Syrian Counter-Attack

Looming threat or paper tiger?

Yesterday, two Annahar editorialists, N’oula Nassif and Rajeh al Khoury, spoke of a large-scale Syrian plan to discredit Mehlis’ report once it’s out.
While El Khoury focused on the current campaigns, which are centered around the idea that Mehlis doesn’t know anything yet, N’oula Nassif was talking about high-level meetings secretely taking place between Syria and all its Lebanese allies, to coordinate an orchestrated Mehlis-is-a-zionist campaign once the report is out. Nassif spoke of secret meetings between Assad and Hezbollah, Amal, Franjiyeh and other lackeys. He also spoke of a plan to manipulate forces allied with the pro-Syrians (Aoun and Jumblat) to further destabilize the anti-Syrian Majority.

We are beginning to see the prologue of such a plan.
Yesterday, Sleimen Franjieh tipped Michel Aoun for the presidency, and Aoun himself shifted the discourse of 1559 from the Syria-Lahhoud-Hezbollah axis to the Palestinian arms issue. This annoyed the Americans and caused anger at the Hariri camp. It also happened one day after the pro-Syrian Palestinian factions started making noises and threats to Seniora. (Is it a coincidence that such threats only began after the Palestinian factions had a large-scale meeting in Damascus?).

Is this plan going to work?

Sadly, both Aoun and Jumblat are not proving to have the vision required to make this historic transition. They could both do a lot of harm, and, for all their anti-Damascus rhetoric, are proving to be the most effective Syrian allies.

But that doesn’t mean that the Mehlis report can be easily discredited. Even if no explicit Syrian role was found, the amount of scandals that will be unearthed by the report will be a very potent force to destabilize Lahhoud and his security regime. The Hariri camp has also noticeably upped their confrontation with president Lahhoud and Hezbollah, leaving very little room for Jumblat to be “neutral”.

** Update **
Read Tony’s more expansive exploration of the same topic