The United Nations investigation into the Feb. 14 car bombing in Beirut that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has been more suspense than mystery. All along the clues have led to Damascus, which had the motive, means–and brutal instincts–to kill Hariri, a critic of Syrian control of Lebanon. The only question was whether the truth would come out. It looks like it will.
A UN report made public on Thursday confirmed that Syria was the mastermind behind the assassination, with the cooperation of Lebanese lackeys. President Bush has called on the UN Security Council to meet immediately to consider diplomatic and economic sanction on Syria. This is a moment of truth for the UN.
In usual UN fashion, the organization last year demanded by resolution that Syria end its occupation of Lebanon but never moved to enforce its demand. We will now learn if the UN will harrumph, but take no action, in the face of compelling evidence that Syria carried out the assassination of a foreign leader.
Don’t count on a sudden show of nerve by the world body. One of the investigators in the Hariri case has acknowledged that some references implicating relatives of Syrian President Bashar Assad–including his brother and brother-in-law–were deleted, as if to soften the impact of the probe.
The conclusion of the investigation is hardly a surprise. For at least two decades Syria has controlled Lebanon’s political and economic life. It seemed highly unlikely that someone could have carried out such an enormous attack–21 people died–without the knowledge and active participation of Syria and its cohorts in Lebanon.
This scrutiny of Syria comes at a time when Assad’s regime is threatened on all fronts. International condemnation and anti-Syrian protests in Lebanon following Hariri’s assassination finally forced Syria to withdraw its troops from that country. Syria can no longer count on the Soviet bloc to prop up its economy. With Saddam Hussein on trial next door, the Israelis and Palestinians taking cautious steps toward a negotiated peace and Lebanon decisively moving toward democratic government, Syria’s neighborhood is changing dramatically.
There are signs of change within the country as well. A coalition of dissident groups recently issued the “Damascus Declaration,” calling for political reforms. It’s not yet exactly the Velvet Revolution–one of the signers and leaders of the declaration is the Muslim Brotherhood, which favors an Islamist state, not a pluralistic or secular democracy. But the sound of dissidence in Syria has to be a positive development.
Democratic developments in Lebanon have to be particularly worrying to Assad. The democratic uprising in the former Soviet republic of Georgia triggered a similar revolution in Ukraine. Perhaps the example of a democratic Lebanon scared the Syrian rulers enough to order a move as desperate as a hit on a popular Lebanese leader.
Whatever the motivation, the world must demonstrate that the price is political and economic isolation, a squeeze on Syria. May it speed the departure of another Middle Eastern despot.
