—including the establishment of a tribunal to judge suspects in the 2005 murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which was almost certainly a Syrian hit. Allegedly, Mughniyah's elimination is proof of Syria's goodwill.

Director of U.S. National Intelligence Mike McConnell was thinking along the same lines when he declared on Sunday: "There's some evidence that it may have been internal Hezbollah. It may have been Syria. We don't know yet, and we're trying to sort that out."
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However, such explanations could be efforts to deepen the mistrust of Syria's regime among its allies rather than statements of fact. Although everything is possible with the Assads, and participation by individual Syrians cannot be ruled out, Mughniyah stood at the nexus point of Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah. It would be remarkable for Damascus to have sacrificed such a figure without an explicit quid pro quo while potentially jeopardizing its ties with Hezbollah and Tehran. Mughniyah was more the icing on a prospective deal than an opening offer.

Whoever was behind Mughniyah's death, and some Israeli intelligence sources are saying it was Mossad, Syria's reputation is taking a beating. People offering condolences to Hezbollah reported that its sympathizers expressed suspicion of the Assad regime. Syrian trustworthiness was not helped when sources in Damascus denied that Syrian, Hezbollah, and Iranian investigators were jointly looking into the bombing, even though an Iranian official had confirmed this.

The Syrians also insisted that Mughniyah arrived in Damascus the day before his assassination without their knowledge. This was plainly nonsense. Syria's intelligence services keep close tabs on anybody of note entering their frontiers. In clumsily trying to shift the blame elsewhere, the Syrians looked as if they were covering something up. Anti-Syrian Arab newspapers added fuel to the fire. For example, the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa, which sometimes has good Saudi intelligence information, reported that Mughniyah was living in a Damascus apartment owned by a business partner of the powerful cousin of President Bashar Assad.

Hezbollah finds itself in a bind because of Mughniyah. The party blames Israel for the bombing, but it is also peddling a more complex plotline that includes Arab involvement. A source close to Hezbollah told another Kuwaiti daily that the assassination was "Palestinian-Israeli," used American technology, and was financed by an unidentified Gulf Arab official. A Lebanese daily close to Hezbollah and a Syrian newspaper owned by Assad's cousin also mentioned an Arab angle. This account could be politically motivated, allowing Syria to later hit out in many directions against its regional foes, particularly in Lebanon.

With so much contradictory information circulating, what can Hezbollah's secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, do? At Mughniyah's funeral, he threatened to engage in open war against Israel, indicating that Hezbollah would respond outside the geographical parameters of the conflict. This implies an attack against Israeli targets or Jewish centers worldwide. But things are not that simple. Hezbollah has spent years successfully burnishing its international image—one reason it remains off the EU list of terrorist groups. Giving that up just to avenge Mughniyah would be costly. Besides, every intelligence agency in the world now expects Hezbollah to retaliate, so the party will not find it easy to do so.

Add to that Hezbollah's ruinous behavior inside Lebanon since the end of the summer 2006 war against Israel. Many Lebanese blamed the party for provoking that destructive conflict. Things have improved little since the end of the war, because Hezbollah has collaborated with Syria's efforts to reimpose its hegemony over Lebanon after its army's withdrawal three years ago. The party has blocked the election of a Lebanese president, part of a Syrian strategy to impose its conditions on any new officeholder. The ensuing stalemate has greatly discredited Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Arab world.

But the situation in Beirut is only a symptom of a larger dilemma Hezbollah has faced since 2000, when Israel withdrew its army from Lebanon: Without open-ended conflict, the party cannot justify retaining its weapons; but without weapons, Hezbollah cannot exist. Its leadership knows that political normalization in a Lebanon free of Syrian interference would lead to the party's disarmament, since most Lebanese want their government to have a monopoly over the use of violence. To ward off this eventuality, Hezbollah favors a decisive return of Syrian domination over Lebanon, knowing that Assad will necessarily have to rely on Hezbollah's weapons as leverage before he can consider resuming negotiations with Israel.

That's why the Mughniyah affair won't shake the foundations of the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah triangle. Mutual confidence is not high, but all three partners need one another. Iran requires Hezbollah to deter an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities, and Tehran can only arm the party through Syria. Caught between Iran's and Syria's welfare on the one hand and domestic disapproval on the other, Hezbollah faces a bumpy ride ahead.

A new US Middle East policy in 2009? Don’t bet on it

For months, we’ve been hearing the presidential candidates promise American voters "change." But as the US primaries move beyond their half-way point, here is a prediction: Whoever becomes president in 2009 will basically pursue the same policies as the Bush administration in the Middle East, because there is so little latitude to do otherwise.

