[USA Today] David Schenker - The movement of emissaries between Fatah Islam and Damascus is well-documented; the Arab world's newspaper of record, Al Hayat, even reports that much of Fatah Islam's leadership is made up of Syrian officers. The real battle for Lebanon will not take place in Beirut but in New York at the UN Security Council. Syria's strategy appears to be to kill the tribunal resolution via a Russian veto. The key to constraining counterproductive Syrian behavior and ensuring Lebanese sovereignty is seeing through the international tribunal, letting the chips fall where they may. Justice for Hariri is really justice for the Lebanese people and should not be traded as a card either to jump-start still hypothetical Israeli-Syrian peace talks or to rent Syrian assistance on Iraq. The writer is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 2002-06, he was the Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestinian affairs adviser in the office of the Secretary of Defense.
2007-05-25 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive