Life lessons from Costi Zurayk and Rafic Hariri

Constantine "Costi" Zurayk

(The following is the last of three posts Fawaz Najia had ready but did not have time to publish before he lost his battle with cancer on April 20)

The AUB years were the best years in my life. And I owe them to one man: Constantine (“Costi”) K. Zurayk (1909-2000).

He was an intellectual and moral giant whose generosity funded my undergraduate years at the American University of Beirut.

My first concern, after enrolling at AUB in 1954 and managing to settle my first semester tuition, was finding a sponsor to fund the ones after. My parents couldn't possibly have managed three years of university education for me.

My big break for the second semester was winning a scholarship for needy students granted by Zurayk. I held on to the Zurayk Endowed Scholarship for another four semesters leading up to my graduation. The scholarship covered my tuition fees in full -- plus a small allowance.

I was three months into my sophomore year when Zurayk became acting president of AUB following the sudden death of President Stephen B. L. Penrose in December 1954. He kept the position until the July 1, 1957 Commencement ceremony. J. Paul Leonard assumed office as president of AUB and I received my “Bachelor of Arts with Distinction” in economics on that day.

The degree landed me a decent job, which in turn allowed me to fund my postgraduate studies gradually and pick up my Masters in economics in 1962.

When I first applied for the need-based Zurayk Endowed Scholarship, I had to complete a financial aid form showing I could not meet the cost of tuition. My classmate George T. Yacoub, a sheer Ras Beiruti, was looking to fill a similar form for another need-based scholarship. He suggested we turn to the mukhtar (district chief) of Ras Beirut, Jirji Rubeiz. His office was at the joint of Jeanne d’Arc and Mak’hool streets, some 200 meters from AUB’s Main Gate.

An affable and witty man, mukhtar Rubeiz knew the circumstances of every resident family in Ras Beirut. He quickly gave us two signed and sealed documents on his letterhead. Each stated in his handwriting: “I, mukhtar Jirji Rubeiz, by this certify that (name) has no funds or property.” His crisp statement won us the scholarships.

Zurayk was born to a Christian Arab family in Damascus in April 1909. He received his Bachelor of Arts from AUB in 1928, his Doctor of Laws from the University of Chicago in 1929 and his PhD from Princeton University in 1930. In nearly 50 years at AUB, he served as Professor and Distinguished Professor of History and Arab History, as Emeritus Professor of Arab History and Archaeology and as Vice President and Acting President.

His major work was Ma’na an-Nakba (The Meaning of the Disaster). Published in 1948, the book offered the first major intellectual critique of Arab society.

Zurayk’s lifelong concern was the issue of reform and how to move the Arabs from their "backward" state into the modern world. “Our problems in Arab society are… problems of culture and civilization."

His identification of the ills of Arab society and his advocacy of education as the best tool for reform remain enshrined in my mind.

So are the values of liberty, diversity independence, democracy, justice, education, human rights and free enterprise. Zurayk and other faculty members – chiefly Cecil Hourani, Yusuf K. Ibish, James Batal, Yusuf A. Sayegh and Paul J. Klat -- instilled these in me.

Perhaps the best time I could “give back” to Zurayk was at university by:

-- Topping all students in the School of Arts and Sciences in my senior year with a grade average exceeding 90 percent.

-- Serving successively as president of the Economics Society, president of the Civic Welfare League and editor in chief of Outlook, the student weekly.

-- Setting new AUB weightlifting records at the 1957 Field Day (see “Brawn and Brains” posted on ________).

More importantly, he must have felt gratified when he wrote me this letter dated 13 June 1957:

“Dear Mr. Najjiya,

“I am happy to inform you that the Board of Academic Deans has approved the recommendation of the Dean and Faculty of Arts and Sciences that you be granted the Penrose Award for the academic year 1956-1957.

“This award is granted to the outstanding student of each of the four Faculties of the University, on the basis of scholarship, character, leadership and contribution to university life.

“Your name will be engraved on the Plaque which has been donated by Mrs. Penrose in memory of the late President, Dr. Stephen B. L. Penrose Jr.

“In communicating this action to you, I wish to express my sincere congratulations and my best wishes for the future. It is our firm hope that your record after you graduate will reflect credit on yourself, your Alma Mater and your country.

