The United States decided to take the side of the elected government of Lebanon in its fight against the Fatah Al-Islam militia that took refuge in a Palestinian camp after attacking the military.
$30 to $40 million in military aid is on its way to improve the efficiency of the Lebanese Army that is facing too many armed factions backed by too many countries that have no interest in having peaceful Lebanese countries. The aid will be mostly in vehicles, ammunitions and body armor and US officials have stated that the Lebanese government requested the military assistance program Tuesday (today!). The move will most likely be a strong message toward Syria, suspected to be backing up extremists groups that have been behind recent car bombings and assassinations, and also toward Iran and its Hezbollah’s. Remember that Lebanon is and has been a power keg ready to fall in yet another fratricide bloody civil war.
A couple of months ago, I wrote the following:
Lebanon 2006. The tragedy goes in the country of the Cedar tree!
For the past 18 months, following the murder of Prime Minister of the time, Mr Rafik Hariri, roadside bombs have claimed the lives of politicians and Journalists.
In February 2005, an improvised explosive device (IED) estimated to one ton of high explosives blew up while Hariri’s motorcade drove by.
Hariri was openly opposed to a Syrian plan to extend the presidential term in Lebanon, extension that would have benefited its puppet government. His death was attributed to Syria of course, but for a while the BBC also blamed America and Israel and pushed forward a conspiracy theory stating that because both countries were interested in having Syria turned into the “Black sheep” of the world for its active support to the insurgency in Iraq and to the anti-Israel Hezbollah in Lebanon, both had a good motive for such a twisted plan.
Eventually, that assassination led to the withdrawal of the Syrian forces from Lebanon and their redeployment on the 600kms Syrian border with Iraq, and the UN just passed a resolution to setup a special tribunal to bring the murderers to justice and find who pulled the strings.
Last week, pro-Westerner and anti-Syrian Pierre Gemayel, son of the former president, Minister of industry and Christian Phalangist was murdered in public, shot along with his body guard by hit men that ambushed his car and used silenced pistols, a first in the Lebanese political crime history that has been dominated by roadside bombs (the highest the target, the bigger the bomb!).
What has happened?
Syria was officially collaborating with the investigation and complying with the UN, the USA, Israel, and their specific demands.
Would Bashar Al Assad, President of the Syrian Arab Republic (actually more like a religious Allawite dictatorship over a Sunni-Shia majority), be so short-sighted as to have ordered that execution? After all, he already seems to be deeply related to the Hariri assassination.
The Syrian president had overtly tried to get the term of the current Syrian puppet president in Lebanon extended (Emile Lahoud) and Gemayel was strongly opposed to the idea. That is a possible motive!
Furthermore, the Lebanese law states that the government must be dissolved if one third of its 24 members becomes “unavailable” or resign. Some see the recent Crime spree as a mean to covertly overthrow the current administration that is now two resignations or deaths short of the required third. That could be a motive too!
Finally, two “rival” Christian parties (one pro and one against Syria) represent the Christians of Lebanon and the murder could have had some negative effect in the Christian community and profited the pro-Syrian group led by Aoun. Another motive?
Throw the Hezbollah in the mix and its claims of political legitimacy (the group was one of the government’s majority faction until its 6 members resigned to protest the post Hariri assassination anti-Syrian campaigns), the Israelo-Hezbollah war conducted from the Southern borders, and the historical Syrian claim for the land of Lebanon that should have been part of a Great Syria, and you can see why this powder keg is ready to blow.
Now what?
- Lebanon is in trouble and a civil war looms again.
- Pro-Syrians versus anti-Syrians
- Sunnis against Shiites, and Druzes.
- Christians against Muslims.
- Pro-Syrians Christians against anti-Syrians Christians
- Lebanese against Hezbollah.
- Pro-Syrians and Hezbollah versus anti-Syrians.
- Israel against Hezbollah and eventually against Lebanese forces.
- Syria against anti-Syrian Lebanese to help out pro-Syrian Lebanese that called for help.
- Israel against Syria.
- Israel against Syria, Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The combinations are endless and a troubling reminder of another civil war, another time, when all the religious groups and factions had their militias slaughtering each other while Israel was fighting Arafat’s PLO in Beyrouth.
To top it up, America will certainly use as the leverage any proof of the Syrian involvement in the murders as a tool to force Bashar Al Assad to stop supporting the insurgency in Iraq and shut the Syrian border with Iraq to any kind of traffic in exchange of some kind of “immunity”.
Most likely, Lebanon will pay a big price soon in the name of a bigger picture, another lamb sacrificed on the altar of a local but bigger geopolitics game.
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