Lebanon blogs

According to As'ad Abukhalil, Pierre Gemayel was a fairly small fry in the Lebanese cabinet and there would not have been major political reasons to target him

However, since he was known as very anti-Syrian, it might be that the reason behind the assassination is to embarrass Syria who is just now re-establishing relations with Iraq in preparation for a three-way summit (with Iran) to review the situation in Iraq.

Now, that does not sit well with some White House policy makers nor with Israel.

And the assassination has also thrown a spanner in Hezbollah's plans of organized protests against the government starting this Thursday. The manifestations appear to have been called off for now.

Syria has denied any connection to the assassination and is also calling for an investigation.

Corrected links:

Iran-Iraq-Syria summit

White House link.

Thanks very much for all those links, FurGaia.

It is all immensely complicated: as I've been reading around, I have seen suggestions as well that the Bush administration is -- or at least was -- in fact if not yet openly supportive of the three-way summit as a way of facilitating its exit from Iraq. Robert Fisk at least hints at that analysis, as does the Independent leader, although they are perhaps trusting too much in the pro-diplomacy forces in Washington and Mr Blair's similar tilt.

One important truth that your links suggest: it's a mistake to think of either Syria or Washington as monoliths. There are important divisions in both places that may be relevant to this killing and will certainly affect the way the responses play out. From your last link, to the McClatchy papers:

Bush faces growing calls to open a high-level dialogue with Syria as part of a strategy to salvage the U.S. mission in Iraq. Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who co-chairs a bipartisan panel on Iraq that's expected to issue its recommendations next month, has said he favors such talks. So have several leading Democratic lawmakers.

But within the administration, a group of policymakers centered at the White House and in the Pentagon are promoting instead a stepped-up effort to destabilize Assad's regime, according to senior U.S. officials and outside experts who follow Syria.

Last month, officials from the White House's National Security Council held a little-noticed meeting with representatives of a loose coalition of anti-Assad exiles and encouraged them to set up a Washington office.

The group, the National Salvation Front of Syria, includes liberal secularists; former Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam, who broke with Assad last year; and members of Syria's strongest Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood.

The White House also has made quiet overtures to Khaddam himself.

Three administration officials said the effort has the support of Saudi Arabia, which has all but cut ties with Assad, and other Sunni Arab nations that fear an expansion of Shiite Muslim political power radiating from Iran through Iraq to Lebanon and potentially into the Persian Gulf. The officials refused to speak on the record because covert intelligence programs are involved.

The killing of Gemayel, an outspoken critic of Syria and its allies in Hezbollah, is likely to strengthen those who oppose negotiations with Assad, the U.S. officials and experts said.

Although I knew that the Cheney party were determined on destabilizing both Syria and Iran (well: are already doing that), that particular Syrian dissident coalition is news to me. Sounds like a familiar gambit, though, doesn't it?

As Seymour Hersh has just reported in the New Yorker (link in Tim's last post below), U.S. intelligence communities have increasingly been advising against bellicosity towards Iran and Syria, but this development will most likely put those in favour of diplomacy on the defensive.

For that matter, it could be mainly internal. I mean, it's not like Lebanese politicians never make enemies. Fisk seems to think the guy was OK, but other things I've seen about his and his family's past are not so savoury--apparently his dad or his grandfather or something was the leader of the Phalangists when Sharon let them into Sabra and Shatila. He and his then have roots deep in the civil war; there have to be plenty of people who'd blame him for something, rightly or wrongly.

It does seem odd that Syria would do it. One would expect that the backlash would be more significant than the guy's presence. On the other hand, maybe they just figure this family is a major long-term factor in Lebanese politics, a dynasty, and if you get rid of enough of them it will be more important in the end than whatever short-term instability results. They're no more a humanitarian bunch than the Americans or Israelis.

PLG, analysts on the left seem to have no trouble calling the Phalange "fascist" -- Juan Cole has (see a comment of his at his site on 10 February 2005), as does the Angry Arab (FurGaia's first link above). You'll see that that is not true of the blogs listed on the Guardian site if you investigate them very far.

Today Cole is lamenting that the Syrians have played into the hands of Bush and the Israelis, which suggests that he indeed holds the Syrians in some way responsible for this latest provocation. But the focus of his criticism remains on the larger games being played by Bush and the Israelis -- he's a great read.

The immediate motive for killing Gemayel or any other current minister in Siniora's government (and an attempt was made yesterday on one other) would be to deprive the cabinet of a quorum -- all the Hezbollah ministers and those allied with Hezbollah walked out last week, leaving Siniora with just three over a quorum. Hezbollah's motives are complicated too -- they are resisting various moves to lay the blame for Israel's invasion at their feet.

Here is Cole setting Lebanon in the wider context:

The crisis is a further testament to the bankruptcy of George W. Bush's Middle East policy. Under the dishonest rhetoric of 'democratization,' what Bush has really been about is creating pro-American winners and anti-American losers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. Bush's vision is not democratic because he always installs a tyranny of the majority. The vanquished are to be crushed and ridiculed, the victors to exult in their triumph. It is like a Leni Riefenstahl film.

The problem is that when you crush the Pushtuns of Afghanistan, who traditionally ruled the country, they have means of hitting back (ask the Canadian troops in Qandahar). When you crush the Sunni Arabs of Iraq, who had traditionally ruled Iraq, they have ways of organizing a guerrilla movement and acting as spoilers of Bush's new Kurdish-Shiite axis in Baghdad. When you crush Hamas even after they won the elections in early 2006, they have means of continuing to struggle.

In Lebanon, Bush egged on the pro-Hariri movement against the Syrians and their allies. Then he egged on Israel to bomb the Shiites of southern Lebanon (and, mysteriously, the rest of Lebanon, too). So he tried to create the March 14th alliance around Hariri as the winners who take all in Lebanon.

So obviously there will be trouble about this. Everything Bush touches turns to ashes, bombings, assassinations. He doesn't know how to compromise and he doesn't know how to influence his neo-colonial possessions so that they can compromise.

Yo;

Thanks for the links above, even if the NBC one seems to be suprisingly poorly written. I guees that comes with the MSM's natural tendency to see all actions by their government as, if nothing else, rooted in good intentions. To report reality and the disconnect with official reaction the word "but" must be used in every second sentence.

Speaking of the "official reaction" ,,, is it just me or did is the impression given that if Iran said anything short of "Jesus is Lord", Washington would look at it with a jaundiced eye.

al Jazeera has a good take on it - and free from the boulderizing sharp pens of NBC editors.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/257DD78A-63A7-4427-A444-262D0FD9F6C7.htm

croghan27