“Sincerely yours,

(Signed)

“C. K. Zurayk

“Acting President”

Growth of the financial aid program at the University over the years is remarkable. For example, 2,765 students -- or 36% of the total enrolled in 2008-2009 – received $11.6 million in financial aid, mostly as need-based grants. That’s an average of $4,195 for each recipient. An extra $4 million funded graduate assistantships and student employment. Credit goes to the generous support of AUB alumni, former students and friends.

Many people choose other ways to “give back.” Mahmoud Z. Malhas, a dear friend and fellow 1957 graduate in economics whose scholarship benefactor was Vice President Archie S. Crawford, “gave back” to AUB through a $600,000 gift to renovate the Common Room. The newly named Mahmoud Malhas Common Room, which serves a multipurpose student area in West Hall, opened in November 2008. Mahmoud had also contributed toward rebuilding College Hall in the 1990s.

My and Mahmoud’s midfifties “rat pack” included engineering graduate Suhail Bat’heesh, among others. Suhail, who passed away in March 2001, “gave back” from the grave.  In his memory, his widow Etaf gave $440,000 to renovate the West Hall Theater. The New Suhail R. Bat’heesh Auditorium launched in February 2003.

Rafic Hariri, Costi Zurak and AUBites

The Arab world’s topmost philanthropist though remains Lebanon’s late prime minister and AUB trustee Rafic Hariri, who was killed in February 2005. He was a generous benefactor to the University for many years.  He provided scholarships that enabled thousands of young men and women to study at the University. AUB President Peter Dorman says Hariri also offered “critical and timely support to the University during the Lebanese civil war, and funded the Hussam-Eddeen Hariri Faculty Apartments on lower campus.”

His son, Prime Minister and Trustee Saad-Eddeen Rafic Hariri, elected “to honor the memory of his late father by naming and endowing the Rafic Hariri School of Nursing at AUB.”  His gift covered costs to renovate and equip the new building, set up a faculty chair in nursing and bankroll Hariri Scholarships for nursing students.

Rafic Hariri has left a legacy of philanthropy through the Hariri Foundation, which he set up in 1979. It testifies to the importance he gave to the quality education of future generations. So far, the Hariri Foundation has helped educate more than 35,000 Lebanese students in the finest universities at home and abroad, including the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Canada.

****

The late Prime Minister Rafic Hariri

I never met the late Hariri one-on-one. Throughout his tenure as prime minister I lived in London where I founded and edited Mideast Mirror. It was an online publication offering subscribers a daily English-language digest of political and economic news and views from across the Middle East. It was delivered to subscribers worldwide, including foreign and other ministries, government agencies, embassies, think tanks, research centers, lobby groups, major media and international organizations and specialized groups in the United States, Europe and Japan.

On 16 December 1996, the “Friends of Lebanon” conference – co-chaired by the United States and Hariri -- was held at the State Department in Washington. Some 30 nations and eight international financial institutions attended the conference intended to solicit pledges to finance rebuilding Lebanon.

I thought Mideast Mirror, which went out to subscribers in the early afternoon London time, had to cover the Washington event in good time.  The full text of Hariri’s opening speech would be a fitting curtain raiser.

I rang seasoned political writer Khairallah Khairallah (KK to his friends) in London. I asked him if he had a phone number for any Hariri aide in Washington who could give me a copy of the speech. He said he only had one for the hotel where the team was staying.

I waited a couple of hours until it was midday in London and dialed Washington.

I heard “Hello” at the other end of the line from the sleepy voice of the late prime minister just waking up. I hesitated for a second before saying “Sorry Mr. Prime Minister for waking you up.”

He said, “No problem, but who are you? What do you want?”

I explained the reason for my call.

He said, “If I gave you the text of my speech at this hour of day, it means it will be released before delivery.”

I said, “Sir, we shall type the text, proofread it and lay it out. But release of the newsletter will be embargoed until your speech delivery.”

He said, “Fine. Do you know Nouhad Mashnouq (who was his bureau chief at the time)?”

“Yes Mr. Prime Minister, I do.”

“Do you have a fax machine?”

“Yes sir, I do.”

“Then please ring Nouhad on this number (which he gave me), tell him you woke me up and ask him to fax you the speech. He’ll do it right away.” And Mashnouq did.

The “Friends of Lebanon” conferees pledged $1 billion in near term investments for rebuilding Lebanon and another $2.2 billion in long-term investments. Washington’s contribution included development aid, agricultural credits and $2.1 million in grants for AUB.

Good men like Hariri and Zurayk never die.

