Another step was taken yesterday in the long, slow march toward the final indictments from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), investigating the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri. Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare submitted a sealed draft of the indictment for review by the pre-trial judge Daniel Fransen -- its contents will probably not become public for another six to ten weeks.
The fact that the actual findings of the STL investigation are unknown has not stopped it from causing a major political crisis in Lebanon. Tensions came to a head last week, when the government collapsed upon the resignation from the cabinet of Hizbullah and its allies. The walkout came after a failure of negotiations between current Prime Minister (and son of Rafiq) Saad al-Hariri's March 14 coalition and the Hizbullah-led March 8 coalition to resolve disagreements over the implementation of the STL.
Hizbullah has objected to the STL since its creation, casting it as "an Israeli project" and a foreign intrusion into Lebanese internal affairs. For months, there have been indications that Hizbullah members will be implicated in Hariri's assassination. In a speech on Sunday (English translation available here), Hizbullah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah reiterated his contention that the STL is a plot by Western powers and Israel to weaken Hizbullah, raising once again the fictional issue of false witnesses being used to accuse Syria and Hizbullah.* Nasrallah said that Hizbullah and its allies resigned from Hariri's cabinet over disagreements on Lebanon's participation in and compliance with the STL, and in protest of the government's incompetence and ineffectiveness.
It is now up to President Michel Sleiman and the Lebanese parliament to form a new government. The new prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim due to the confessional distribution of power under the Lebanese constitution -- the March 8 coalition would obviously prefer a pro-Syria Sunni, while March 14 will almost certainly support Hariri's renomination. Nasrallah did hint that he may accept a renomination of Hariri at the end of his speech on Sunday when he said "It is possible that the MPs’ consultations might result in naming Hariri again as premier."
In addition to his typical demagoguery and conspiracy theorizing, Nasrallah's speech gave some clues about how Hizbullah plans to navigate the current political crisis. While the threat of violence is always just below the surface in Lebanon, Nasrallah seems confident that he can outmaneuver March 14 politically. This is simultaneously encouraging and discouraging -- it means that Hizbullah is not interested in driving Lebanon into chaos and civil strife, but also that it has enough leverage to derail and completely neuter the STL. Indictments will be issued, but they will probably not be enforced if political conditions continue as they are now.
Nasrallah devoted a large portion of his speech to framing his party's withdrawal from the Hariri government. He paints the withdrawal as a political issue, pointing out dissatisfaction with corruption, lack of transparency, and incompetence. He also attempts to make his objections to the indictment and Hizbullah's withdrawal into separate issues, saying explicitly that negotiations to name a new premier are "independent" from the STL issue. While this is misleading -- the STL is the principal cause for the current crisis -- it shows that Hizbullah is framing the conflict as a political one, and that they intend to confront their rivals in the political arena.
This approach is the result of extensive and largely successful efforts to coerce Saad Hariri and his supporters into distancing themselves from the STL. Hizbullah clearly views the investigation as an existential threat -- if Hizbullah were found to be responsible, or even complicit in Rafiq Hariri's assassination it would remove any shred of legitimacy they have as a political party. Hizbullah has been using the influence it gained after the Doha Agreement of 2008 and the threat of collapsing the government to wrest concessions from Hariri until last week, when they perceived they had enough clout in the parliament to remake the Lebanese government to their advantage.
For the moment, the STL will continue with its work, and it is doubtful Hizbullah will try to stop it. However, Hizbullah has won the message war on the STL, which is now widely perceived in Lebanon and the Arab world as a corrupt tool designed to undermine the "Resistance."
Under the current circumstances, the process of forming a government -- always laborious and messy in Lebanon -- could last for quite a while. It took five months to form a government after elections in 2009, and with the situation even more delicate now we are looking at a similar timeline for negotiations. Druze leader Walid Jumblatt -- who has deftly positioned himself between March 14 and March 8 -- will probably play a pivotal role in the process, and he is an interesting figure to watch going forward. While violence remains unlikely at the moment, a political victory for Hizbullah would actually be just as damaging to its rivals in Lebanon, and even more so for the United States and the Saudis, who support Saad Hariri and March 14.
Of course, one of the great ironies of this whole ordeal is that while Nasrallah portrays Hariri as an American stooge, the United States has withdrawn any meaningful support of him. It is the unfortunate fate of tiny Lebanon to be an arena for competition between aspiring regional powers. Hizbullah draws support -- including its considerable military power -- from Syria and Iran, while Hariri and March 14 rely on Saudi and American backing. But the United States under President Obama has sought to repair its relations with Syria, and in order to do so has essentially conceded its interests in Lebanon, leaving Hariri to be devoured by the men who probably killed his father. The Obama Administration has done little but express token support for Hariri, while allowing the Syrians to reenter Lebanese politics for the first time since 2005, when the "Independence Intifada" (known in the West as the Cedar Revolution) forced the Syrian military out of Lebanon and demanded an international investigation into Rafiq al-Hariri's assassination. Hizbullah and its allies are now poised to erase the legacy of that popular movement for independence and justice, while the United States sits on the sidelines.
*NOTE: The main argument Nasrallah uses to discredit the STL is to accuse it of using false witnesses. Like all good pieces of propaganda, there is a small bit of truth mixed into this falsehood. Nasrallah is most likely referring to the discredited testimony of Husam Taher Husam and Muhammad Zuhair Siddiq. Husam and Siddiq both gave depositions to Detlev Mehlis, head investigator of the UN International Independent Investigation Commission (IIIC), implicating Syrian officials in the Hariri assassination plot. Husam has since recanted his testimony, and Siddiq was arrested in France upon evidence that he was paid to make false accusations. Both of these testimonies were given to the IIIC before the STL ever existed, and have been publicly discredited. Because the draft STL indictment is sealed, nobody knows if evidence from these witnesses -- collected by a different investigator for a different commission -- is cited at all. For a more detailed explanation of the witness scandals and the missteps of the IIIC's investigation, see this piece by Gary C. Gambill.
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