The Meaning of Another Lebanese Murder

The Syrian regime would seem to be right on program. That much was clear from the assassination of parliamentarian Antoine Ghanem on Wednesday, six days before Parliament is scheduled to meet to elect a new president. The assassination was, regrettably, predictable and carried a number of messages, both to the Lebanese and to key international players involved with Lebanon. The response by the March 14 coalition and the international community must be stern and unambiguous.

The first message was a Lebanese one. Ghanem, like many colleagues, had spent time abroad out of fear of assassination to put an end to the March 14 majority in Parliament. He had just returned to Beirut in order to participate in the September 25 election session. Killing him, therefore, was meant to dissuade March 14 from trying to unilaterally elect a new president – or to be more precise, a president not favored by Damascus.

The swiftness of the planning and execution of the hit was reminiscent of the December 2005 assassination of parliamentarian Gebran Tueni, who was killed only hours after his return to Lebanon from Paris. This suggests, according to numerous March 14 politicians, that information on the targets' arrival and whereabouts may have been supplied by sources in certain branches of the state's security forces.

Ghanem represented the Baabda-Aley district, which includes the Hizbullah stronghold of Beirut's southern suburbs. By-elections will be held to fill Ghanem's seat, as happened in the Metn and Beirut. That makes it highly probable that the seat will be filled by a candidate chosen by the alliance between Hizbullah and the Aounists, losing March 14 the seat. In fact, Aoun anticipated this scenario after the Metn by-election. When faced with his loss of support among Maronite voters, the general declared that the real show of popularity would come in Baabda-Aley, where he could rely on Hizbullah's electorate.

Awareness of this situation led March 14 parliamentarians from that district to be especially careful. Aoun, by contesting the Metn by-election after the assassination of Pierre Gemayel and by making the statements he did about his ability to win a vacant seat in Baabda-Aley, has created the impression that he is willing to benefit from the murder of his parliamentary colleagues who are also political opponents.

The Ghanem murder was also a statement to key international players –  France, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the United Nations – that Syria had no intention of changing its behavior in Lebanon.

Recently, the French made the following misguided proposal to Syrian President Bashar Assad: Don't obstruct the Lebanese presidential elections and stay out of Lebanon's affairs, in exchange for which France would be willing to reestablish high-level political contacts with Syria. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner even specified what kind of “obstruction” he feared: political assassinations and bombings.

The Syrians immediately shot this idea down. The first reply came from Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa, who recently tried and failed to gain Italian and Vatican support for a Syrian-picked president. He declared that the next Lebanese president had to be a “resister and someone of 'Arab belonging'” – shorthand for a candidate of “Syrian belonging” and a supporter of Hizbullah and its agenda of armed struggle; consequently, an opponent of UN Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1701.

Sharaa also brushed away another repeated European request: that Syria recognize and respect Lebanese sovereignty. He did so by stating that Syria would not demarcate its borders with Lebanon, even though this demand was endorsed by Lebanon's national dialogue last year.

Two news reports help explain the message the Syrians were sending. Lebanon's official Central News Agency reported, quoting a European diplomat, that Syria flatly rejected the French offer because it didn't include recognition of a Syrian veto against any March 14 candidate; and because Syria wanted a president who would “renegotiate” international resolutions. A similar thing apparently happened with Saudi Arabia, leading to the Saudis' publicly canceling a visit to the kingdom recently by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem. According to the Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai al-Aam (which often publishes Saudi leaks), the Syrians refused to commit to not sabotaging the presidential election. Damascus, which leaked news of the Moallem visit before it was finalized in order to corner the Saudis, tried to gain, through Saudi Arabia, broader recognition that Syria was the final arbiter on who Lebanon's president would be. The Saudis weren't pleased.

Having been rebuffed, the French must finally grasp that Assad thinks he can get it all in Lebanon, through blackmail, without budging from his intransigence. The rejected carrot must now be replaced with some sort of a stick. Importantly, the creation of the Hariri tribunal should be speeded up, because its derailment is what the Syrians are insistently seeking. Most urgently, March 14, with the full backing of the international community and the cover provided by the Maronite Church, must move ahead with the election of a president, come what may, by an absolute majority and avoid Nabih Berri's Trojan horse project for a “consensus” president.

The Syrian plan is to deny March 14 its majority and its ability to govern through that majority – in electing a president, in the new Cabinet, and in Parliament itself, both now and in the future. The response of March 14 should therefore be to reassert that a democratic majority exists, before that majority is eliminated through further assassinations.

Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, where he writes on Lebanon and Syria. He hosts the Across the Bay Web log (www.beirut2bayside.blogspot.com).