Iraq is the rare regional issue where one sees some sunshine between the candidates’ positions. On the Republican side, John McCain has taken a similar view to that of the Bush administration. The war has to be won, and the military "surge," which McCain alone backed, has been a success. For the Republican frontrunner, "a greater military commitment now is necessary if we are to achieve long-term success ... [and] give Iraqis the capabilities to govern and secure their own country." McCain prefers honesty to deadlines, and believes Americans need to be told that the war will be a long one, because "defeat ... would lead to much more violence in Iraq, greatly embolden Iran, undermine US allies such as Israel, likely lead to wider conflict, result in a terrorist safe haven in the heart of the Middle East, and gravely damage US credibility throughout the world."

Mike Huckabee’s chances of being nominated are so slender as to make a rundown of his Middle East policies unnecessary. But on the whole, his approach to Iraq is little different than that of the administration. He too supports the surge, opposes establishing a withdrawal schedule, and sees the war in Iraq as part of the war on terror.

The Democrats, in contrast, have focused their Iraq strategy on setting a withdrawal timetable. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton promise to begin an immediate pullout of troops after their election. Obama wants to do this at the rate of one or two brigades every month, to be completed by the end of 2009. Clinton is less specific, but promises to direct the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the defense secretary, and the National Security Council "to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home starting with the first 60 days" of her administration.

Both candidates leave themselves wiggling room in the event they win. As Clinton knows well, drawing up a plan and starting to remove troops is different than setting a deadline for finalizing the procedure. The senator also intends to stabilize Iraq as American soldiers head home. But that link between stability and withdrawal can cut both ways. If a pullout generates instability, this would undermine the logic of Clinton’s plan, justifying a delay. Indeed, both she and Obama have waffled on whether they would go ahead with a withdrawal in such a case. When the Illinois senator was recently asked by 60 Minutes whether he would stick to his timetable even if there was sectarian violence, he replied: "No, I always reserve, as commander in chief, the right to assess the situation."

The candidates also differ over whether to engage Syria and Iran in assisting to normalize Iraq. Obama has often said he would talk to the two countries, while Clinton vows to "convene a regional stabilization group composed of key allies, other global powers, and all of the states bordering Iraq." McCain disagrees, refusing to enter into "unconditional dialogues with these two dictatorships from a position of weakness." He insists that "the international community [needs] to apply real pressure to Syria and Iran to change their behavior."

Much of this is bluster. For Obama, the rationale to talk to Syria has declined since Iraqi tribes began defeating Al-Qaeda in Anbar Province. The Syrian card in Iraq is much weaker than it was when the senator first formulated the idea, making higher the political cost of opening up to Damascus at a time when it is actively undermining Lebanese sovereignty and is isolated in the Arab world. Clinton’s proposal, meanwhile, is mostly old hat. Iraq’s neighbors already periodically meet to discuss the situation in the country, and the US has participated in these gatherings. As for McCain, his instincts are right, but he has no good reason to abandon the current dialogue taking place between Iran and the US in Baghdad. The Iraqis back it and it might calm the situation on the ground.

In the shadow of Iran’s growing power in the Gulf, there is no realistic withdrawal option in Iraq. The United States fought a war against Saddam Hussein’s army in 1991 to deny Iraq hegemony over the oil-rich region after the invasion of Kuwait. That goal hasn’t changed with respect to Iran. Washington is boosting arms sales to its Gulf allies, but knows that without a US military presence such assistance only has a limited impact. The US also continues to warn of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, with even Russia today openly questioning why Iran needs intercontinental ballistic missiles if it doesn’t seek a nuclear military capacity.

There is also the matter of Israel. All the candidates loudly support the security of Israel, which regards Iran’s nuclear capacity as a strategic threat. To cede ground to Iran in Iraq could harm Israeli interests, justifying the candidates’ eventually backtracking on withdrawal. In the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, don’t expect much new either. All the candidates support negotiations (who wouldn’t?) and Israel’s right to live in peace and security. Depending on who gets elected, the president might engage a bit more or a bit less in pushing for a settlement. But the US has limited scope to do very much, because the dynamics of the process are much less Washington’s to manipulate than ever before.

The Palestinian territories are physically and ideologically divided, with rival Hamas and Fatah governments ruling over Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas offers a menu of armed struggle, while the mainstream Fatah movement (the party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas) defends peace talks. But Israel, wracked by its own internal divisions, will not significantly bolster Fatah’s fortunes by ceasing settlement building until the Palestinians put their house in order. Palestinian moderates, in their turn, respond that unless Israel makes serious concessions, they will lose all credibility. It’s a Catch-22, and US pressure to force a solution would only exacerbate the internal contradictions in both societies.

Facing such obstacles, a new administration can, at best, actively pursue the negotiating process in the hope that some breakthrough will take place. But that’s what the Bush administration is already doing today.

A new administration is also as unlikely as the present one to subordinate political interests to defending freedom and human rights. President George W. Bush is as good as it gets on that front. He may be responsible for what, until recently, was a full-blown fiasco in Iraq, but his actions did overthrow a tyrant, while in Lebanon the US played a key role in forcing the Syrians out of the country. But Bush’s rhetoric on liberty notwithstanding, the deterioration in Iraq and Iran’s rise have prompted him to again rely on autocratic US allies such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan as a counterweight. This situation will only persist in a polarized Middle East, and none of the presidential candidates has expressed particular displeasure with Bush’s conduct on this front.

