An arresting development

Last week an amusing rumor circulated in Beirut. It went like this: The former head of the General Security Directorate, Jamil as-Sayyed, irritated the Syrians by using his meeting with President Bashar al-Assad to lend weight to his subsequent public attack against Saad al-Hariri. Assad had not appreciated being turned into a tool for the assault because he did not share Sayyed’s hostility toward Hariri.

Now we know better, given that Syria’s judiciary issued arrest warrants on Sunday for 33 people, most of them officials and journalists close to Hariri, as well as against Detlev Mehlis, the first commissioner of the United Nations team investigating Rafik al-Hariri’s assassination. Here is the other face of Syria’s double game in Lebanon: On the one side it claims to support Saad Hariri and appears reluctant to allow Hezbollah to politically cripple the prime minister; on the other, Damascus has systematically undermined Hariri itself.

Those around Hariri have questioned what Syrian behavior says about the Saudi-Syrian understanding over Lebanon finalized in meetings earlier this summer between King Abdullah and Assad. However, this attitude is naïve. Syria’s prime consideration in Lebanon for decades has been to rule alone, and the Saudis signed off on the understanding to gain advantages elsewhere, above all in Iraq, where Riyadh hoped that Syria might help it derail Nouri al-Maliki’s prime ministerial bid. That the Syrians failed in this regard was never going to make Assad reconsider the Lebanese part of the bargain.

The Syrian president sees open pastures ahead for resurrecting Syrian domination. The arrest warrants represent a new level of Syrian escalation, apparently in response to the Saudis’ inability or unwillingness to make Hariri give up on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Playing the Sunnis off against the Shia through the tribunal is Syria’s main ticket back into Lebanese affairs. While Assad may not sanction a military strike by Hezbollah against Hariri, as this would deny Damascus the latitude to continue playing the Sunni card, other options are open, including provoking tension on the ground.

What does this tell us about the Syrian-Saudi understanding? Is it finished? Things appear to be more complicated. The Syrians gain from the understanding and are likely to preserve it since they are now able to continuously reinterpret its guidelines to their own advantage. They have abandoned the anti-Maliki scheme; they are keeping Hariri weak; and Damascus has just reaffirmed its relationship with Tehran, days before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled to fly to Lebanon on an official visit.

The problem for the Saudis is that there is not much they can do about Syrian behavior. They offered Assad a green light back into Lebanon, but never stopped to ask what would happen if the Syrians failed to fulfill their end of the bargain. As things stand today, the Saudis need Assad in Lebanon to stand as a barrier between Hezbollah and the Sunnis, while Assad needs the Saudis far less. Hariri is effectively Syria’s hostage, and his only means of leverage, a refusal to give up on the tribunal, is proving highly contentious.

Making matters worse is that even if Hariri does what the Syrians want him to on the tribunal, that will only invite onerous Syrian demands later. Once he loses the tribunal, the Syrians could easily topple his government by asking more than a third of ministers to resign (and Adnan al-Sayyed Hussein, supposedly from President Michel Sleiman’s quota, would comply). Damascus could then compel Walid Jumblatt to side with Hezbollah and the Aounists in parliament, turning the minority into a majority. This would allow Assad to impose a Lebanese government in which Hariri’s power is greatly reduced. If Hariri refuses, Syria could bring in a more pliable prime minister, taking control of the state and security apparatus.

It’s difficult to see how the Saudis, or all those who have publicly defended Lebanese sovereignty, including the United States and France, might halt this process. Onetime Arab powers such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt are no longer what they used to be. If the Arab states give him trouble today, Assad can simply shift direction and widen his margin of maneuver by dealing with Iran or Turkey.

The Lebanese have been worried about what might happen in the streets if Beirut does not end its collaboration with the Special Tribunal. But that is only the façade for a broader power play by Syria to reimpose its writ in Lebanon. The Saudis feel duped, but is anyone particularly surprised? We could have told them they would be long before Lebanese sovereignty was thrown on the auction block.