Assassination Masterminds

Enough time has elapsed from the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri along with 22 other Lebanese, that passions have cooled, and justice will likely not be done. His murderers have been named, but it is unlikely that they will be brought before the law to pay the penalty for their brutality to the country. After all, they and their political-ideological movement are now an integral part of the government. So powerful that they were successful in bringing down the previous government.

And the son of the assassinated Prime Minister, who was himself in that very same position when Hezbollah withdrew their support and collapsed the coalition government, has gone abroad, in fear for his life. He hasn't the power to have enabled him to avenge his father's death. And he will wait in vain for Lebanon's state prosecutor, Saeed Mirza, to bring his father's murderers to trial and justice, though it was confirmed that the UN special tribunal handed over an indictment concluding its investigation into the assassination.

Lebanon's current prime minister who replaced Saad Hariri addressed the issue in a televised statement expressing the rather convoluted reality that Lebanon does wish to discover the truth behind the 2005 bombing assassination of Rafik Hariri, but this is a delicate matter in the extreme. He would not permit the indictment that identifies a senior military commander of masterminding the killing, and the commander in south Lebanon along with two other named men of carrying out the attack.

"Now we are facing a new reality and must put the country's unity before everything else."

Lebanon, which erupted into a prolonged paroxysm of killings, attacks, bombing, abductions, threats and violently criminal intimidations between 2005 and 2007, has no wish to return to that kind of destructive civil war that set Sunni and Shia Muslims, Druze and Christians against one another and destroyed the civilized country that Lebanon once was. Even Druze leader Walid Jumblatt now insists that the indictment and justice are not more important that the country's stability.

Saad Hariri is jubilant, claiming the matter to finally be within reach of justice: "After many years of patience, of struggle, today we witness a historic moment in Lebanese politics, justice and security." It is not destined to be. Hezbollah is too powerful; Lebanon has itself to blame for permitting the terrorist group, trained and armed by Syria and by Iran, to capture it politically and militarily.

The long-awaited result of the UN special investigative tribunal's findings will change nothing. Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, when it was revealed through knowledgeable sources that the tribunal would name members of Hezbollah in the motorcade bombing in Beirut that killed Rafiq Hariri, threatened that neither he nor Hezbollah would tolerate blame. Violence and upheaval would result.

The Lebanese cabinet is now dominated by Hezbollah and its allies. And it has long sneered at the UN tribunal, naming it a "Israeli project".

Saad Hariri Photo: AP

Rafik Hariri Photo: AFP"