Things are more likely to change, however, on the specific issue of how to deal with terrorist suspects. None of the candidates care for the Bush administration’s "extraordinary rendition" policy, or its ambiguous position on torture. This will have a marginal impact on human rights in general in the region, but discontinuing such practices will be sold by a new administration as a sign that America does really care, even as Arab regimes resort to their old habits by brutalizing their foes.

On Lebanon, expect little transformation as well. The country is not high on the list of priorities of any of the candidates, which means that no one feels strongly about altering the current approach. To quote a former US ambassador in Beirut, Washington for once has a Lebanon policy. It is mainly focused on consolidating the gains of the co-called Cedar Revolution of 2005. This means that the US will continue to block escalating Syrian efforts to return to Lebanon; it will pursue efforts to contain Hizbullah and limit its military activity, particularly through the United Nations; and it will press forward with the Lebanese-international court now being set up near The Hague to try suspects in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Though continuity is likely, candidates will sell this as difference. For example, recently Obama issued a statement on the occasion of the third anniversary of the Hariri assassination. The senator praised the Cedar Revolution, condemned Syrian actions in Lebanon, and backed UN resolutions seeking to prevent Hizbullah from rearming. However, he framed his proposals as a stark contrast with those of the Bush administration. But what Obama prescribed was almost exactly what the administration has been doing in the past three years.

That’s very much a paradigm for how all the candidates approach the Middle East: they differentiate themselves from Bush without acknowledging that even his administration has been compelled in the last three years to behave like its predecessors, once the supposed neoconservative interregnum ended. The region has always been adept at imposing its rhythms on others as a means of resisting change. Barring something dramatic, none of the candidates will disturb that stasis.

Hariri's murder is not a battering ram

There was alarm when Walid Jumblatt used the word "war" in a statement on Sunday in Baaqlin. The Druze leader's words were harsh, even if he did not say that he welcomed war, but only made his willingness to fight one conditional on the opposition's wanting war. But Lebanon has been split by a cold civil war for over a year now, and as the country commemorates the third anniversary of Rafik Hariri's assassination today, Jumblatt's rhetoric may have, paradoxically, helped stabilize the situation - even if stabilization remains a relative concept.

The assassination in Damascus of Imad Mughniyeh, whatever its larger implications, may actually bolster this modest stability. Hizbullah's leadership will likely need time to assess where it is, and what Mughniyeh's killing means for the party and its relations with Tehran.

Jumblatt surely calculated what he said based on a reading of the mood in Saudi Arabia and Russia, countries which he visited recently and that support the Arab League plan to elect General Michel Suleiman president. This must have made the Syrians perk up, particularly when Jumblatt said that Moscow had decided to pay into the fund for the Hariri tribunal. But the Druze leader, you have to suspect, was also sending a message to the Iranians, which went something like this: "Do you want your prize investment, Hizbullah, to be shattered by a Lebanese civil conflict?"

The comments of Jumblatt, but also those of Samir Geagea last week warning that there were Lebanese who sought a Syrian return, and Saad Hariri's promise to thwart Syrian and Iranian ambitions in Lebanon, were part of a package. In January, Hizbullah initiated a new strategy of organized street demonstrations, under the guise of social protests. The objective was to harass the army, undermine the presidential ambitions of Suleiman, and permit Syria to impose an alternative. But more generally, this threatened to shake confidence in the army - particularly when individuals began firing at soldiers - and therefore strike at the last remaining state institution that enjoys broad national backing.

The judicial inquiry into the Mar Mikhael deaths, but also the deep polarization that surrounded the episode, which isolated the Shiite parties, led to a suspension of efforts to erode the army's credibility. The recent March 14 statements were designed to shore up this interregnum. In so many words, Jumblatt warned that if weapons were used against the army again, it might be the majority that would respond.

Did he mean it? Probably not, but that's the point of brinkmanship. And since Hizbullah does not want a civil war any more than March 14 does, it will have taken that message to heart. The move may have also succeeded in blocking, or greatly delaying, a new recourse to the street by Hizbullah and Amal. In that way, March 14 managed to safeguard the army, which will only make Damascus more suspicious of a Suleiman presidency.

No one likes a balance of terror, but in some ways having one today may be preferable to what we had in the weeks when Hizbullah was looking to seize the initiative by blocking roads. But such a balance can only be meaningful if March 14 continues to respect the rule of law. A good start would be to permanently end the practice of shooting in the air when Saad Hariri Saad-Hariri-Profile Sep-07 speaks. Twice this happened last week, in what was an imitation of Hizbullah's response to Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's appearances. If you claim to have confidence in the state, such behavior is counterproductive.

