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There is
talk within international circles about various scenarios that
would influence decisions relating to the existence of Syria and
Hizbullah; these international circles also warn that attacking
Israeli towns from across the Lebanese border could entail
repercussions on all of Syria and Lebanon. This is not random
talk, but is based on indications that Syria will most probably
resort to measures that would prompt an Israeli attack on
Lebanon and Syria. In addition, there are indications that
Syria will stir up the Palestinian-Israeli scene by activating
and empowering pro-Syrian Palestinian factions. When it comes to
Lebanon, the most important link through which and on which
measures will be taken is Hizbullah, which possesses tools
allowing it to implement or disrupt any measures. That’s why the
responsibility of implicating Lebanon in an Israeli attack or
invasion falls on the shoulders of the Hizbullah leadership,
which is required to choose today between fortifying Lebanon
against being used for revenge or any other reason and between
sacrificing it to the benefit of Syria or Iran.
At this juncture, the leadership in these two countries might
consider it in their interest to provoke Israel through
Hizbullah and the Palestinian factions, either to divert
attention and pressure away from them or to mobilize
anti-Israeli sentiment for local and regional consumption. The
situations in Syria and Iran are completely different, but the
means and tools for effecting change are the same for Damascus
and Tehran, namely, [through] Hizbullah and the Palestinian
factions present in Lebanon and those that receive money, aid
and weapons from Syria and Iran.
Moreover, Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon’s extremely deteriorating state of health
places matters in an even more dangerous realm. For, it is in
such transitional periods that states become even more prepared
and eager to resort to big military operations in order to prove
that they are capable of keeping things under their control. For
this reason, any cross-border operations that Hizbullah would
conduct into Israel, at this point, would be considered as a
calculated decision calling for an Israeli strike on Lebanon.
And any Syrian encouragement for such a development would also
be considered as a dormant [Syrian] desire for provoking an
Israeli strike on Syria, something which would lead Damascus to
raise hell in the Arab region for being in a state of war with
Israel.
The Secretary-General of
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, warned
the day before yesterday [January 4, 2006] against pushing his
country “into adopting another option that had been planned in
advance,” in terms of the nuclear weapons dossier, so that it
could confront pressures that are meant to deprive Tehran of
“its right” to nuclear enrichment and to [possessing] technology
for the production of nuclear fuel. Larijani threatened with
“dragging the region into war” if Tehran is forced to give up
nuclear enrichment, and he also warned the United States and
Israel of committing “any mistake” with his country, noting that
Iran had already “prepared a scenario to respond to this
matter,” and he threatened with “a hell which they could not
easily come out of.”
Although there might be divisions within the ruling leaderships
in Iran, it is clear that Iran places its nuclear ambitions
above all considerations and it is willing to use Palestine and
all Arabs to accomplish its goals.
Larijani’s statements are not just talk but they are the epitome
of frankness and truth when it comes to Iran’s priorities and
the means for achieving them. His threats of “dragging the
region into war” and his acknowledgment that Tehran had plotted
for the option of war, in advance, is a clear indication of
Iran’s commitment to using others to implement its own nuclear
strategy. This testimony comes “straight from the horse’s
mouth.”
Within international
circles, what is being discussed are exactly these kinds of
scenarios of a war in this region, which would be dragged by
Iran and provoked by Syria.
Such a war would realign alliances and partnerships, and, this
time, it would not be a war like previous wars, because neither
Tehran nor Damascus is in exclusive possession of the keys to
the region.
The main scenarios being discussed within international circles,
regarding Syria, are three:
In the first scenario, Syrian President Bashar Assad would reach
the conclusion that in order to save Syria from sanctions and
punishment, and in order to save himself from being held to
account, he would have to follow a course of action that is
fundamentally different from the one he has been following up
till now. And this would require him to sacrifice anyone and
everyone who played a role and was implicated in the
assassination of the Lebanese former prime minister, Rafic
Hariri, even if they were among his closest relatives or if they
held the highest [government] ranks.
If Bashar Assad managed to take such a decision and implement
it, he would have made a historic contribution in saving Syria
from punishment, and with that, he would have placed his country
above and beyond the regime, contrary to what ousted Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein had done. And this is what a number of
Syrian leaders are trying to convince the Syrian president to
do, before it’s too late. [Indeed] there is no chance at all for
any deals, as long as Bashar Assad does not take qualitative and
fundamental measures against the main figures in the Syrian
regime, on the basis that he was not personally implicated in
the assassination, despite his expression in threatening tones
of his vehement anger at Rafic Hariri.
In this respect, the main
purpose of the Saudi and Egyptian interventions in the Syrian
dossier is to offer advice to the Syrian president and to inform
him that the options available to all Arabs, not just Syria, are
scarce and limited. In other words, Bashar Assad has been
informed that there is no alternative to giving [something or
someone] up. Either he gives up the Syrian security and
intelligence leadership that committed the grave mistakes, or he
will be forsaken not just internationally, but by Arabs as well.
