14
November 2006
The noose tightens around some necks in Damascus!!
On the repercussions of the Lebanese Cabinet decision!!
Regardless
of the Syrian bare proxy, Hezbollah's, enormous pains to bring down the
Lebanese government through political blackmail of resignations, the Lebanese
Cabinet 
approved a UN draft to form an international
tribunal to try former Premier Rafik Hariri's assassins. It is part of a
comprehensive western effort to bring massive pressure on the Syrian Allawite
cabal. Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's cold-blooded murder in
Beirut reminded me of one episode of The Simpsons where Bart dials 911 and is
greeted with a recording, "If you know the name of the crime being
committed, press 1 now." To which he exclaims, "I don't have time for
this!" and hits several random buttons on his phone to which the recording
replies, "You have selected regicide. If you know the name of the king or
queen being murdered, press 1 now." If Bart was in Beirut on Feb. 14, he
could have pressed 1 and said "Hariri." One really needs several
buttons to press for explanations of "Regicide" especially when the
ruling underworld clique of a dreadful Baath p arty undertakes it. Rafik
Hariri's liquidation was a classical Regicide la Baath
The
regicides sit deep in the conscious of nations. Hariri, as a popular leader,
was the king of hearts. His murder could not subside quietly. There is some
divine justice associated with elimination of leaders. The regicide of Charles
I of England resulted into the final dissolution of the rump Parliament. In
France, the judicial penalty for regicides was torture so as to make the
regicide name names of his accomplices. The hand that attempted the murder was
burnt and the regicide was dismembered alive. The murder of the Crown Prince
Francis Ferdinand led to the outbreak of the First World War. Faisal ibn Musad,
who assassinated his uncle, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia in 1975, was publicly
beheaded. The repercussions for a regicide
are immen se and the Allawite Baathists failed to consider or comprehend
that.
Premier
Fouad Siniora will send the draft to UN headquarters in New York and wait for
the final text on the court. President 
Emile Lahoud, a pro-Syrian, said on Sunday that
as a result of resignations, the government had lost its legitimacy, but
constitutional experts have disputed his interpretation of the situation. The
cabinet, normally made up Christian and Muslim ministers in equal numbers, has
retained two-thirds of its members necessary to make up a quorum. The approval
of the draft follows deadlocked talks over Hezbollah's demands for greater say
in the government, and political tension, which now threatens to spill into
street confrontations.
The
decision taken by the Lebanese Premier has the blessings of various heads of
Lebanon's religious sects. Among the Arab leaders called were Saudi King
Abdullah, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordanian King Abdullah II, Yemeni
President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Arab League chief Amr Moussa, Bahraini King Hamad
Issa Bin Khalifah and Emirati Foreign Affairs Minister Abdullah Bin Zayed. Siniora
called for unity to overcome the political crisis. "Here we are today on
the road to revealing the truth and achieving justice through the court ...
that will be formed to stop this series of terrorist and criminal acts,"
Siniora said. Bashar, unlike his father Assad, has very few friends in the Arab
world; his alignment with Iran has left him with total reliance on Nasarullah
and Ahmdeinejad. The 'troika of instability' has great nuisance value, but all
of them have been playing their high stake games with a lot at stake for far
too long, and now, the game has stretched a bit. Too much political capital
wasted and too much destruction achieved with no result. The populace, after
great wars, want to know the benefit of sacrifices of their houses and villages.
The ensuing answer in its wake, of having neutralised the migh t of the great
Israelite Army, is quite shallow when the wreckage of Lebanon is accounted.
Middle
East Syrian- Iran terror axis based politics is in the jumble. Iran has
accepted the poison chalice to help create a successor to post Osama Alqaeda.
It is no more a sectarian alliance it is now 'alliance of trouble makes,'
irrespective of their ideology, they first collectively want to get the west
disinterested and get them out through the dirty game of body bags. They will
than settle the 1400 years old scores amongst themselves to their heart
delight. The only thing that stands between settling of old scores is the
alliance of moderates like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi and Pakistan and now much weakened
resolve of the west. It is this alliance that has helped some semblance of
order in Middle East. Iran seems to have gulped down the futile brutality,
depraved mentally of Al Zarqawi actions against the Iraqi Shiites. He had
accused Shiites throughout history of collusion to destroy Islam and help
foreign invaders of Muslim lands.
