Hariri: Accusing Syria Of Assassinating My Father a “Mistake”

P.M. Hariri made this non-appology apology to Alsharqalawsat:

At some point, we made a mistake. At one stage, we accused Syria of assassinating the martyred premier. That was a political accusation, and that political accusation is over. There is a (UN) court that is doing its job, and we for our part must reassess what happened. The tribunal is completely independent of our political accusations, which were made prematurely. The tribunal only takes into consideration evidence.

That is for all intents and purposes a political bombshell of Jumblatt-esque proportions. But we have been seeing this coming since Mr. Hariri started improving his relationship with the Syrian president.

There will definitely be a sense of betrayal with many of the Future Movement rank-and-files who spent the last 5 years of their lives burning bridges with Syria and syrians and wasting energy on convincing people that the Syrian regime is pure evil.

The real question is why did Mr. Hariri reverse his position?

The problem is that all the answers to that question are not good. Does Mr. Hariri know something about the upcoming STL indictment? Wouldn’t that mean that the Tribunal is not as air-tight as Mr. Hariri and his allies keep insisting?

The other answer is even worse: Could Mr. Hariri have sold-out justice for his father to political expediency (or Saudi pressure)? Wouldn’t that mean that Hezbollah’s accusations of a politicized process are justified?

All the same. We have now officially entered a new political era.