What’s new is that influential Arab leaders have come to realize
in the last two weeks, and specifically following the testimony
of former Syrian Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam on Al-Arabiyya
TV, that the criteria for stability in Syria have changed. In
the past, the continuity of the regime was the safety valve for
preventing chaos and guaranteeing stability in the country. As
for today, the continuity of the regime as is has become the
driving force for launching non-stability.
This brings us to the second scenario being discussed within
international circles, and this is the scenario of coups d’état,
most notably, a Sunni revolt in alliance with key Alawite
figures, which would spare the country a major turbulence or a
catastrophic war.
This is not necessarily a
scenario of peace and a white revolution. It is one that
anticipates a bloody coup d’état since this is the time for
revolutionary change in Damascus. But there is renewed talk, in
Syrian circles, about a new generation of [political] aspirants
that defy the supposition that there will be blood and chaos
following the removal of the regime. There is also Syrian,
regional and international preparation and readiness to foil
traditional forecasts that Syria would collapse by virtue of a
collapse of the regime.
Moreover, likening what will happen in Syria in case the Baath
regime in Damascus should be removed to what happened in Iraq
after the removal of the Baath regime in Baghdad is not a
rational or realistic comparison.
For the infrastructure in Iraq was destroyed by wars and
sanctions (in addition to the destruction it suffered at the
hands of the Iraqi Baath), something for which the US and the
international community are greatly responsible. As for Syria,
the civil infrastructure has been destroyed at the hands of the
Syrian Baath.
What’s important is that
the second scenario, which has been dubbed the “middle”
scenario, is regularly being discussed and taken into account,
and it is being prepared in a number of capitals and with the
involvement of more than one person, especially since
Abdel-Halim Khaddam is not the last episode in the [series of]
confessions [expected] from Damascus, but he could be the first.
In fact, there is information that similar surprises will be
forthcoming and that others from the Syrian leadership are about
to “let the genie out of the bottle.” And according to available
information, Abdel-Halim Khaddam will offer a lot [of
information] to the Independent International Committee for
Investigating the Terror Act that claimed the life of Hariri and
those accompanying him. [It is worth noting that] the Security
Council has considered the investigations into the Hariri crime
as linked to the assassinations that followed it.
What Khaddam has offered,
up till now, in his public declarations, and his claim that he
has more to disclose, allows for a qualitative change in the
investigation because Khaddam considered the Syrian president a
party in the “instigation” [against Hariri], something which
raised pressures on Damascus to unprecedented levels,
particularly since the investigation committee has publicly
requested to interrogate the Syrian president as witness, after
it had requested to interrogate his brother-in-law, Assef
Shawkat, chief of Syrian military intelligence, as “a suspect.”
This substantial development could prompt Bashar Assad to become
convinced of the need to adopt a policy of qualitative change in
his course of action, but it could also prompt him, on the other
hand, to resort to complete escalation, since there is no option
other than him. Such an escalation brings us to the third
scenario, which is known as the “catastrophe scenario.”
The catastrophe scenario does not protect Syria or the ruling
Baath regime, but it is a scenario of “if we go down, we all go
down together”—a scenario that would call for blowing up the
Lebanese situation.
Specifically, it is about blowing up the situation on the
border, through the Shebaa Farms and utilizing Hizbullah and the
Palestinian factions. It also involves the blowing up of
Lebanese-Lebanese relations, both at the sectarian and party
levels, and fabricating problems within the internal Lebanese
scene. It also involves instigating a Lebanese-Palestinian
confrontation and not just provoking a Lebanese-Syrian
confrontation. But this scenario will not be satisfied with just
blowing up the Lebanese scene but its goal is to drag the entire
region into a regional war. For what is being said in
international circles is that the attempts to instill terror in
the hearts of Lebanese through the series of assassinations
[that have taken place] have proved to be a failure, because
Lebanon remains cohesive and it did not succumb to a civil war
as Syria would have wished for.
For this reason, the only
alternative option right now is to completely and qualitatively
change the course of action so that the confrontation would
become at all levels by using all Lebanese and Palestinian
actors in order to provoke Israel into grand-scale measures that
would change the focus of discussions away from Syria’s role in
Lebanon and the international community’s holding Syria to
account for the actions made by its military leadership.
So which of these
scenarios is forthcoming? The answer is still not clear.
But what is clear is that
change is coming in all cases. The final countdown to the end of
the Syrian regime as we know it has started, once Damascus was
informed by Arab nations that maintaining the regime as is would
threaten the stability of Syria and the region, and that there
is no chance for an Arab shield that would protect Syria from
being held to account by the international community.
What remains is that the biggest responsibility, at the Lebanese
level, falls on Hizbullah, as it would have to decide for the
last time if it is truly a Lebanese party and a Lebanese citizen
or it is a soldier that executes the Syrian or Iranian order of
“dragging the region” into war and turning Lebanon into a “scene
of hell,” to the benefit of Iran’s nuclear [agenda] or to exempt
Syria from being held to account for the assassination crimes.
Hizbullah today is facing a deadline, and tomorrow will bring it
the most difficult test. |
