Bashar Keeps His Promise - Mehlis is not Enough

As Detlev Mehlis boarded a yacht moored off of the Byblos coast for a relaxed evening, May Chidiac was entering her booby trapped car.

Mehlis may be getting closer to al Haqeeqa (The Truth), but more chaos is being sewn in our state of insecurity. Bashar Assad seems to be keeping his word to Rafiq Hariri. Lebanon will burn.

There is no direct evidence tying Syria to the recent spate of bombings. But given that the targets are all in Christian areas and against mostly anti-Syrian Christian politicians, it does not seem implausible that Syria or its cronies are behind these malicious acts.

Now, we have direct evidence that Syria is trying to cause chaos in Lebanon. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is receiving large caches of weapons directly from Syria and distributing them to Palestinians in Ain el Helwe and Sabra and Chatila.
Christians and Palestinians are still not on good terms. I listened to Palestinians screaming this evening about the evil Christian murderers who need to be killed. People publicly exclaimed that they would not be able to keep themselves from doing violence to Christians associated with the Lebanese Forces if placed in the same room with them.
Christians have not forgotten how the war began. They have not forgotten Damour. And now they are being targeted by dark figures.

What is truly worrying is that some force might be trying to engineer the perfect storm. We cannot forget that Elias Murr, staunch Syrian ally, said that he believes Palestinians in Ain el Helwe were responsible for his assassination and many other belligerent actions that have occurred in Lebanon. As the current Defense Minister and former Interior Minister, his word carries some weight. But we also know that he is a Syrian product, bought and paid for.
Is he baiting for the fight? Was his assassination a hoax? Or, was this part of the Syrian plan all along? Try to assassinate one of their Christian allies, and then pass him or - if he died - his allies (like Lahoud and Elias' father former Interior Minister Michel Murr) information linking the Palestinians to the attack.

Given that Christians already feel isolated and have disliked Syria for years, it is not comforting to them to know that Syrian allies control the security apparatus, Palestinians are heavily arming, Syrian ally Hezbollah has plenty of arms, the leader of Hezbollah publicly attacked a Christian woman journalist who was later targeted for assassination, none of the bombers have been caught, and there seems to be no end to the attacks.

Even worse, Christians have no where to look for protection. There is no active Christian militia. The Christian politicians have all foresworn the use of violence. And the Lebanese government is not competent, equipped, or even slightly interested in trying to stop these attacks.

And now, to make matters even worse, Omar Bakri Muhammad is calling for jihad. He wants a war with the West.


Some quick solutions:
1. Muslim groups need to come out strongly against Palestinian weapons.
No Lebanese party is willing to claim that Palestinians should receive Lebanese citizenship. No party includes Palestinians in the concept of "national unity." Resolving the conflict in Palestine is an issue, but not relevant here.
To guarantee state security, Palestinian weapons must be taken away.
The next step is that the camps must be policed and brought to order (if they are truly the terrorist breeding ground the Interior Ministry has painted them as), but that is not the issue here.
Shia and Sunni need to come out against this source of instability. They should remember the tyranny of the PLO in Sur, Saida, and Beirut from '69-'82. They should also rally to the cause of national unity and back their Christian allies who have publicly called for the removal of Palestinian weapons.
Removing the weapons will be incredibly difficult, but Muslims must show their support to a community that feels threatened.

2. Jail Omar Bakri Muhammad.
Cry freedom of speech all day long, but we have laws in Lebanon and he has broken one. If I recall correctly, many anti-Syrian protesters were beaten and jailed for making anti-Syrian statements because it is against the law in Lebanon to try to harm Lebanon's relations with a foreign country. Well, that's exactly what our friendly fundamentalist has done.

Besides that, most of my other suggestions will have to wait for the release of the Mehlis report. I doubt most of my suggestions will even need to be made (link clearly defining the border between Lebanon and Syria and policing it) because there are already plans for them.