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Absurdity in Beirut By Zvi Bar'el Tags: Imad Mughniya, Iran  Imad Mughniyah's assassins gave the government in Beirut a handsome gift. The anti-Syrian elements in Lebanon dared not even wish for such a resounding slap in the face, which sent shock waves through the Syrian regime, the Hezbollah high command and Tehran's corridors of power. No one in Lebanon was moved by the awareness that an assassination of this kind is carried out when it is possible, irrespective of historical or political events. To Hezbollah, at least, the timing of Mughniyah's liquidation - on the eve of the third anniversary of the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri - was more than coincidental. After all, what could be more natural than collusion between the "traitorous government" in Beirut, which Hezbollah accused of collaborating with Israel during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, and those who assassinated the man who planned Hezbollah's military operations in the war and built its alignment of forces in Lebanon? It was not by accident, according to Hezbollah, that the Lebanese government did not bother issuing statements of regret or of condemnation until several hours after Mughniyah's assassination. It was not until Wednesday night that Rafik Hariri's son and governing coalition leader Saad Hariri issued a brief statement of condemnation and called for "national unity." With Mughniyah's elimination overshadowing the memorial day for Rafik Hariri, some observers believe the latest killing could also lead to the elimination of Lebanon, in the event Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah decides to turn it into a demonstration of strength against Israel. The editor in chief of Lebanese daily Al Nahar, Edmond Saab, in contrast, says the assassination may actually help to unify the ranks and to demonstrate the maturity of the Lebanese people. At the time these lines were written, the size of and any developments surrounding the Hariri commemoration rally were still unknown. Advertisement In organizational terms, Mughniyah's assassination represented a serious failure of the security and intelligence network that he himself created and which held up for many years. But Nasrallah will not stop at making organizational changes as a result - heightening the compartmentalization, removing senior commanders and looking for a successor to Mughniyah. He will not be easy to replace; in addition to being an operations man, Mughniyah also formulated Hezbollah policy, controlled the ties with Iran and with the Palestinian organizations whose leaders live in Damascus, and planned the organization's international network of cells. Whereas in Israel the big question is how Hezbollah will avenge the assassination, in Lebanon it is how Nasrallah will exploit it in order to strengthen his position in the midst of the national crisis - especially in light of the intense verbal clashes, which have escalated even further in the past few days. "You want anarchy? Ahlan wa sahlan [welcome]. You want war, ahlan wa sahlan. We have no problem with weapons and with missiles," Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said on Sunday in a televised speech, addressing the Hezbollah-led opposition. "We will take the missiles from you when they are ready. We have no problem committing suicide, because we have had our fill of the acts of murder, the accusations of treason and the humiliation." True, Jumblatt is known for his "big mouth" (he called President Bush a "mad emperor," described Condoleezza Rice as being "painted in petroleum," Syrian President Bashar Assad as a "half ape" and Tony Blair as "a peacock with a sexual complex"). But such a harsh and threatening speech against Hezbollah and Syria's agents had never been heard before in the Lebanese arena. The remarks were even dubbed the "speech of 'burning the green and the dry'" - the words Jumblatt used to make it clear that he is ready to destroy everything for the sake of Lebanon and its honor. Nor did Nasrallah himself emerge unscathed from the Druze leader's verbal barrage. "It is not your place," he addressed the Hezbollah leader, "to observe us from above and hurl those contemptible things at us every time [accusing the government of treason and collaboration] - we had enough with an open war against Israel under false slogans to serve the ambitions of the Syrian regime and the Iranian empire." If Nasrallah's rhetoric has given him a reputation among both supporters and enemies, Jumblatt seems to be running a close second in this regard. He inherited his loathing for the Syrians from his father, the leader and philosopher Kamal Jumblatt, who was assassinated by Syrian agents in 1977. But no one should be misled regarding his current abhorrence of Damascus. Some ascribe it to the sanctions the Syrians imposed on his cement factory, while others recall his collaboration with the Syrians after the Israel Defense Forces' withdrawal from Lebanon. Since the withdrawal, Jumblatt and his party have been part of the loose anti-Syrian coalition. After the 2005 parliamentary elections, he joined Hariri's Al-Mustaqbal bloc in pursuing an openly anti-Syrian and anti-Iranian policy. The bloc is not monolithic, particularly when it comes to Hezbollah. Rafik Hariri, for example, despite his anger at Nasrallah for occasionally surprising him with independent operations against Israel, met with him frequently - their last meeting was on the night before Hariri's assassination. Hariri admired Nasrallah and apparently passed that admiration on to Sa'ad, his political heir. This week, when Sa'ad was asked, in an interview with the Al-Mustaqbal television station, which he owns, whether he was demanding that Hezbollah be disarmed, he replied: "Did I ask for Hezbollah to be disarmed? The organization is the one that is talking the most about disarming. No one in the coalition is today asking for Hezbollah to be disarmed." That may have been the most important statement made recently about Hezbollah's weapons, and it must be heard clearly in Israel. Accordingly, as Hezbollah continues to rearm along the border with Israel, it can at least trust that this does not conflict with the mood of the Lebanese government, the very legality of which Hezbollah rejects. This is precisely the absurdity of Lebanon, which makes a mockery of everything that Israel views as a tremendous foreign-relations achievement: The Lebanese government, which is paralyzed as a result of Hezbollah's having left it, has no intention of even asking for Hezbollah's disarmament - yet at the same time its representatives and supporters demand that the organization cease its open war against Israel. The practical result of this may be that Hezbollah's continued rearmament and deployment of additional forces along the border will simply be ignored by the government, which is now concerned about domestic escalation. Thus, if Jumblatt's latest comments were understood in Lebanon as a fierce escalation of the political war, Mughniyah's assassination could, ironically, bolster Hezbollah's standing in the political dialogue: The coalition has come to realize that it is better to turn down the volume, as Hariri has done. But that does not mean the Lebanese political war is over. The fact is that in the face of Hezbollah's unsettled account with Israel and the state of the coalition in Lebanon, Syria continues to hold Lebanon closely and shows no signs of being ready to reach a compromise - not even under Arab and international pressure. True, the assassination showed Syrian intelligence to be penetrable and deficient, but it is now in Syria's interest to control the crisis inside Lebanon. This is more important, or at least more accomplishable, than taking revenge on Israel. Paradoxically, Syria could even act to encourage calm among Lebanon's political rivals and in so doing advance the political triumph of Hezbollah, which will also be Syria's triumph. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Land of milk and honey Israeli model Bar Refaeli poses for Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition. Finding fault Shas MK blames gays for recent earthquakes in the region.

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