For March 14, the commemoration of Hariri's murder is seen as an opportunity to remind Syria's vice president, Farouq al-Sharaa, that Syria's friends in Lebanon are not as strong as he claimed last December. When asked in a Tuesday interview whether the Hariri tribunal was being politicized, Jumblatt answered that everything about the case was political. That's true in a way, and no amount of non-interference by the parliamentary majority will ever persuade Hizbullah of the contrary. However, March 14 errs in using the tribunal debate as a domestic battering ram. That will only polarize the Lebanese on the case, when the power of Hariri's death was that it unified most of them.

Several weeks ago, I interviewed Detlev Mehlis for The Wall Street Journal. Mehlis, the first commissioner of the United Nations-mandated team investigating the Hariri assassination, cast doubt on the work of his successor, Serge Brammertz. "I haven't seen a word in his reports during the past two years confirming that he has moved forward," Mehlis said.

He recalled that when, during the 1980s and 1990s, he headed the successful investigation of the LaBelle discotheque bombing in Berlin, an essential goal was to ensure the case stayed present in the public consciousness. "For years the LaBelle case dragged on with small successes and failures, but it was always kept alive on the prosecution's side by my working to inform the media; and on the victims' side because their families created pressure groups. I feel that in the Lebanese case, the families of the deceased can certainly play a much more active role."

The message to the victims was simple: stick to the rule of law, demand a thorough and open investigation, and force the international community to fulfill its promise of providing justice. That's why it is internationally that the Lebanese should be working the Hariri case, asking for more clarifications, particularly whether Mehlis is right about Brammertz.

Recently, the top UN legal official, Nicolas Michel, tried to reassure the Lebanese that the investigation and tribunal were moving forward. However, responding to a query from an Al-Hayat interviewer, Raghida Dergham, as to whether Brammertz had information contradicting Mehlis' conclusions, Michel answered, astonishingly: "If I knew the answer to your question this would indicate that I am interfering in the process. I am not, so I don't know the answer to your question."

But if anyone should know where the Hariri investigation is today, it is Michel. After all, he is the person setting up the tribunal's institutional and financial framework. Was he seriously suggesting that keeping abreast of the investigation would constitute interference? Michel will have a lot of egg on his face if there is not enough evidence in commissioner Daniel Bellemare's folder to take to trial this year.

Those are the issues March 14 should be raising, not adjusting their positions to the prospect that the tribunal will begin operating in June.

The majority's imposing a balance of power on the opposition may be the flip side of a strategy to move swiftly toward the trial of Hariri's assassins. That may be smart, or it may not be. But the tribunal must be shielded from domestic Lebanese power struggles, even as the UN needs to be pushed harder to clarify where the process is going. Michel did not do so.

Failing to question his vague statements doesn't honor Hariri's memory.

Talking To: Detlev Mehlis

This an extended version of an interview of Detlev Mehlis by Michael Young used as the basis for an article published in the Wall Street Journal on January 26.

The first commissioner of the UN investigation team into the Hariri assassination was Detlev Mehlis, a Berlin native who is now a senior prosecutor at the city's Superior Prosecutor's Office. His successor was the Belgian Serge Brammertz, who recently left the Hariri investigation to take up duties as prosecutor of the special tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. A Canadian, Daniel Bellemare, has replaced Brammertz, and once the investigation is completed he is expected to become the first prosecutor of the Hariri tribunal. After two years of virtual silence, Mehlis agreed to go on the record for a Wall Street Journal interview I conducted with him, in which he criticized the slow progress in the investigation. This is an expanded version of that interview, which took place in Berlin.

NOW Lebanon: For a long time after you left your post as commissioner of the United Nations-mandated Hariri inquiry in December 2005, you refused to go on the record to talk about the case. Why do so now?

Detlev Mehlis: My successor, Serge Brammertz, has just left after two years on the job, and a new commissioner, Daniel Bellemare, has been installed. So it's a good time for a summing up on my part. To have spoken up earlier would have created an impression of interfering in the investigation. I also feel I owe it to the people I worked with during my eight months as commissioner. This is my final statement, except for one exception when I will be interviewed by a German newspaper.

NOW: Recently, however, you did go on the record to tell a Frankfurt daily that you "regretted" having left the investigation in December 2005. Why did you say this?

Mehlis: From what I am hearing, the investigation has lost all the momentum it had [when Brammertz took over] in January 2006. Had I stayed on, I would have handled things differently. But I couldn't stay because the UN told me that for security reasons, I could no longer remain in Lebanon after January 2006. They offered to relocate me outside the country, but this was impossible for me. The permanent representative of Germany at the UN told the organization that it would be unacceptable for a German prosecutor to stay away from his team in Beirut. I fully agreed with this. I also left for professional and family reasons.

NOW: What would you have done differently than Brammertz?

Mehlis: Above all I would have continued informing the UN Security Council and the Lebanese on progress in the investigation. When I arrived in Beirut, I said that participation of the media was central for democracy. The Lebanese public has to be informed, even if there are setbacks in the investigation. In a democracy, people have the right to know, particularly when a prime minister was murdered and people don't trust the authorities. This was an opportunity to restore credibility to the justice system.

