ORDER OF THE PHOENICIAN:

Death of a Businessman: Rafiq Hariri was also a Lebanese nationalist. (FOUAD AJAMI, February 17, 2005, Wall Street Journal)

Rafiq Hariri, who was struck down on Monday by a huge car bomb on Beirut's seafront, was the unlikeliest of martyrs for the cause of Lebanon's independence. He had risen from the obscurity and poverty of Sidon--on Lebanon's coast--to the upper reaches of Lebanese and Arab society, largely through the patronage of the House of Saud and the inner dealings of Arab rulers and courtiers. A former prime minister of Lebanon, he wasn't particularly articulate, or given to the call of political causes. He believed in the power of wealth and of pragmatism, and saw Lebanon's mission in the time-honored way of Sidon's Phoenician heritage: commerce and trade, banking and tourism. Over two long decades in the political game, he had made his accommodation with Syrian power. He no doubt paid off Syrian intelligence operatives and officers, cut their sons and daughters and wives into business deals, did what he could for the restoration of his battered country, while staying on the safe side of Syria's hegemony in Lebanon. [...]

What is obvious is that Hariri was struck down as he had set out to find his own way, away from Syria's embrace. He had been bullied by the Syrians some months ago, it was known, as they sought and secured the extension of the mandate of their satrap on the scene, President Emile Lahoud. Hariri was a man of wealth, with close political ties to French President Jacques Chirac, and to his old Saudi patrons. On the face of it, this gave him a measure of immunity. But in the slaughterhouse of Arab politics, no man is safe from terror's reach. Two months ago, I saw Hariri in Dubai. It was at a conference on the Arab future. There were luminaries there--former President Bill Clinton, of course, on a speaking gig--and Hariri seemed like a man adrift. He delivered a generic speech about reform and transparency. He never uttered a word about Syria. He seemed more subdued than usual. He did not know what nemesis lay in wait for him.

The assassination of Hariri comes at a loaded moment for Syria, and Lebanon--and for the Arab spectators to this crime. Inspired by Iraq, and weary of the extortion and the heavy hand of Syrian power, the Lebanese have grown restive. A Druze leader, Walid Jumblat, (a son and a political heir of the man murdered by Syrian agents in 1977) has become increasingly defiant. His case is the simple and straightforward case of Lebanon's dignity. Late in this hour of world history, it is galling to him and others around him to see their country as the satellite of a foreign power. Mr. Jumblat is not alone: The Patriarch of the Maronite Church, with the sanctity and protection of his special place as a cardinal in the Catholic Church, has been waging a relentless campaign of his own against Syrian rule. Now the scandal of this Syrian dominion of Lebanon is laid out in the open.

There's a nice metaphor secreted in there: what we're doing in the Middle East is changing politics from a spectator sport to a participatory one.

MORE:
Syria after Hariri (Edward S. Walker and Maggie Mitchell Salem, February 18, 2005, Boston Globe)

RAFIK HARIRI has joined a pantheon of modern Middle Eastern statesmen -- King Faisal Al Saud, President Anwar Sadat, and Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin -- who dared to challenge the status quo and paid dearly for their vision. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese from every social echelon, religious affiliation, and ethnic background came to his funeral Wednesday, marking the occasion with unprecedented national unity and defying those who manipulate internal tensions in order to justify Syria's occupation.

Given the very real possibility that fear will seep back into the Lebanese polity and in light of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, the international community should sustain Lebanese resolve and join the opposition's call for Syria's immediate and full withdrawal.

Hariri dedicated his life to Lebanon's rebirth; his death may secure the country's freedom and restore its badly tarnished democratic institutions but only if his old friends in foreign capitals -- Washington, Paris, and Riyadh -- work in concert and deny his assassins their objective: silencing the nascent opposition.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 17, 2005 5:26 PM