The Conspirators

"This is now revenge against a man who confronted the Syrians and revenge against a district, a Christian district in the heart of Beirut.  Regional powers are fighting in Syria and now also want to fight in Lebanon."
Khattar Abou Diab, University of Paris

Hezbollah was named by the UN's investigative committee on the assassination by three of its operatives of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al Hariri.  Hezbollah at that time was doing the work of Syria which had colonized Lebanon and which wanted to rid itself of the prime minister who resisted Syrian occupation.

So it seems strange that the bomb blast that targeted General Wissam al-Hassan, head of Lebanese internal security forces, who had led the Lebanese investigation into the assassination of the former prime minister and who made no secret of his great animus toward Syria's ambitions for his country, is being blamed solely on Syria, with little mention of Hezbollah involvement.

Hezbollah militias are directly involved in the anti-rebel action in Syria.  They are firing off rockets targeting Syrian civilian targets as well as the Free Syria Army encampments, aiding and abetting Syria in the regime's determination to demolish all opposition to Bashar al-Assad's continued reign.

Although it is clear that Syria commands Hezbollah as its proxy terror militia, along with Iran, it's strange Hezbollah is not being named.

"We accuse Bashar Assad of the assassination of Wissam al-Hassam, the guarantor of the security of the Lebanese", a Lebanese television station was informed by Saad Hariri, former prime minister and opposition leader, (son of assassinated Rafik Hariri) whom Hezbollah in their political role ensconced in government had succeeded in removing from office.

Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Druze sect in Lebanon, who played an important role during the Lebanese civil war, as another bellicosely volatile critic of Damascus also damned Syria: "I openly accuse Bashar Assad and his regime of killing Wissam al-Hassan."  Clearly true and obviously courageously committed to calling the situation for what it is.

But no talk of Hezbollah being integrally involved?  Obviously caution being employed lest the entire country explode into a fireball of reaction with the Phalange militias, the Druze and Hezbollah taking the country back to the lethally destructive war that transformed that once most-cosmopolitan and relatively peaceful of Arab countries into the seething vipers' den of tribal, religious hatred and violence of the civil war.

The bomb that has brought Lebanon over to the brink of war as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain on the one hand, and Iran and Syria on the other play out their regional aspirations for one bloc to dominate the other on sectarian power grounds, hit the largely Christian area of central Beirut just as people were most vulnerable at mid-afternoon.

Michel Samaha, former Lebanese information minister had been arrested by General Hassan's internal security forces, accused of conveying bombs into Lebanon from Syria.  Omran al-Zoabie, Syria's information minister, a cohort of Samaha's, has denied all accusations that Syria was involved in the bomb that targeted General al-Hassan, killed 7 others and wounded 80 Lebanese.

"We condemn this terrorist explosion and all these explosions wherever they happen.  Nothing justifies them", he said righteously.  A sanctimonious knock-off of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declaring that war and conflict is uncivilized and rarely justified, disrupting normal human interaction.