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Death of a Businessman

(Wall Street Journal) Fouad Ajami - * Rafiq Hariri was the unlikeliest of martyrs for the cause of Lebanon's independence. He had risen 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. * He had made his accommodation with Syrian power, no doubt paying off Syrian intelligence operatives and officers, cutting their sons and daughters and wives into business deals, while staying on the safe side of Syria's hegemony in Lebanon. * A Syrian political and military class had come to a belief that Lebanon was its rightful claim, and the country was to pass into the control of the conquering army of a brutal, backward regime. There was money there for the Syrian kleptocracy, opportunities for drug dealings and contraband, a border from which the Syrians could wage intermittent little wars and deeds of terror against Israel, while maintaining the most quiet of borders on the Syrian-Israeli front. * Hariri was struck down as he had set out to find his own way, away from Syria's embrace. There is an old tradition and an old saying in Lebanon about killing a man and walking in his funeral procession. The only antidote to this terrible, senseless death is the eviction of Syria from Lebanon. * There is talk nowadays of spreading liberty to Arab lands, changing the ways of the Arabs, putting an end to regimes that harbor terror. The restoration of Lebanon's sovereignty ought to be one way for the Arabs to break with the culture of dictators and police states. The writer is a professor at Johns Hopkins University.
2005-02-17 00:00:00
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