"Sunnis,
wake up, pay attention and prepare to confront the poisons of the Shiite
snakes," al-Zarqawi said. Today the self assumed guardian of Shiites
interests is training the next leadership cadre of Alqaeda. Iranian
nationalistic interests to protect 'nukes' have overtaken the carnage of
Shiites. The hardcore elements of next Alqaeda according to Sunday are being
trained in Iran, the very Alqaeda cadre who accused the Shiites across the
Mideast same as Jews, with secret meetings and loyalty to a mother country,
Israel for the Jews, Iran for the Shiites.
Politics
makes strange bedfellows however this for the Shiite world is truly an unholy
alliance. Western intelligence officials now believe that Iran is trying to
cultivate a new generation of al-Qa'eda leaders who will be prepared to work
closely with Teheran when they eventually take control.Recent intelligence
reports from Iran suggest the Iranians are particularly keen to promote
Saif-al-Adel, a notorious al-Qa'eda operative who is wanted in the United
States for his alleged role in training several of the September 11 hijackers.
Al-Adel, 46, a former colonel in Egypt's special forces who joined al-Qa'eda
after fighting with the Mujahideen against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the
1980s, was named in the FBI's list of 22 most wanted terrorists that was issued
after the September 11 attacks.Iranian actions are akin to Saudis joining hand
with their Wahabis noxious brothers Osama to clean of th e Shiites from
Dhahran.
Nasarullah's
'pyrrhic victory' has left him politically wounded, as Amal made new gains in
the valleys of the South. Olmert anxiously watches Iran's nuclear ambitions;
much as Iran is certain of US inactions after a Democrat victory, but surely
feels very fatigued with the idea of a pre-emptive strike, like Osirak. Bashar
is alienated from the Arab League, which is commandeered by more moderate
forces that are not very happy with Iranian Shiite influence on the Arab
hinterland and the hijacking of Arab causes by Iranians mullahs. The latest
draft of the tribunal plan has not been made public, but it is thought that the
tribunal will sit outside Lebanon, possibly in Cyprus. The tribunal's statutes
will rely on a mixture of Lebanese and international law, and Lebanese and
international judges will sit on the tribunal. It is believed that the death
sentence will not apply in the case of guilty verdicts. At the United Nations
in New York, US Ambassador John Bolton said, his country was prepared to move
quickly in the Securi ty Council to approve the tribunal "once we receive
formal word form the government of Lebanon."
Hezbollah,
whose ministers resigned on the pretext of seeking a one-third-plus-one share
of Lebanese cabinet portfolios for itself and its allies, wanted an effective
veto power on government decisions. The timing of the powers demanded by the
Hezbollah was to veto the decision of the Lebanese cabinet to agree on the
formation of a UN international tribunal. The resignation of six ministers of
Hezbollah and one Christian ally did not prevent the cabinet's decision. It
will have very far-reaching consequences on the future of the Syrian President.
The Presidential Palace in Syria is not going to be a very serene and tranquil
place tonight. The stranglehold around the conspiracy that callously eliminated
Hariri is tightening. Another two ministers would need to resign for the
current government to fall.
The decision of the Lebanese cabinet cannot be
seen in isolation. On the one side, the west is asking the Syrians and Iranians
to toe the line in Iraq so as to be given an exit from the axis of evil
branding; on the other, discounting every bit of political blackmail, it is
meaningful that the cabinet goes ahead with a decision that could possibly
implicate the entire leadership of Hezbollah mentors. The timing could not have
been better. On the eve of major political overtures and carrots being dangled
by Blair in the faces Iran and Syria, a stick appears on the horizon: that of a
UN tribunal based in Cyprus looking for the ultimate perpetrators of this
crime. That is the kind of political twist that 'personality based tyrannies'
cannot sustain. Hezbollah and its allies see the tribunal as a tool to punish
Syria, blamed by many Lebanese for Hariri's killing in a suicide truck bombing
last year. Damascus denies involvement. A UN commission investigating the
assassination has already implicated senior Lebanese and Syrian security
officials. Fortunately, the trail of electronic calls in this age of advance
insurgency leaves damning verification of electronic call trails that leads to perpetrators
of the c rime directly.
