The arrest warrants issued this week by an international court against several Hez bollah members represent an opportunity for President Obama to resume America’s traditional front-leading role in Middle Eastern affairs.
After a maddening, incompetent and much too lengthy legal process, the tribunal created by the UN Security Council to investigate the 2005 assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, finally acted Thursday. It indicted four suspects for a direct role in that car bombing in Beirut, which ignited the Cedar Revolution.
Later this summer, the court — based in Leidschendam, Netherlands — will indict more suspects, ones involved in the “planning and organizing” phase of the assassination. Those suspects are largely expected to be members of President Bashar Assad’s Syrian regime.
Shortly after the 2005 assassination, the Lebanese government asked the Security Council to establish the international tribunal; now Beirut has 30 days to arrest the suspects and hand them over to the Netherlands.
It won’t: The new powers in Beirut are under the thumb of Hezbollah — the very same organization whose members were indicted Thursday. Back in January, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned he’d “cut off the hand” of anyone cooperating with the tribunal — and he meant it.
A trial exposing its role in assassinating a Lebanese patriot would ruin Hezbollah’s carefully-cultivated image as an indigenous party protecting the homeland against predatory Israel.
In reality, Hezbollah is a crucial link in an Iranian-led anti-Western axis, which to date has benefited nicely from the turmoil in the Arab world — and now stands to suffer some setbacks.
It’s not just Hezbollah in trouble: Assad is teetering under internal revolt (yesterday his troops resumed their now-familiar Friday bloodbath).
Which presents a great chance for us to ratchet up pressure on this decidely anti-American alliance. If the Obama administration is capable of some leadership, we can leverage the indictments and use them to somewhat reverse Iran’s recent luck and to regain some Mideast respect.
And make no mistake — across the region, respect for America has plummeted under Obama.
One low point was back in January, when Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri (son of the slain Rafik) came to the White House on a visit meant to display America’s solidarity with his ruling coalition. At the very moment that Hariri was basking in Obama’s praise, his enemies — allies of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah — got busy in Beirut, pushing the prime minister and his pro-Western allies out of power.
It was a clear slap in the face — yet Team Obama didn’t even bother to turn the other cheek, let alone hit back. Rather than rushing to help an ally who was ousted while here, the administration mumbled about how Lebanon’s “democratic process” must take its course.
Some democracy: Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, has seized power the old-fashioned way: by intimidating their opponents, killing their most obstinate political and press rivals (Rafik Hariri’s assassination was just the most prominent in a years-long string of murders) and buying allies’ loyalty with fat business opportunities. (One example: The current prime minister, Najib Mikati, has made his fortune building a telecommunications network in Syria, where having connections to the Assads is the only way to get a contract.)
Watching their anti-Syrian allies being killed one by one, powerful Lebanese politicians like the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and Christian strongman Michel Aoun abandoned the Cedar Revolution front and turned into Assad’s most loyal friends.
Allying with Hezbollah, which managed to kill the first Hariri, these non-Shiite leaders then pushed his son out of power, strengthening the Iran-led coalition. Now they don’t want the tribunal indictments to spoil the fun. As Jumblatt said yesterday, “justice shouldn’t come at the expense of stability.”
So which Obama will emerge on Lebanon (and eventually on Syria) — the great fan of global institutions and international justice, or the “realist” who believes in stability over all?
So far, it’s neither. Though even the adviser he trusts most in the region — Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — has soured on Assad and his Lebanese allies, the president is so far opting to stay “above the fray.”
Obama is missing the opportunity to use the Hariri indictments to lead against the Iran-led axis. Too bad for Lebanon. Too bad for Syria’s rebels. Too bad for America.
beavni@gmail.com