Lebanon returns to the Saudi fold

The Salams, father and son

The Lebanese media is strangely of one mind: Saudi Arabia has supplanted Syria as kingmaker in Lebanon.

Beirut’s pro-Saudi lawmaker Tammam Salam -- eldest son of the late six-time Prime Minister Saeb Salam, who was Riyadh’s pointman in Lebanon throughout his decades-long political life – is set to head a new Lebanese government.

“Tammam Salam is premier-designate… by Saudi fiat” is how Ms Hiyam Qusaybati headlines her front-page lead for Beirut’s al-Akhbar daily, which speaks for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Hezbollah.

As-Safir, another Lebanese daily close to the Syrian regime and Hezbollah, echoes the perspective with a banner headline saying: “Saudi comeback… through Jumblatt’s candidate for the premiership.”

And according to the front-page lead of Lebanon’s leading independent daily al-Nahar, the expected nomination at the weekend of Tammam Salam as premier-designate marks a “Revival of the 2009 alliance and of Saudi auspices.”

Salam has already won endorsement of his nomination from the pro-Saudi March 14 alliance headed by former Premier Saad Hariri and from most members of the pro-Syrian and Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition.

President Michel Sleiman is thus expected to conclude his weekend consultations by asking him to form a new government.

Lebanon watchers agree the facilitator of Saudi Arabia’s comeback to center stage in Lebanon and of Tammam Salam’s nomination for prime minister is none other than Walid Jumblatt, the one and only eminence grise in Lebanese politics.

Today’s print and electronic media are replete with Junblatt’s disclosures -- about Salam’s nomination and Saudi Arabia’s role -- in his interview with LBC TV anchorman Marcel Ghanem overnight.

Jumblatt, who holds the balance of power in parliament through the seven seats of his Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), told Ghanem:

• I chose Mr. Tammam Salam, nominated him and contacted him. He hails from an historic, moderate family and I hope everyone will positively receive him.
• I don't want to say (March 14 leader) Saad Hariri was dismayed when I proposed Salam, but his response was lukewarm. Hezbollah had the same reaction when I contacted them. Hariri's choice for prime minister was former Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi. But I told Hariri that Rifi is a confrontational candidate (to the March 8 alliance). And when Hezbollah asked me if I had a candidate other than Salam, I said no -- because he hails from a moderate family and he never said a bad word about the Resistance.
• During (PSP legislator) Wael Abu-Faour's second visit to Saudi Arabia, we rejected several names that were proposed, including Ashraf Rifi. Yesterday, during my telephone conversation with Hariri, he insisted on Ashraf Rifi but I rejected the name. I rejected the nominee despite his absolute competence. Even Wael rejected Rifi during his talks with (Saudi Intelligence Chief) Prince Bandar because we want a consensual candidate.
• I'm still a centrist and when I allowed myself to name Tammam Salam, I named a historically centrist political dynasty. And I won’t endorse or participate in any one-sided government. I will only give my vote of confidence to a government inclusive of all parties. Members of a national unity cabinet, not me, will thus decide the ministerial Policy Statement.
• I call for managing our differences inside the cabinet until the end of the Syrian crisis. My words were clear during my meeting with Prince Bandar that whatever the outcome of the Syrian revolution let no one think of any negative move against Hezbollah. Dialogue with Hezbollah is inevitable. I won’t accept to condemn the party and I don't approve of Obama's description (of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization).
• In the heart of Saudi Arabia, I said we want dialogue with Hezbollah in Lebanon and I call on Hariri to engage in dialogue, organize the differences and implement the policy of “dissociating” from the Syria crisis. I hope Salam will follow suit.

Interestingly, my train of thought leads to note the following:

1. Saeb Salam, Tammam’s father, went into exile in Geneva in 1985 after surviving two assassination attempts. He had angered the Syrian regime of Hafez Assad with conciliatory stands he had taken at peace conferences held at Geneva and Lausanne the year before, and he did not feel safe to return to Lebanon until 1994. Five years earlier, he told my weekly magazine, Monday Morning, in an exclusive interview (see cover photo above) that his nominee for the Lebanese presidency was Raymond Edde. Edde was already living in self-exile in Paris after three Syrian attempts on his life in 1976.
2. Walid Jumblatt’s father, Kamal Jumblatt, was assassinated near a Syrian army checkpoint in March 1977.
3. Rafik Hariri, Saad’s father, was killed when a ton of TNT targeted his motorcade on Beirut’s shoreline. In its first two reports, the UN International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC) indicated the Syrian government might be linked to the assassination.