Ghazi Kanaan's suicide was not of the first
Syrian official to be "erased" by Assad's Ba'athist machine. Some
political analysts speculate that Kanaan was killed to use him as a scapegoat
and hide the truth about who really killed Hariri. Once it was known that the
forthcoming report contained incriminating evidence from a deep throat within
Syrian Intelligence sources in Lebanon testifying, and in all probability,
naming Maher Assad, Assef Shawkat, Hassan Khalil, Bahjat Suleyman and Jamil
Al-Sayyed as key conspirators of the cabal who decided to assassinate Rafik
Hariri, approximately two weeks after the adoption of Security Council
resolution 1559, Ghazi Kanaan was dead meat. He had to be taken out. He was the
smoking gun and could have virtually connected the "Baathists
Allawites" to the murder of Rafik Hariri.
In poetic justice, what goes around comes
around. Perhaps the noose around Ghazi Kanaan tightened a little too fast. UN
chief investigator, Detlev Mehlis, had made his suspicions clear to Kanaan that
Syrian intelligence services kept tabs on Hariri before his assassination by
wiretapping his phone. There was evidence that a telecommunication antenna was
jammed near the scene of the car bomb
that killed him and 20 others on Feb. 14. Ghazi Kanaan's elimination is
tyrannicide. It was an orthodox Baath-style eradication of members of a ruling
mob that became superfluous or a threat to the familial collegial hierarchy.
Hezbollah
was on orders from their masters in Damascus to stop this yesterday Cabinet
decision at any cost. The people who portrayed their vicious 34-day
self-destructive clash with Israel as victorious have once again suffered an
astounding political defeat. It would not be shocking if they do not bring
violent protests on the streets of Beirut. They exactly know that the time has
come to protect their masters. Hezbollah's masters cannot accept the
nightmarish view of seeing the Allawite clan standing in the docks indicted in
a Nuremberg/Saddam kind of trial. With Ex-Syrian Vice President Khaddam in Pa
ris, the deep throat of the Syrian regime could be a great help to a UN
tribunal if he testifies.
Power has a price and that price, more often
than not, is paid in blood. From the cruel world of organized crime to the
hidden encounters behind the Iron curtain, from the ancient empires of Romans
and Ottomans to the corridors of despotic powers in the Middle East, hired guns
have ruthlessly pursued their trade of erasing foes and friends. Today's
friends can be tomorrow's enemies and for the sake of continuation of power or
alleged protection of state, no sacrifice is big enough.
A
parallel can be drawn between Nazification of Germany under Fuehrer and the
Baathists of Iraq and Syria. Ghazi Kanaan in all probability met the fate of
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) C-in-C of the Afrika Korps (1942-43) |
Army Group West (1944) the desert fox October 14. Soon after the conspiracy to
kill Hitler fails, two generals visit Rommel at his residence in Errlingen and
hand him a cyanide capsule with a message from Hitler: commit suicide and be
buried with honors, or stand trial for high treason and be hanged which implies
loss of his family's livelihood. Rommel bids farewell to his wife and son and
is driven off in an army car. Having swallowed the capsule, Rommel was buried
with full military honors and given a hero's farewell.
It
is never simple. The background is too complicated; several leads and motives
are available but none can be pursued, although glaringly, the story is that of
a cold-blooded termination of a pawn. He put the barrel of the pistol in his
mouth and felt its chill, he set his finger on the trigger, a bullet was fired.
This may have been a 'suicide', or remotely possible, a preventative move on
Kanaan's part, but most probably than not, it was a forced suicide. It was
better to go quickly than undergo the humiliation of a Baathist's show trial,
the end of which was definite. Ghazi Kanaan was the sacrificial lamb, who is
now conveniently out of the way. Kanaan's family was indignant by the stance of
the Syrian security services, and continues to firmly reject the hypothesis
that their relative had committed suicide.