There is also a practical rationale: To have the support of the public, to encourage witnesses to come forward with information, and for governments to send specialized investigators, you need to give them an idea of what you are doing.

NOW: What makes you think that Brammertz has not moved forward? After all, he wrote in his reports that he had identified "persons of interest."

Mehlis: Unfortunately, I haven't seen a word in his reports during the past two years confirming that he has moved forward. When I left, we were ready to name suspects, but [the investigation] seems not to have progressed from that stage. There is no judicial term that I have ever heard of called a "person of interest." You have suspects, and a "person of interest" is definitely not a suspect. If you have identified suspects in a case like this one, you don't allow them to roam free for years to tamper with evidence, flee the country or commit similar crimes.

NOW: But what if Brammertz did not reveal his information for tactical reasons? He has defended preserving the "secrecy of the investigation."

Mehlis: I don't accept the concept of the "secrecy of the investigation," nor is it a judicial principle that I know. For me, as a German, the notion of a secret investigation sounds ominous. For the reasons I outlined earlier, the public has the right to know, and the UN Commission has to inform without endangering its investigation.

NOW: Brammertz reopened the crime scene after he took over from you. What was your reaction to that move?

Mehlis: I wondered what he was doing. We already had Swiss, French and German expert opinion indicating that the explosion that killed Hariri was beyond doubt an above-ground explosion. By reopening the crime scene, he cast doubt on the credibility of the investigation that I had led. He also wasted valuable time and manpower. All this only to end up confirming our initial findings. But this is typical of a broader problem, namely that in the past two years, the UN investigation has told us little we didn't already know before Brammertz became commissioner. We are now told that Hariri was killed for political reasons and that there were several layers of participation in the conspiracy. We needed two years of investigative endeavor to discover this?

But let me hasten to add that my criticism is not personal. I'm the one who recommended Brammertz, among others, for the post of commissioner, so I must bear some responsibility for what happened afterward.

NOW: Do you feel Brammertz's silence may have been due to his fear that being more open about the inquiry might have led to political conflict inside Lebanon?

Mehlis: I don't buy the argument. The assassination was always going to have political repercussions. It was a political crime. We had to accept this, and it came with the territory. For many Lebanese, we did too little; for the United Nations, we did too much. Many at the UN would have preferred a softer approach. I understood this. The UN didn't want another problem.

NOW: So, was there interference by the secretary general's office in your work, particularly from then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan?

Mehlis: Annan made it clear to me that he did not want another trouble spot. I respected this, but he also respected my point of view. Traditionally, there is tension between politics and justice, and I accepted that Annan did not want more problems because of the Hariri case. Relations are helped little when a prosecutor [like Brammertz] uses terms such as the "secrecy of the investigation." Yet Annan was always very supportive of my work and well-being. The UN did not interfere in my efforts and had no leverage over me, as I was not after a position in the organization. Even had the UN tried, there were investigators from 17 countries who might have thought differently, making this impossible.

NOW: There was the famous case where, in your first report, one could access through the track-changes command the edits in the initial draft of the document. It was clear that you had edited out the names of two very senior members of the Syrian leadership mentioned by a Syrian witness. Was leaving the track changes in intentional, so people could see which officials might have been implicated?

Mehlis: Not at all. When I prepared the original report, it was my impression that it would be confidential; that we would release to the public a version containing fewer details. However, in New York I learned that Annan wanted to make the report public. I intervened to say that, therefore, we needed to remove the names in question, because the persons mentioned were not suspects, but had merely been mentioned by a witness. Only the names of suspects and certain prominent witnesses were in the report. The UN press office made an unfortunate mistake in releasing the document with the track changes. It was definitely not intentional.

NOW: Your reports, the fact that you asked the Lebanese authorities to arrest four pro-Syrian Lebanese intelligence chiefs, and your requests to interview Syrian officials and intelligence officers all showed who you suspected of being involved in the crime. What was it like dealing with the Syrians, and how many times did you travel to Syria?

Mehlis: My interlocutors always treated me courteously and professionally, even in a friendly way. But they also made it clear to me that there were limits to their cooperation. I twice went to Syria: once for preliminary talks and once to interview witnesses.

NOW: Before leaving, you had put in a request to interview Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad as a witness. The Syrians were quite bothered by this. In the end, you never spoke to President Assad. What happened?

Mehlis: I left before the process could go through and don't know what later happened. There were reports that Brammertz held a meeting with President Assad, but that is legally quite different than taking down a witness statement. In fact, I took down the statements of many Lebanese politicians, who did not seem especially keen to put their signature on a document having legal repercussions. I also interviewed the Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud, who seemed to have no problem with this.

NOW: Two of your key Syrian witnesses did not seem particularly reliable. One told a press conference in Damascus that his testimony was fraudulent; the other, a former intelligence officer, later became a suspect in Hariri's murder, and has made contradictory statements.