Assad’s crime, Hariri’s jet and Nasrallah’s bus

Houla bodies awaiting burial (Photo from BBC.co.uk)

Rage at the Houla massacre by Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad is universal.

The UN has confirmed the deaths of at least 90 civilians in the Syrian town, including 32 children under the age of 10 (see yesterday’s post).

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the massacre was a “flagrant violation of international law.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the atrocity “appalling,” saying Assad’s “rule by murder and fear must come to an end.” She added in a statement, “Those who perpetrated this atrocity must be identified and held to account.”

British Foreign Secretary William Hague was heading to Moscow today to discuss Syria. “Will call on Russia to support rapid and unequivocal pressure on Assad regime and accountability for crimes,” he wrote in his Twitter micro-blog late on Saturday.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is making immediate arrangements for an immediate meeting of the “Friends of Syria” group.

UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan called for an urgent Arab League meeting.

But Saudi daily al-Watan’s leader writer remarks, “While its appears the Assad regime wants to live all alone in Syria, the Damascus tyrant and his corrupt clique seem fully convinced all international efforts to save the Syrian people from their atrocities are not serious… The Great Powers’ intricate national interests and political calculations preclude all root solutions liable to end the bloodbath in Syria.”

Tariq Alhomayed, editor-in-chief of the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, says the Houla massacre “is not the regime’s first and won’t be its last.”

Like always, the regime chose an opportune occasion to commit the outrage “when the whole region was busy following the outcome and implications of the presidential elections in Egypt.”

Alhomayed says the problem is not with the lack of words condemning Assad’s rule, but in the lack of deeds. “Assad overstepped all taboos and red lines and committed all sorts of crimes against humanity. He did everything and the international community did little other than issue statements, knowing that their economic sanctions are being flouted by Iraq, Lebanon and Russia…

“What Syria needs today are not declarations, or extending and fiddling with the Annan mission, which is suspect anyway. What Syrians need is foreign military intervention to stop the killing machine that has been running far too long and is now mowing down children and their mothers.”

Jet versus bus

Separately, the fate and whereabouts of a group of Lebanese pilgrims who were abducted in Syria earlier this week (see May 23 post) remains shrouded in mystery.

Ahmad Ayyash, writing for the independent Beirut daily an-Nahar, notes, “`Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah did not go to Bintjbeil in southernmost Lebanon to mark the 12^th anniversary of Liberation Day. He remained stuck underground in Beirut’s southern suburbs and addressed the Bintjbeil crowds by TV link. So, after all these years, the South returned to Lebanon without Nasrallah returning to the South.

“In the other setting, Saad Hariri’s diligent initiative to end the plight of the Lebanese abducted in Aleppo, and his dispatch of his private jet (to Turkey) in preparation to flying them home, earned the former prime minister praise from the audience in Hezbollah’s southern suburbs stronghold. That was unthinkable before the Lebanese bus travelers were nabbed in Aleppo.

“But like Nasrallah, Hariri is stuck somewhere outside Lebanon because of fear for his life. Proof was last month’s attempted assassination of Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea (see earlier post).

“Whereas the Lebanese travelers’ incident caused a stir internally, it did not change Nasrallah or Hariri’s priorities.

“The former thanked Syrian President Assad after God for efforts to solve the case of the missing Lebanese travelers. The gratitude sounded shocking for the flimsy reasons he cited to laud Assad.

“The latter (Hariri) chose to place his initiative in its Lebanese context, thus putting his solidarity with the missing Lebanese travelers on a par with his commitment to the just cause of the Syrian revolution.”

With Syria’s inferno raging out of control, Ayyash continues, word came that the abducted Lebanese were safe, allaying fears of a repeat of the Ain el-Remmaneh bus massacre that sparked off the Lebanese civil war in April 1975. This is to say the Syrian rebels proved to be “more civilized than the Lebanese,” even though Hezbollah destroyed the reputation of Lebanon’s Shiites in the eyes of Syria’s rebels and the Aleppo bus passengers of the same sect.

“It is extremely insensitive to see Lebanese, chiefly Nasrallah, link their fate to the Syrian tyrant’s. When Nasrallah was expressing his gratitude to Assad, the latter’s shabiha (thugs) were committing one of the most atrocious massacres of modern times in Houla, near Homs. Weren’t Houla’s tiny victims worthy of a tear?”