Ghazi
Kanaan was the second high-ranking Syrian official who allegedly committed
suicide since Bashar Al-Assad became president of Syria. The first was Prime Minister
Mahmoud Al-Zu'bi in June 2000. He also killed himself in similar circumstances.
The circumstances behind Kanaan's death are a little too coincidental with the
events to be termed a suicide. Its occurrence hours before Assad II was to go
on air for a landmark CNN interview suggests the president may have been
preparing to sacrifice close aides to mute Washington's pressure on his own
policies. Ba'athist Minority Rule in both Iraq and Syria had never hesitated to
use murder as the most effective tool of continuation of a narrow
familial-based dynasty.
Saddam's
favourite film was The Godfather - and he seemed, as president, to become the
personification of Al Pacino's murderous gangster Michael Corleone. He married
the state and the mob successfully. He told Adel Darwish, the author of
"Unholy Babylon," "Once loyalty to the family and its head is in
doubt, the life of the individual concerned, or a few men, becomes
worthless." The killing of his own sons-in-law was live recreation of
Godfather's scene when Michael Corleone ordered the killing of his
brother-in-law. Saddam and Hussein Kamel had defected with their families to
Jordan. Pardoned by Saddam and nagged relentlessly by their wives, the brothers
finally consented to return to Iraq if their protection was assured. However,
no sooner had they crossed the border than Uday split his sisters from the two
traitors and had the two men confined to their family home in Baghdad. Hours
later, Uday and a unit of Iraqi Special Forces attacked the Kamel house,
killing the two brothers, their father, their sister, and her three children.
Not to forget the killing of Saddam's brother-in-law, Adnan Khairallah, who was
also eliminated in a fatal helicopter incident. Godfather derives his
legitimacy from loyalty and obedience, secured by a system of terror and
reward. Once the state adopts the doctrine of "pre-emptive erasure",
as the head of the family, the tyrant can liquidate anyone.
Traditionally,
liquidations were justifiable tools of terrorization and perpetuation of
tyranny of the subterranean world of medieval masters. However, modern age
despots and tyrants are using this tool with equal effect. Every one is
expendable if any danger is posed to the permanence of the ruling clout. Life
is of least concern if control of the state is at stake. The back-to-back
erasures were a big blow to the UN investigating commission. Kanaan knew a lot
about what went on in Lebanon and who was behind Hariri's assassination. In the
wake of his "suicide," it is now incumbent upon Syria "to
clarify a considerable part of the unresolved questions." Syrians have to
come clean. There is a need to clean up the Baathist structure that holds so
many people firmly enslaved by a ruling cabal.
The
facade of the international community has to be as one. After dismantling one
Baathist state, this one is apparently lesser of the evils and hence more of a
reason to be nice to the ongoing status quo. One thing needs to be understood:
It is not just the regicide of Hariri or tyrannicide of Kanaan by a state that
is the problem, it is the extinguishing of freedom and democracy within the
region that is threatened by those who want to continue stifling the process of
reconciliation and peace. The killing of Hariri was an oppressive show of
denying democracy and the change that has affected the entire Middle East. It
is indeed going to be a dull existence for the tyrants from now on. The world
has unquestionably changed considerably for their tastes. The fun of freelance
"eradication" has just vanished. What a wretched life to look forward
to for a tyrannous regime!
The
Libyan ''Lockerbie'' option of forced kneel-down confessions and then
retirement from an active life of terrorism is now an acceptable currency. One
thing is most probably sure, Assad Jr.'s reign as a totalitarian ruler may
survive this storm, but he would need to adopt the "Libyan option" of
coming clean and becoming less of a threat in the heart of the Middle East.
These are changing times and the despots are learning it the hard way. The
"names" of the accomplices leaked intelligently need to be saved;
they implicate the Presidential Palace directly into the plot. For a brother or
a brother-in-law to survive, something has to be given up. The ophthalmologist
Generals are well advised to learn from the lessons and experiences of the
neighbouring Baathist regime.
Iqbal
Latif (Ike)_ Paris