Mehlis: In such crimes, you cannot be choosy about whom you are dealing with. What do you expect: white angels coming out from the blue? Those two gave us a lot of information, which we could sometimes corroborate with information received elsewhere. In the end, the tribunal will determine their credibility and ask why they agreed to sign their statements. Maybe the witnesses were there to discredit the investigation, but that can help us determine who wants to discredit the investigation.

NOW: The four intelligence chiefs you asked the Lebanese authorities to arrest are still in jail. Their lawyers are saying that they are entitled to be set free, pending a trial. What are your thoughts about this?

Mehlis: That is one reason why it's important to accelerate the trial process, to protect the rights of the accused. At the same time, we did find sufficient evidence that all four generals were involved in the Hariri case. This was not my assessment alone, but also that of my commission's investigators and the Lebanese judiciary. Recently, I was accused in press reports in Beirut of having interviewed one of the suspects, Jamil al-Sayyed, without his lawyer. That is nonsense. But there has been a lot of media misinformation on my participation in the Hariri case in order to derail the investigation.

NOW: Last week there were reports that judges had been appointed to the Hariri tribunal, which will try suspects identified in the ongoing investigation. The tribunal was established last year under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and will be based near The Hague. This suggests that there is progress.

Mehlis: Perhaps, but because I haven't seen a word on new suspects in the past two years, I have my doubts. I think people should not expect a trial within the next two to three years, unless the investigation regains momentum. I fear that the suspects will end up in a judicial no-man's land, with Lebanon claiming they are under the UN's jurisdiction, and the UN saying that they must remain under Lebanese jurisdiction.

NOW: You seem to believe that the problem with the Hariri tribunal is not so much the likelihood of a cover up, but that the process will stall. Do you think a cover up, like [with the] Lockerbie bombing, is possible?

Mehlis: The Hariri case is an unusual one. Usually in investigations, you start at the bottom and work your way up. In the Hariri case, we started pretty much at the top and worked down. We had an accurate view of how the assassination took place from above, but less clear a view of what happened on the ground. That is why the investigation was supposed to continue [when I left].Therefore I think that it would be very difficult to have a Lockerbie II.

NOW: There is palpable international reluctance to carry the Hariri case to its conclusion, and you alluded to this earlier. Few at the UN, for example, are particularly eager to destabilize Syria's regime, assuming its involvement in the Hariri murder is proven. Do you think this might derail the case?

Mehlis: You can't prosecute governments and countries; you prosecute individuals. When I headed [the UN investigation], there was a will to get to the bottom of the crime – shown in all the Security Council resolutions on the matter. Why not now? One of the most helpful [member nations] was Russia, which persuaded Syria to comply with the resolutions. Even with states having different interests, common understandings can be reached.

NOW: What do you know of Daniel Bellemare, the new commissioner?

Mehlis: I have never met him, heard of him or been contacted by him.

NOW: What advice would you give to Bellemare?

Mehlis: Concentrate on the Hariri case itself; don't try to write a history book. Focus on the whos, hows and whys of the crime. Analysis can never replace solid investigative police work. As my top Swedish investigator once put it, "A case like this cannot be solved through a PowerPoint presentation."

NOW: What does the Hariri case mean for the UN?

Mehlis: This can either be an example of efficient UN involvement or a one-time experiment. The UN's image is at stake, particularly in Lebanon, where people put high hopes – perhaps too high – in the Hariri investigation.

NOW: It took you nine years to bring convictions for the 1986 bombing of the LaBelle discotheque in Berlin, in which you accused Libyan officials of being behind the attack. What did that experience teach you?

Mehlis: That justice prevails, but you have to have patience. I also recall that for years the LaBelle case dragged on with small successes and failures, but it was always kept alive on the prosecution's side by my working to inform the media, and on the victims' side because their families created pressure groups. I feel that in the [Hariri] case, the families of the deceased can certainly play a much more active role. It's important to keep such cases in the public eye.

NOW: In conclusion, do you feel the Hariri tribunal will go forward?

Mehlis: Someone committed a terrible crime, and someone is responsible. Definitely, no one can abolish this tribunal. I may not be happy about the time frame, but am deeply convinced the case can be solved and will be solved.

Bernard Kouchner scores an own-goal

You know that French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner didn't expect to be long for the Sarkozy administration when he decided to talk to James Traub of The New York Times. Traub has just written a long profile of Kouchner in the paper's Sunday magazine, and the foreign minister used the occasion to make an unwelcome enemy at the Elysee Palace.

In a much cited passage, Kouchner criticized France's opening to Syria last November, the purpose of which was to bring about a Lebanese presidential election. At the time, the foreign minister had tried to push for an election by visiting Beirut. At the same time, two close advisers to President Nicolas Sarkozy, Claude Gueant and Jean-David Levitte, were dispatched to Damascus to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad. They returned empty-handed, embarrassing Sarkozy, but also humiliating Kouchner, who had opposed dealing with Damascus, who was made to look like he had betrayed his Lebanese March 14 interlocutors, and who, the foreign minister told Traub, had anyway predicted the effort would fail.

