Everything should be called by its actual name. An assassination attempt is an assassination attempt, not anything else, whatever is done to hide the crime. Dr Samir Geagea, the president of the Lebanese Forces executive board, has been the target of a serious assassination attempt...a very serious one. Those who question whether Geagea was truly targetted are avoiding blaming the party that will benefit from eliminating an eminent Christian leader in Lebanon, who is turning out to be a national leader with influence over other Arab countries following his declared support for the Arab Spring. A normal question to ask in the wake of this assasination attempt is: Why Samir Geagea? And why now? Of course the answer is not that simple, especially regarding the complications Lebanon and the entire region are going through. But we can still come to a few conclusions, especially if we draw on previous experiences including the series of crimes witnessed in Lebanon since 1977, when the national leader Kamal Jumblatt was murdered not far from his house in al-Mokhtara, only a few weeks after a dispute emerged between him and former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad. What is also siginificant is that this crime was committed at a time of reconciliation between Jumblatt and some of his Lebanese opponents, particularly Bashir Gemayel, leader of the Lebanese Brigades Party. It is a known fact that Syria was not interested in reconciliation between the conflicting Lebanese parties, as it wanted to maintain the volatile situation in Lebanon and push it even further/ Five and half years later, Bashir Gemayel was murdered on September 14, 1982. Bashir's assassination - shortly after he was elected as president - was intended to prevent a national leadership in Lebanon. As long as Bashir was involved in the internal conflict in Lebanon, his life was never in danger. Only after he started to begin a dialogue with his opponents, was his death sentence signed. Every assassination in Lebanon has its own story. President Renee Mouawad was assassinated after he refused to be a Syrian puppet, as he accepted the Taef agreement, which was an Arab designated agreement with an international cover. The former Lebanese Mufti, Sheikh Hassan Khaled, was also assassinated when he opposed the Syrian regime. The head of the Islamic Shiite Council, Imam Moussa al-Sadr, disappeared in 1978 in Libya, because he was a voice of reason who tried to push for dialogue between the Lebanese factions. The two former Prime Ministers, Saeb Salam and Taqiyiddine Saleh were murdered for the same reasons, and one day, the real reason behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Rachid Karami will be revealed too, and I guess Samir Geagea may not be involved in this crime at all. Nothing changed in Lebanon until 2005, the year which witnessed the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri and his companions, including Bassel Fleihan. It was always intended for Lebanon not possess a leader who could put Lebanon back on the regional map, rather letting it remain the backyard of Syria. It was necessary to get rid of Rafiq al-Hariri, as he emerged a national leader, or even an Arab leader, who was also a good friend to most global powers. After President Bashar al-Assad took power in Syria, a Syrian-Iranian coalition was established to run the same strategy in Lebanon, and this coalition has targetted all figures that had the ability to unify the Lebanese - like Samir Kosseir, George Hawi, Jubran Tweini, Waleed Eido, and Antoun Ghanem. They were all murdered, along with a very exceptional man: Pierre Gemayel. Gemayel was not targetted for any other reason other than he was a leader-in-the-making, whose popularity pervaded all sects and regions. He was an alternative to the other Christian figure, MP Michel Aoun, who didn't have the popularity for him to be a representative of Kassrwan, without Syrian-Iranian support, that guarantees him Shiite and Armenian votes. For more than 40 years, Lebanon has been resisting attempts aimed at putting the Lebanese under Syrian rule, and now the question is: why try to murder Samir Geagea now? The answer is that the man is resisting the coup planned against Lebanon. Geagea has turned from a militia leader to a reasonable politician, who cares for his country's future. Since he was released from prison in 2005, Geagea succeeded in adopting a distinct political approach, that showed him as a religious man but not a fanatic like Michel Aoun, who has launched a war against the Sunnis in the region with his coalition, and a sectarian militia that follows Iran. In only a few years, Samir Geagea has turned from a militia leader to a national leader, who is open to all Lebanese parties, and the Arab countries as well. What is more important is that he has emerged as someone with influence in Lebanon's balance of power, as he succeeded in encouraging the Lebanese youth, particularly the Christians, to stand up against all those who want to besiege this small country and turn it once again into Syria's puppet. To be more clear, Syria knows that it can't totally kill Lebanon's independence and bring it back under Syrian influence without eliminating Samir Geagea. In Geagea's absence it is possible for them to weaken the Christian part of the independence coalition in the parliamentary elections of 2013, as there are some parties that plan to defeat the Lebanese people in these elections and force them to yield, using fear and terrorism. What is strange is that this is happening while Lebanese unity has proved to be much stronger than the Syrians'. Also it has been clear that if there is any regime which is under threat in this region, it is the Syrian regime, not the Lebanese. If there is a future for the Christians in Lebanon and the Arab world, it will only be guaranteed by the establishment of democratic institutions, not by being involved in a "minority coalition", called for by some mentally unstable figures, like the current talkative Maronite Patriarch, who doesn't know when to talk and when to shut up.
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Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2023 ©