Rafiq Harriri is a successful businessman to the tune of billions of dollars. A tycoon of real-estate, had founded his fortunes in Saudi Arabia.
First, a brief history lesson.
Following 15 years of devastating civil war in Lebanon, peace was ultimately established between Lebanon's ethnic minorities. The President would be a Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni, and the Speaker of the Parliament would be a Shia.
This peace was in part enforced by Syria, who subsequently cultivated the drug industry in Lebanon to generate billions of dollars while also maintaining strategic support for Hezbollah, a Shia militia that received funding both by Syria and Iran, as a deterrent to Israeli expansionism in Southern Lebanon and basically to provide a proxy army to fight their enemies.
So, how does this begin to tie in to current events?
We have the traditional saber rattling by the State Department headed by none other than Condi My-Reputation-is-Impugned Rice using more forceful rhetoric against Syria to withdraw its forces from Lebanon. This happens to be ratified by the International Community. However, at the time the UN SC voted on this, Lebanon officially stated that it needed Syria's presence to maintain the delicate balance in Lebanon lest sectarian violence rear its ugly head.
Harriri was a pro-Syrian Prime Minister (he's Sunni), who was also very pro-Lebanon. He'd spent part of his fortunes rebuilding Lebanon, providing scholarships to Lebanese students (not just Sunni, but to all minorities including Syrians who repatriated to Lebanon), etc. As recent as September 2004, his tone about Syrian presence became less supportive.
The question then became, who benefited most by his assassination. Clearly, if this were done by Syrian hands, then it backfired right in their faces.
However, the list of suspects does not end with Syria. The Lebanese Druze (an Islamic sect) and Christians have always been anti-Syrian elements.
Here's one take on the issue: link
Peter Beaumont in London and Mitchell Prothero in Beirut
Sunday February 20, 2005
The Observer
In death, the world feted Lebanon's former Prime Minister, Rafiq Hariri, assassinated on Valentine's Day. Obituaries spoke of a grand statesman and 'Mr Lebanon'.
But in Beirut Hariri was hated and distrusted by many in equal measure - not for his politics, but for his controlling interest in the giant post-war Lebanese reconstruction company Solidere, which has been accused of carrying out forcible evictions, corruption and wholesale political graft.
Last week as British officials voiced doubts over US and Israeli-backed allegations that Syrian intelligence agents were behind the bombing of Harriri's motorcade on Beirut's Corniche, a picture began to emerge of a deeply flawed billionaire with as many foes as friends.
It is a story of murky dealings and personal enrichment on a grand scale; a tale of politics and the judiciary suborned to business interests, and of multiple motives for Hariri's slaying.
It is a very different picture from that presented by a Lebanese opposition campaigning for the withdrawal of the Syrian army, by Hariri's family and by Tel Aviv and Washington: that Hariri, splitting with Damascus and the pro-Damascus government of Emile Lahoud, had been taken out by the Syrians.
'It does not make sense,' said one European official, 'it is not really Syria's modus operandi. It is such a gift for the anti-Syrian lobby in Lebanon and internationally. Why would they do it? Not only that, but the Syrians would not want to upset the Saudis, who they are cautious in their relations with and who regard Hariri [who has a Saudi passport] as being very much their own.'
And despite Hariri's split with his old friends in September over Lebanon's future governance, senior Syrian officials saw him as 'a moderating influence' with other opposition figures who could 'put across Syria's point of view'.
If Syria was not the culprit, who are the other candidates and what was the motive? A previously unheard-of jihadist group has already claimed responsibility saying Hariri was 'an agent of Syria' as well as closely linked with the Saudi royal family. This was rejected by Lebanese authorities, but the attack - far from the sophistication claimed as evidence of foreign intelligence involvement - bears hallmarks of a jihadi attack: a car bomb detonated by the suicide bomber.
Lead investigator Rachid Mezher says the explosion that killed Hariri was from 'an ordinary bomb', a view endorsed by some in the diplomatic community.
'Not all the jihadi groups in Lebanon are under tight control,' said the western official. 'They don't have brass plaques on their door saying where they are, and given that foreign fighters have been going through Lebanon and Syria en route to Iraq, there has been for some time a risk of backwash in the countries they are traveling through. For these groups, his connection with the Saudi royal family and his lavish lifestyle may have made him an attractive target.'
Then there are Hariri's business interests and Solidere itself. He was dogged throughout his career by allegations of wrongdoing. The schoolteacher turned contractor in Saudi Arabia and gained his entrée in Saudi royal circles in the 1970s by building the hotel for an Islamic summit in months. As his wealth and power grew, Hariri began to pour money into Lebanon through the Al-Hariri Foundation which he established in 1979, supporting education, reconstruction and other projects. But there were dark rumours that he also funded the militias which were tearing his country apart.
By the mid-1980s Hariri saw that the future of power in his country lay with Damascus and began courting President Hafaz al-Assad's government, spending the last war years mediating between the Syrians and the Lebanese warlords which culminated in his key role - brokering the Taif Accords in 1989 which ended the civil war.
He began work on the project that would fix his grasp on Lebanese politics for much of the next 15 years, the rebuilding of Beirut. But last year the post-war city dominated by Hariri was characterized by Charles Adwan, executive director of the Lebanese Transparency Association, as 'a textbook case of legitimised corruption' as wartime organisations were incorporated into new public institutions while former militia members integrated into the administration.
Hariri's private and public functions became dangerously tangled. The new Prime Minster was not only the biggest shareholder in Solidere, the company set up to rebuild Lebanon's wrecked capital, but also the moving force behind a law that allowed properties to be compulsorily purchased at knockdown prices. Judges valuing the properties were allegedly bought through widespread bribes paid by Solidere.
While the shiny new Beirut looked good, by the late 1990s Hariri's political leadership was under attack. High unemployment, public disgust at the corruption and the biggest per capita debt in the developing world all took away the shine. Beneath the gloss, Mr Lebanon's economic problems and his enemies were multiplying.
None of which matters in a febrile Lebanon after Hariri's murder. Regardless of whoever ordered the killing, ordinary Lebanese believe it was Syria.
George Haddad, an official with a banned opposition group, the Free Patriotic Movement, says the killing has unified a previously fractious opposition to Syria's dominance in Lebanon's affairs. He argues that this dominance has always been protected through violence and that Syrian intelligence services would fail to see the downside to killing such a popular figure.
Haddad says the killing has allowed the opposition parties - Christian, Druze and Sunni -to set aside their differences and plan 'to surround the government in Beirut with people until the current government resigns and the Syrians end their role in Lebanese affairs'.
Without donning a tinfoil hate, there are still others suggesting a more nefarious twist to the whole issue, link
I can't think of another example of a case where the party so generally accused of the crime was more harmed by the results of the crime. Are we supposed to believe that the Syrians are insane and/or stupid? Do they want to invite an American-Israeli attack? Do they want to provide the biggest excuse possible to force them to leave Lebanon? As Mike Whitney puts it:
"The likelihood that Syria was involved in the assassination is zilch. One can hardly imagine a greater disaster for poor Syria who has been scrambling to avoid the American bludgeon for the last four years. Few people realize that Syria provided more assistance in the first year of the war on terror after 9-11 than any other nation."
The question then becomes, is this all the ground work being laid for a Syrian attack. Was his assassination merely serendipitous or part of a calculated coordinated plot with a third party? Syria is clearly the weaker of the two targets and maybe the first in the line of fire, meanwhile Iran can be "softened" by continued covert ops and bombing (when the administration deems this necessary).