Ayyash says while Hariri’s jet remains on standby to fly back the abducted Lebanese home, “Nasrallah seems to belong to the ‘Ain el-Remmaneh bus’ generation.” 

Is Lebanon going Iraq’s way?

Aftermath of Beirut clashes earlier this week (Photos from BBC News)

By Ghassan Charbel

The author is editor-in-chief of the Saudi-owned pan-Arab

daily al-Hayat. His leader appears today in Arabic

Booby-traps continue to be planted in Lebanon’s fragile frame. The frame’s rattled and exposed contours are exposed to internal and external storms.

What remains of the State is shaking and eroding. The “Lebanese arena” is being invited to commit suicide. And some want this to happen without delay.

I don’t claim the Lebanese to be innocent, or simply victims. Divisions are profound. The number of adventurers is high and relations between the component elements are at their rock bottom.

The beleaguered country’s president received a letter from King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz urging him to act quickly to prevent the fire breaking out and to beware of its likely triggers.

Lebanese leaders need to diligently scrutinize the lines in the letter and read what is between them.

The author of the letter had previously sponsored the sole attempt to prevent Lebanon from falling into the abyss. His efforts at the time were code-named “S-S” (for Saudi-Syrian mediation).

Shooting down that initiative battered Lebanon as well as Syria’s Arab and international relations. Had those efforts succeeded, Beirut would not have been twisting and turning today to the tune of sectarian sensitivities. Perhaps Damascus too would have been less agitated.

It is an open secret that happenings in Syria are beyond Lebanon’s staying power. Damages were expected. But the shock was the speed of Lebanon’s loss of cohesion and its total lack of immunity.

Decadence of the State augurs dire consequences. A serious incident, such as the killing of two Sunnite sheikhs in Akkar, nearly ignited an inferno. A serious incident, such as the abduction of Lebanese Shiite men in Aleppo, all but sparked a fire as well. Luckily, ex-premier Saad Hariri reacted prudently and responsibly to the first incident. And (Hezbollah leader) Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was quick to contain reactions to the latter.

The initiative to prevent the conflagration is not enough. The country is falling apart and so is the region. You only need to look at Iraq. The example there is vivid and blatant. Some people believe Syria’s own components are also sliding into a bloody and long crisis that can only end à la Iraq.

Without necessarily using official parlance about federalism and provinces, this would have a traumatic impact on Lebanon, the quasi-makeup of which translates into civil war each time the balance of power between its provinces swings one way or the other.

After the infamous Akkar incident, and irrespective of its circumstances, the military institution got embroiled in the Lebanese dispersal.

Voices were heard accusing the army of establishing a symbolic presence in one province and of seeking to impose its clout in another. It was accused of coexisting with armed citizens in the first and trying to disarm citizens in another.

That’s a sequel of the Sunnite-Shiite split over the “Resistance’s weapons,” which to most Sunnites are Hezbollah’s weapons. It involved thinning out Lebanese military forces in one province and redeploying them in a weaker province, where power is divided between Michel Aoun and Samir Geagea.

Tragedy does not lie in countries being weak, governments being ineffectual, or parliaments being impotent. Tragedy rather lies in discovering the maps are ailing and the provinces therein are demanding new labels and recognitions. The reasons are the setback to co-existence resulting from tyranny and the lack of a culture of recognizing the other side and its right to disagree.

Experience shows manipulating maps is costly and delineating provinces in them is fraught with funerals, displacements and abuses.

Lebanon’s map is also ailing and the national fabric is worn out. Careful appraisal shows a solemn Lebanese State would spare the Shiites a horrific crash, the Sunnites a costly gamble and the Christians further exodus.

The choice is evident: either a return from the mentality of provinces to the mindset of a State or drowning in sectarian flare-ups and protracted wars.

Abductions in Syria raise Lebanon suspense

The Lebanese women were flown back to Beirut

overnight (Photo by Haitham Mousawi for al-Akhbar)

What’s wrong in Lebanon?

Someone apparently asked Siri the same question on her iPhone 4S.

She later tweeted:

I don’t own an iPhone and I don’t plan asking Siri.

My short answer to “wassup in Lebanon” is: “Here are the pointers, so draw your own conclusions.”