When Traub then asked Kouchner whether the fiasco had shown the limits of his brand of intimate diplomacy, the foreign minister replied: "Sorry, no, the problem is to not play the game my people have been playing in Damascus." The problem, he continued, was at the Elysee Palace, but not Levitte who was "in agreement with me." It was plain that Kouchner blamed Gueant, a former prefect who is Sarkozy's most powerful adviser. Kouchner continued: "It's always the same game with them. It's a problem of experience. Those who know, know." It remains unclear precisely why Gueant - whose experience is indeed largely limited to domestic issues - should have taken on a central role in discussions with Syria. But let's venture a one-word guess: Qatar. The Gulf emirate has new-found influence in Paris, not least because of its financial prowess, and the relationship is now clearly run out of Sarkozy's office. It was Gueant who more recently was contacted, at Syria's request, by the Qatari foreign minister to float an alternative to Michel Suleiman as president. The French were forced to backtrack, however, since such a scheme would have effectively undermined the ongoing Arab League plan to get Suleiman elected. But if Suleiman's candidacy is derailed, expect Gueant and the Qataris to jump back into the name game, which is precisely what the Syrians would like to see happen.

Kouchner's interview was more than just a shot across Gueant's bow to define turf. There was some conviction in the foreign minister's statement that "the core of the danger is there, in between Iraq and Iran, in between Lebanon and Syria. This is the common enemy, not only for Americans but for all democracies. The common enemy is extremism."

In a sense that's a fair statement directed at Gueant, a quintessential political technocrat and professional civil servant who has little patience for burdening the machinery of politics with idealism. Sarkozy, being Sarkozy, probably sees an advantage in watching two of his senior officials fighting it out, as it allows him to play the balance. But Kouchner is not destined to stay around for long, while Gueant is, and this will have a significant impact on how France pursues its connection with Syria.

Interestingly, Kouchner seemed in the dark on the details of Gueant's and Levitte's Damascus trip. Traub informed the foreign minister that Levitte had told him that "Sarkozy authorized the trip only after Saad Hariri Saad-Hariri-Profile Sep-07 ... agreed that he should do so." Kouchner's reaction was to call Levitte "a loyal guy" who, again, "knew that I was right" about avoiding the Syrians.

However, an alert observer sent me an Al-Hayat article, dated November 28, 2007, outlining the details of the French effort. According to the newspaper, Gueant traveled to Saudi Arabia before heading for Damascus, to seek the advice of King Abdullah. The king was skeptical about the likelihood of success with Assad. However, he did tell the French envoy that if a visit might help Lebanon then he should go ahead with it - adding that a personal meeting with Gueant had a better chance of success than a telephone call between Sarkozy and Assad. Once the French had the Saudis' blessing, Levitte informed Hariri of their decision. Far from seeking his approval, Levitte presented Hariri with a fait accompli. Kouchner evidently had little idea of what had taken place.

French diplomacy in Lebanon has been anarchic in recent months, although there is general agreement that the current chief of mission in Beirut, Andre Parant, is a true professional. If so, he is poorly served by a ministerial hierarchy that is said to be developing few new policies for Lebanon, even as it is periodically circumvented by Gueant, whose familiarity with Lebanese affairs, and foreign affairs in general, remains questionable. At a time when Paris is frantically trying to carve out a new strategic role for itself in the Gulf, it seems to have abandoned the relative advantages it once enjoyed in the Levant, where, we are invariably reminded, France traditionally has had "ties and friendships."

The best thing the French can do today is to return to the international consensus on Lebanon. That may not be particularly exciting; it may even force Sarkozy to tone down his showboating. However, the Gueant-Qatar-Syria axis, with its mixture of baroque deal-making, financial incentive, and abandonment of principle, is just the kind of situation that is likely to explode in Sarkozy's face, much in the same way that similar arrangements blew up in the face of former President Francois Mitterrand more than a decade ago. You don't run diplomacy out of a onetime prefect's office, with an eye cocked at foreign checkbooks.

Meanwhile, we might spare a sympathetic thought for Kouchner. His sorties to Lebanon were unmitigated disasters; his presumption that he knew all the actors personally was nonsense, as his political template was the long-gone Civil War years. But the minister, all clatter and mayhem, still had and has better intuitions than Gueant. Nicolas Sarkozy once claimed to share Kouchner's humanist instincts. How true is that today?

Alas, it looks like Shiites vs. the rest

By Michael Young
Thursday, January 31, 2008

The tragic and senseless killing of demonstrators in Shiyyah last Sunday was, perhaps rightfully, seen as the opening shot in a new phase of the Lebanese crisis that may turn much more violent. Who was responsible for the crimes still remains unclear. But a cooler analysis of what took place shows an equally disturbing reality: Sunday was a political disaster for the Shiite opposition parties, Hizbullah and Amal, whose inability to achieve their political ends, but also to retreat from the brink, makes the likelihood of further hostilities much greater.

