Writing in the Daily Star, Rami G. Khoury voices his opinion on Hariri's attempt at a final pre-indictment neutralization of political animosity between the pro-sovereignty parliamentary majority and Syria:
Related Posts:... only its timing was a surprise, not its substance. It marks a peak to a political process that has been under way for a year in the short term, and for some 4,000 years in the longer historical perspective.
In the short-term, it represents the difficult political transition that sees Lebanon seeking to achieve two difficult and perhaps impossible balancing acts. The first is to balance justice and stability – the urgent need for justice ... for the murder of Rafik Hariri and 22 others; alongside the equal imperative of maintaining calm, stability and economic growth that could be wildly ravaged by violence if the indictments trigger new murders, bombings, political deadlock and sectarian fighting.
The second balancing act is between sovereignty and national self-interest – the ancient dynamic between the demographic weight and strategic geography of Lebanon and Syria ...
... the whole assault on Syria in February-June 2005 was highly politically driven, reflecting a momentary convergence between two powerful forces: deep and widespread resentment against Syria in much of Lebanon for its dominance of the country during a period of nearly three decades, and an American-led international desire to pressure and even break the ruling powers in Damascus, for many reasons.
Syria adjusted to this combination of forces by withdrawing from Lebanon and hunkering down to withstand and actively resist the international political assault against it. The regional configuration has changed radically in the past five years, and Syria feels it has reasserted itself ...
It seems only natural that bilateral ties with Lebanon would be adjusted in due course, as has been happening during the past year. Saad Hariri ... is seeking to forge relations with Syria that are marked by ... mutually acceptable ties based inevitably on the structural historical imbalance of power and influence between Beirut and Damascus....Hariri has no easy choices, because Lebanon has little or no leverage in these dynamics. He retracted the political accusations against Syria, but did not totally reverse the process that remains under way in the form of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) ... The vexing issue of how a heavily armed Hizbullah and the Lebanese state and government coexist remains high as a national priority, and will become more difficult if STL indictments finger Hizbullah in some manner. The potential for hard times still lies ahead.
Saad Hariri quietly struck a third and very important balance, however, that between the political and the judicial. He said, "I don't know what will be in the indictment and I cannot intervene in that, nobody can. All that I ask for is the truth and justice."
The best approach all along has been to go easy on political emotion and instead heighten the credibility and independence of the STL process. A strong, evidence-based, indictment will generate powerful support in Lebanon and globally, and isolate those who fear being exposed for their involvement in the serial assassinations.
All Lebanese want dearly to identify and hold accountable the killers in their midst. The center of gravity of this process now shifts toward the STL, as Lebanese-Syrian relations revert to their historical norm. For now the latter is taking place under the umbrella of Syrian-Saudi cooperation, alongside lessened international pressure against Syria, an American retreat from a convulsing Iraq, and more attention being paid to Iran’s nuclear and political ambitions. In such a complex and ever-changing regional power picture, small states like Lebanon can only adjust to regional power flows, not shape them..
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