The pointers:

=== The bad news is that Syrian rebels Tuesday abducted 11 Lebanese Shiite men and their Syrian bus driver in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo on their way back from a religious trip to Iran. Women traveling in the group were allowed to go free and flown back to Beirut overnight.

=== The good news is that Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour, who usually speaks for Syria, expects the men to be released “within hours, according to information provided by an Arab country.” Earlier, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who strongly backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, appealed for calm. At the same time, former Sunnite premier Saad Hariri, who leads the anti-Assad opposition in Lebanon, strongly denounced the abduction “of our Lebanese brothers in Syria” and called for the men’s “immediate release.”

=== The bad news is that Michel Aoun, head of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc and who Assad crowned leader of the Orient’s Christians, Tuesday came out in support of the May 17 letter by Syria’s UN ambassador Bashar Ja’afari to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The letter depicts Lebanon as a Taliban-infested Afghanistan, its eastern and northern regions as the hills and caves of Tora Bora and its seaport city of Tripoli as Kandahar (see my May 19 post). Aoun told reporters Ja’afari “has data and does not lie.”

=== The good news is that Lebanon’s pro- and anti-Assad political factions Wednesday welcomed Saudi King Abdullah’s call for national dialogue to help steer Lebanon clear of regional turmoil, chiefly in Syria. The monarch said in a letter to President Michel Suleiman: “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia follows with great concern developments in Tripoli, mainly the targeting of one of the main sects in the Lebanese communal fabric…

“Considering the gravity of the crisis and the possibility of its relapse into sectarian sedition – reviving, God forbid, the specter of civil war -- we look forward to Your Excellency’s wisdom, hoping you would intervene to end the crisis by initiating a national dialogue in keeping with your eagerness to dissociate Lebanon from external conflicts, particularly from the Syrian crisis next door.”

=== The bad news is that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today told a televised news conference in Moscow the Syrian conflict might spread to Lebanon. "Now, there is a real risk that the conflict may start spilling over into Lebanon where, given the historical context, the ethnic and religious make-up of the population, as well as the principles that Lebanon rests on, things may end badly indeed.”

Editorially, Lebanese political analyst Abdelwahhab Badrakhan says Lebanon’s current predicament was expected.

Detachment from events in Syria, he writes today for Beirut’s an-Nahar, was “neither Lebanon’s choice nor decision.”

The Lebanese government’s avowed policy of “self-distancing” itself from the Syria crisis was the upshot of Damascus’ quest “for breathing space from international sanctions.” It was also the upshot of Iran’s need to ease Hezbollah’s burden in running the country. The result was a period of quasi-stability that earned the Beirut government cautious, but uncertified, praise.

Badrakhan says, “Only a strong and independent government can self-distance itself from whatever is prejudicial to Lebanese interests – but not a government submissive to the Syrian regime and fearful of the regime’s Lebanese tentacles inside and outside state institutions.”

Badrakhan recalls that within days of Foreign Minister Mansour confiding the government had “disappointed” Damascus, Ja’afari was accusing Lebanon of harboring terrorists and arms smugglers and “a Lebanese army checkpoint sought to ‘assuage’ Syria’s disappointment.”

He says the killing of two sheikhs at an army checkpoint in Akkar and the way anti-Assad activist Shadi Mawlawi was arrested in Tripoli were probably the beginning of something more sinister.

According to Badrakhan, “Renewed talk of insubordinate (security) elements brings to mind similar 1975 (civil war) scenarios… In the 37 years since, it does not seem like the army has fortified the state. Nor has the army build up muscle to protect the state. What took place in Tripoli and Akkar, then Beirut, is not as alarming as making the Lebanese deem a return to civil war likely because the state and the army are threatened.”

Why then this frenetic drive to inflame and detonate?

Simply because the Syrian regime is dispirited by its treatment at the hands of international players, “save for Russia and China.” Damascus feels accepting Annan’s plan, and proving it remained in control of the situation, went unrewarded… Still, the players are not relenting. In view of that, says Badrakhan, Damascus decided to poke around in Lebanon while telling the international players, “Talk to me. Otherwise, I will destabilize and destroy Lebanon.” 

Why Lebanon’s Samir Geagea is in their gunsight

Samir Geagea

Snipers armed with long-range rifles mounted with optics this week shot at Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea outside his Maarab residence in Lebanon’s Kesrouan district but narrowly missed him.

The French foreign ministry, the U.S. ambassador in Beirut and the UN special coordinator for Lebanon promptly condemned the outrage.