After the end of the summer 2006 war and the growing confrontation between the parliamentary majority and the opposition, Hizbullah was always careful to place non-Shiites in the forefront of the opposition's actions. While Sunni representatives were anemic, Michel Aoun was, for a time, someone who added credibility to the claim that the opposition was multiconfessional. That argument took a severe beating in the street protests of January 23, 2007, when the Aounists were unable to block roads for very long in Christian areas without assistance from the army. By nightfall, even that endeavor had collapsed as roads inside the Christian heartland and between Beirut and Tripoli were opened.

However, Aoun struck back in the Metn by-election last summer, when he managed to get an unknown, Camille Khoury, elected to Parliament. It was a pyrrhic victory to be sure. The vote tally confirmed that the general had lost a sizable share of the Maronite vote; it showed that he relied heavily on a unified Armenian electorate not particularly committed to the general personally, that might vote very differently in the future; but it also showed that Aoun was not out of the game, as some had predicted.

However, from the moment the March 14 coalition decided to support the army commander, Michel Suleiman, as its candidate for president, Aoun's situation changed dramatically. The general had calculated that a presidential vacuum would enhance his chances of being elected, on the grounds that the thwarted Christians would rally behind him. In fact the exact opposite has happened. Provided with the option of a potentially strong Christian president in Suleiman, displeased with Aoun's and his ally Suleiman Franjieh's wanton attacks against Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, never really convinced by the Free Patriotic Movement's alliance with Hizbullah, the Christians, many of whom voted for Aoun in 2005, have been steadily turning away from the general.

A sure sign of this is the behavior of that cunning weathervane of Christian opinion, Michel Murr. In recent weeks Murr has mounted a very damaging internal rebellion against Aoun. He has defended the Arab plan that seeks to bring Suleiman to power as "good for the Christians," when Aoun's greatest fear is that his community will embrace such a line and abandon his own candidacy. Murr has defended Sfeir against Franjieh's attacks, even as most Aounist parliamentarians who once made Bkirki their second home remained silent. And Murr declared that the Metn would not participate in opposition street demonstrations. This was an easy promise to make, because Aoun doesn't even have the capacity to organize protests in areas his bloc members represent in Parliament.

The thing is, Murr's attitude is popular among Christians. And last Sunday, Aoun found himself in the worst possible situation when his ally Hizbullah and the army - the one state institution in which the general still retains some sympathy - clashed. For most Christians the choice was an easy one to make: They sided with the army, particularly after demonstrators were reported to have broken cars in the Christian quarter of Ain al-Rummaneh, where someone later tossed a grenade that injured several people. In that context, Aoun's alliance with Hizbullah now looks to many of his coreligionists like a bad idea, one that might precipitate a civil conflict if the opposition pursues its protests, which almost nobody seriously accepts as a demand for more electricity and cheaper food.

But then put yourselves in Hizbullah's shoes, and those of the Amal movement. With your Christian partner neutralized, suddenly the opposition looks mainly like a Shiite phenomenon. Worse, it looks like a mainly Shiite phenomenon directed against the Lebanese Army, a presidential election, and, by extension, the Lebanese state itself. This is certainly not where Hizbullah's secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, ever wanted to position himself; and it is, in a word, suicidal for Shiites.

However, that apparently has not induced Hizbullah to backtrack. The Sunday rioting was probably destined to discredit Suleiman. The opposition's follow-up criticism of the army commander as someone who is no longer a consensus presidential candidate lends credence to this theory. The Syrians have recently been trying to peddle alternative candidates, via Qatar, to the French - which Qatari and French denials in fact only confirmed. Suddenly, Hizbullah finds itself in the uncomfortable position of blocking the election of a man many Christians regard as a potentially strong leader, all because the party won't abandon Aoun, who is on the political decline. And why won't it do so? Because Hizbullah desperately needs the general as an ally in a future government.

Whether Hizbullah's calculations are mainly domestic, or are shaped to a large extent by Syria is irrelevant. The party is, perhaps unintentionally, pushing Shiites into a confrontation with the rest of Lebanese society to protect itself, and nothing could be worse for the community. Hizbullah's inability to achieve any of its political aims in the past 13 months has only increased its sense of frustration, and the prospect of violence. The party is flailing, but March 14 must at all costs help think of creative ways to prevent the Shiites from succumbing to a new "Kerbala complex," a sense that victimhood is the historical lot of their community.

In 1975, the Christians had their own Kerbala complex, one that dictated stubbornness in the defense of Christian prerogatives, which at the time were regarded as an existential red line. In the process they lost their control over the state. Hizbullah has made defense of its weapons an existential red line for the Shiite community. But Kerbala, as one astute analyst has put it, is hardly something the Shiites should want to remember, as it ended in a massacre and defeat. Nor is it something any Lebanese should want the Shiite community to remember, or repeat.

The Christians learned to their detriment during the 1975-1990 conflict that a war against the Sunnis was also in many ways a war against the Arab world. The Christian community never recovered from that disaster. That's a lesson the Shiite community should not have to learn.