Lebanon Dodges a Bullet, for Now

Word that although indictments may be submitted shortly to the pretrial judge of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), no details are likely to be made public for several months while a decision on whether to proceed to trial is considered, has led to sighs of relief in Lebanon, which was bracing for potential conflict if, as reported, senior Hizbullah figures were indicted.

This may just be postponing the inevitable, but it also gives the Lebanese factions time to prepare for the inevitable if it comes, or to lobby for some sort of compromise. It at least delays the confrontation.

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Israel on Alert about Lebanon

You can feel the temperature risin' in Lebanon, but Elvis has nothing to do with it. Israel's security cabinet is meeting today over concerns, in the wake of the CBC report leaking parts of the Special Tribunal on Lebanon's findings, Hizbullah might, as Ha'aretz puts it, "try to take over Lebanon."

This is probably just posturing but, combined with worries about a new Lebanese civil war, it reminds us that the STL is playing with fire. It's seeking justice, but even Rafiq Sa‘d Hariri, who would seem to have as much interest as anyone in solving his father's murder, is trying to dial back on the tensions.

Lebanon being Lebanon, he could ask Walid Jumblatt how he coped with his father's murder.

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The STL, the CBC, and the Hariri Investigation

By now we've all been primed for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL)'s expected indictment of senior Hizbullah figures in the Hariri assassination. Though that hasn't happened yet, an apparent leak of details of the investigation has now provoked a lot of debate and armchair analysis. I'm not even going to try to summarize the story here, since the report, by CBC News, is lengthy, detailed, and includes charts. (The fact that the current chief of the STL, Daniel Bellemare, is Canadian comes to mind, but the CBC report by Neil Macdonald goes out of its way to note that Bellemare refused to be interviewed by the CBC.) Read the report first, so you'll know what the various blogosphere commenters are talking about.

Qifa Nabki has, of course, been on the case. A first posting here; a longer post raising various questions here; and a post in which reporter Macdonald responds to some of the questions raised.

Qifa also quotes commenter T_DESCO, who has posted analysis quoting earlier reports from the STL to raise questions about Macdonald's report over at Josh Landis' Syria Comment blog.

Of course this kind of point by point criticism of a leaked story suggests the leak itself was planted by someone. All of which reminds us that in a region where every event produces a related conspiracy theory, this one clearly was a conspiracy that involved a lot of people, reached into the Lebanese security services, and perhaps involved some deliberate false flags.

Read both the CBC report and the commentaries. They'll likely preoccupy Lebanese coffeehouse debates until the STL really does unveil its conclusions.

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Waiting for the STL

Though no one is certain when, precisely, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon will issue its long anticipated indictments of Hizbullah members for the 2005 assassination of Rafiq Hariri, everyone expects it to be very soon, perhaps imminent. The STL's Outreach Section has been holding a three day media event in The Hague, to explain to the media the context and how to report on international criminal tribunals, which suggests the coin may be about to drop. (Somehow I don't think Nuremberg did media spin [or needed to], but I could be wrong.)

Obviously this was a major subtext of Ahmadinejad's Lebanon excursion, and is a potential grenade in Lebanon's precarious political situation.

The fact of the matter is the STL's investigation has moved dramatically from Syria (everyone's prime suspect originally) to Hizbullah, and thus has become a major issue for Lebanon's largest communal group, the Shi‘a. The "false witnesses" (in quotes because it'd become a cliche now in Lebanon) who pointed the finger at Syria are seen as discrediting the whole STL process.

We're still not 100% sure who killed Kamal Jumblatt, Rashid Karami, Bashir Gemayel or Danny Chamoun, or what happened to Musa al-Sadr (to cover as broad a spectrum of Lebanese as possible politically). Will a clearer answer — assuming they get it right this time, unlike last time — on Rafiq Hariri be for the good, or will it provoke new conflict? Justice is essential (if all too rare in Lebanon: see list just above), but in the present circumstances, I'm not sure it won't carry a high cost. Is anyone?

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