Geagea, who paid high profile visits to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Iraqi Kurdistan during the Arab Spring, and his Lebanese forces are the foremost Christian component of the March 14 Alliance.

Although the alliance won the 2009 parliamentary elections, its leader Saad Hariri formed a national unity government with the pro-Syrian and Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition.

Hariri was toppled and replaced as prime minister by Najib Mikati in a “palace coup” masterminded by Hezbollah and Syria in early 2011. Hariri has been sheltering in Saudi Arabia since.

Today, five Lebanese columnists offer their perspectives on the attempt on Geagea’s life.

Rosanna Boumounsef, in her daily column for Beirut’s an-Nahar, says the attempt “raises many questions associated primarily to the situation in Syria, considering that the Syrian factor remains a determining factor in Lebanese power politics and in the endeavor to exploit an existing balance of power.”

Walid Choucair, in the Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, expects the search for a political solution in Syria to turn tail and give way to a “crisis management” plan as devised for Lebanon between 1975 and 1989.  The important thing, he writes, is for the attempt on Geagea’s life “not to be the opening shot in a new phase of blood-spattered backup for managing the crisis in Syria.”

Hussam Itani, also writing for al-Hayat, says: “Geagea is the only Christian leader to be fully committed to the 1989 Taef Agreement. That in itself deprives the so-called forces of resistance in Lebanon and Syria from the all-important Christian cover provided them only in part by Michel Aoun.”

Tony Issa, in Beirut’s al-Joumhouria, believes the assassination attempt is “solid proof” the aim of the infamous “Unidentified Gunman” is to “eliminate March 14 altogether by either exiling or killing its key figures.”

Rola Muwaffak, writing for Lebanese al-Liwa’, guards against downplaying the link between the bid on Geagea’s life and the 2013 parliamentary elections. She notes that while Aoun’s popularity is on the wane and Geagea’s is waxing, Hezbollah and company remain bent on winning a legislative majority in next year’s vote at all costs.

Geagea outlined his party’s political agenda last September in a landmark address commemorating martyrs of the Lebanese resistance.

Here are excerpts of his address that help shed light on the state of play in Lebanon all the way through 2013:

• “By God, tell us: Who killed Bashir Gemayel, Kamal Junblatt, René Moawad and Rafik Hariri? Tell us, who left behind illegitimate weapons and out of bounds and terrorist areas, keeping the Lebanese under relentless strain and the Lebanese State hostage?”
• “Whoever kills fellow citizens in our homeland, in the region or in the world without mercy or pity is undeserving of either friendship or partnership. The so-called coalition of minorities proposed by some… belittles the Christians’ historic role. It turns them from defenders of humanity’s noble principles to mere sandbags protecting brutal and backward regimes that embrace no values or beliefs except to cling to power at all costs and regardless of all odds.”
• “I cannot but condemn the current Lebanese government’s stance on happenings in Syria. Such stance does not mirror Lebanon’s liberty, freedom, progress and openness. On the contrary, it sends a black, bleak and ghastly image of Lebanon that is unreal and rebuts most Lebanese’s yearnings and feelings. By taking this position, the current government disowns Lebanon’s identity, cultural heritage and history. It is also putting Lebanon on a direct collision course with the Arab caucus and international community, which is unprecedented for the Lebanese State.”
• “The existence of Hezbollah weapons does not only burden and threaten ordinary citizens. It also impacts senior officials and politicians, some of whom submitted to arms blackmail and coercive intimidation. This led, at least on one occasion, to a government being toppled and replaced by another. This was again done in the name of the Resistance. It’s tragicomic that instead of the State co-opting Hezbollah’s weapons five years after launching a National Dialogue on the issue, it is today looking for ways to avoid being swamped or seized by Hezbollah.”
• “The Taef Agreement was supposed to close the Lebanese War chapter -- i.e. stop destructions, killings and assassinations and usher in reconciliation, security and stability. Assassinations persisted and martyrs continued falling because some people insisted on keeping Lebanon’s wound open.”
• “The Special Tribunal for Lebanon was launched to ostracize serial wanton murders. Except that since day one of the Tribunal being set up, some people started putting spokes in its wheel. They sought to cast doubt, bully, wrangle, dream up quasi-proofs and forage for personal pitfalls or technical loopholes you would find in any institution, administration or court, to pounce on the tribunal and try to blow it away.”