No Lebanese illusions for the Syrian regime

Will Arabs be capable of co-existing with a Syrian regime which has only blackmailed them for more than four decades? This is the first challenge which faces the Baghdad Summit and is still facing Lebanon which has a long history with the Syrian regime. A year after the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, Lebanese and Arabs were supposed to not hold any illusions. In part, the Lebanese are aware that the there will be no salvation for their country without the downfall and demise of the current Syrian regime. The regime established its whole strategy on the idea that triumphing over Lebanon was an adequate replacement for triumphing over Israel. This very point was agreed upon within the Syrian regime, having existed prior to 1970 as well as before the late Hafez al-Assad’s appointment as minister of defence and successive Israeli governments. Lebanon was a court for Israel and the Syrian regime to play in. Both parties always maintained that southern Lebanon would be outside the Lebanese legitimate authority. The Syrian regime constantly encouraged the smuggling of weapons and fighters to Lebanon. It used its entire means to exert pressure and paralyse Lebanon's institutions. The Syrian regime was directly involved in all the bloody events experienced by its small neighbour since the al-Assad's autocracy began. It was always necessary for the regime in Damascus to stress that Lebanon is a state where life is not important and the need to keep it under guardianship at all times. Israel permanently welcomed this hostile policy to inter-Arab affairs in general. Whoever seeks to confirm the Syrian regime's complicity with Israel in Lebanon should revisit the preceded negotiations which were approved by the Americans for Syrian forces to enter Lebanese territory under what was officially named the "Arab Deterrent forces" (ADF). At this time, Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State, was able to gain an international, Arab and Israeli green light for a Syrian military incursion into Lebanon under the pretext of avoiding a regional conflict from the small state. In fact, Kissinger wanted Syrian forces to lay hands on Palestinian Liberation Organisation militants (PLO) in Lebanon. However, Israel objected to that and demanded the Palestinian militants stay in southern Lebanon so as to make sure that the Syrian forces stopped at the Litani River. This is what happened after the US, Syria and most Arab states agreed on the Israeli "red lines" which, justified by Yitzhak Rabin's government at that time as "the need to prevent clashes with the Palestinians from time to time". Prior to that, the Syrian regime paved the way for entering Lebanon through objection to any attempt made by the Lebanese authorities in seizing Palestinian weapons since 1973. These weapons entered Lebanon from Syria before anywhere else since 1968. The quantities of weapons increased after the expulsion of Palestinian militants from Jordan following the events of September 1970. Not only did the Syrian regime send weapons and gunmen to Lebanon during the preliminary stage of invading Lebanon, but also encouraged whoever was interested in provoking sectarian instincts. The Syrian regime started to encourage the process of displacing Christians from villages near the border line between the two countries, especially in the north and the Bekaa valley where many massacres targeting Christians took place. Meanwhile the Syrian regime encouraged Christians in the southern villages near the cease-fire line with Israel in helping resort to the Jewish state. Damascus also asked for its help after pushing Palestinian and non-Palestinian militants loyal to it to attack south Christian villages and towns. These villages and towns were almost isolated. It may take us a lot of time to explain how the Syrian regime was involved in supplying the Lebanese militias with arms, both directly and indirectly. At the same time it encouraged the Palestinians to challenge the Lebanese state authority. This strategy was intended to enable the Syrian regime to impose its full control on all Lebanese and Palestinian factions, whilst paying no attention to the misery that would affect both the Lebanese and Palestinian people. The Syrian regime has also gotten rid of every Lebanese figure that tried to push along the right path, beginning with Kamal Jumblatt in 1977 up to Rafiq al-Hariri in 2005. All the crimes committed against reputable Lebanese figures were somehow always related to the Syrian regime, including the murders of the two former presidents, Bashir Jmayel and Rene Moawad, as well as the former Mufti, Hassan Khaled. Even after Palestinian militants left Lebanon, the Syrian regime insisted on establishing new bases for themselves near the Lebanese border with Syria, which in turn Israel never complained about. The end of the existence of Palestinian militants in Lebanon in 1982 was accompanied with Syrian insistence of keeping southern Lebanese areas out of the state's authority and closed to army troops. Miraculously the south came the under control of a doctrinal party, that owns a militant militia associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces, even considered as a genuine part of it. What can the Lebanese people lose in case this regime collapses, the regime that had among other things dedicated itself to the destruction of their country and to the humiliation of the Syrian people? The Syrian regime may have succeeded in neglecting political activity in Syria, but the Lebanese were able to resist and are still doing so. The Lebanese are resisting because they believe in the culture of life over the culture of death that the Syrian regime is trying to impose upon them in the name of "national struggle". This is intended to be a struggle until the death of every Lebanese and Palestinian citizen and only for the sake of insuring a place for Iran on the Mediterranean shores. There is no doubt that some Lebanese fronts are to be blamed for what has happened to their country. All communities are responsible for playing the needed role to hide the Syrian regime's crimes or even facilitate them. This is evident and still being witnessed by the Christian MP Michel Aoun, who can deservedly be awarded the title of "The Honourary Thug", as he had done everything possible to insure the Syrian army breaking into the Presidential Palace at Baabda and the defence ministry headquarters at al-Yerzi in October 1990. Sooner or later the Syrian regime will disappear with no grief, and normal relations will again resume between the people of both Syria and Lebanon, as well as the state authorities of both countries. What is important is to avoid a civil war in Syria, which the regime sees as its last chance to survive, but what is even more important is the conviction of both nations that Damascus should be prosperous if Beirut is to be and vice versa.