LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
November 23/07

Bible Reading of the day
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 19,41-44. As he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, "If this day you only knew what makes for peace--but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation."

Releases. Reports & Opinions
SG WCCR Tom Harb World Council for the Cedars Revolution: General Aoun proposal, a Hezbollah trap and unacceptable/November 22/07
Dr. Walid Phares warns: "Axis" propaganda machine is spinning Lebanon/November 22/07
Place the Hariri trial on a fast track.By Michael Young. November 22/07
Can Annapolis be anything but another disappointment?. The Daily Star. November 22/07
Celebrate the news from Iraq, but keep a level head.By David Ignatius. November 22/07

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for November 22/07
Not so independent Lebanon has Independence Day.Reuters
Make-or-break talks on eve of Lebanon vote.AFP
Few hours before election deadline, Lebanese leaders remain deadlocked.International Herald Tribune
Lahoud: Remnant of Syrian Hegemony-Naharnet
Prodi Phones Assad, Urges Compromise in Lebanon Standoff-Naharnet
Lavrov Discusses Lebanon's Presidential Crisis with Muallam-Naharnet
Hariri Fails to Convince Aoun of Consensus Candidate after Sarkozy ...Naharnet
Syria Is Accused of Blocking a Deal on a New Lebanon President.New York Times
Trying to Save Lebanon, Again.New York Times
UN Chief Fears 'Confrontation' if No Lebanon Agreement Reached.Naharnet
Lebanon near despair over quest for new president.Reuters
Intense mediation continues to find new Lebanese president.Earthtimes
Sombre mood engulfs Lebanon's Independence Day - Feature.Earthtimes
Syria Softening Refusal on Conference.The Associated Press
US to let Syria put Golan on agenda.Jerusalem Post
Qabalan for Election of Maronite President by The People
Tensions high as Lebanese president's term nears end-Guardian Unlimited
Christian leader says Syria blocking Lebanon deal.Reuters
Rice tells Syria to stop meddling in Lebanon.Reuters
Spain's foreign minister to join efforts to end crisis in Lebanon.AFP
Still no deal on Lebanese president as time runs short-Daily Star
Security Forces plan to shut down heart of Beirut to protect MPs on election day-Daily Star
Lahoud's lease on Baabda Palace is almost up-Daily Star
Khalass stages sit-in at Parliament to protest deadlock-Daily Star
Judiciary to question Fares in Hariri assassination-Daily Star
Siniora assures Lebanese security under control-Daily Star
Lebanon at 64: still not 'fully independent, fully sovereign'-Daily Star
Lebanon raises gasoline price again amid warning for cabbies to keep rates firm-Daily Star
Sidon artist loses works in 'intentional' blaze-Daily Star
South Korean UNIFIL troops improve life for Southerners-Daily Star
Patrons of Beirut's bars weigh in on political impasse-Daily Star

SG WCCR Tom Harb World Council for the Cedars Revolution: General Aoun proposal, a Hezbollah trap and unacceptable
Washington DC, November 22, 2007. CRNews
Responding to the proposal made by MP General Michel Aoun, the secretary general of the World Council of the Cedars Revolution said the "suggestion is a Hezbollah trap to crumble the majority and defeat the Cedars Revolution. If an ally of Hezbollah, the Aoun bloc, will name the next President the UN resolutions will be killed. And if a new Government will include Hezbollah, the Parliamentary majority will be paralyzed." Harb, who is also the secretary general of the International Lebanese Committee for UNSCR 1559 said "the international community produced resolutions so that the Lebanese people elect democratically a new President not to have politicians allies with Terror groups name the next President. The idea is simply unacceptable and will be opposed by the Lebanese Diaspora." We have communicated our position to the Lebanese MPs and Lebanon's friends worldwide. There will be a democratic election for Lebanon's next President, now or in months, but one thing will not happen, that is naming a President on behalf of Hezbollah."

U.S. accuses Syria of meddling in Lebanon
By Nadim Ladki
BEIRUT (Reuters) - The United States and Lebanon's main anti-Syrian Christian leader on Wednesday accused Damascus of blocking a deal on a new Lebanese president, just two days before the incumbent's term ends.
Samir Geagea, leader of the Lebanese Forces group, said the Damascus-backed opposition was threatening chaos if their preferred consensus candidate did not replace pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, who is due to leave office on Friday.
The United States, a strong supporter of Geagea and his allies in the anti-Syrian governing coalition, told Damascus to stop what it said was interference in the process.
"It really ought to be decided without foreign interference and certainly without any foreign intimidation. Those messages have been very clearly sent," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters.
Parliament has been called to meet on Friday to elect the new president. But with no consensus among Lebanon's political chiefs the vote -- already postponed four times -- will not succeed, pitching the country towards even more instability.
Many fear Lebanon could be left with two rival administrations, one backed by the West and the other by Syria and Iran. The rival camps have accused each other of arming and training supporters.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned there was "a real possibility of a confrontation" if there was no deal.
Ban visited Lebanon last week to urge the politicians to agree, warning them that a country still rebuilding from its 1975-1990 civil war stood on "the brink of the abyss". Ban's comments added to intense international pressure on the rivals to reach a deal on the presidency -- the latest stage in their year-long power struggle.
Geagea told Reuters that "Syria and its allies have shut the door on consensus despite all our efforts".
"The only actual remaining solution is for all deputies to go to Friday's session to elect a president," Geagea said.
"Let Syria and its allies agree on a certain candidate and we will agree on a candidate and go to parliament."
Syria has stated its support for French-led efforts to reach a deal. Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal said "Syria's candidate for the presidency is the one the Lebanese reach consensus upon".
CALL FOR COMPROMISE
Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, one of Syria's most vocal Lebanese critics, urged compromises to avert bloodshed.
"My advice to everyone and to the Christians especially is to protect civil peace in Lebanon ... which requires everyone to make concessions," Jumblatt told As-Safir newspaper."The people won't be merciful to us and they won't forgive us over a single drop of blood that falls in the street. What is required of us is to get out of this dark tunnel quickly and any deal makes civil peace the winner," he said.
The opposition has said it will not go to parliament unless there is agreement on a single candidate, who must be a Maronite Christian according to Lebanon's sectarian power-sharing system. The ruling coalition holds only a slim majority and the opposition says the vote requires two-thirds of the MPs.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has been in Beirut since Sunday on his sixth trip since taking office in May. Rice said she had spoken to him on how to break the deadlock.
Geagea said the majority would wait for "a few hours or a few days" before electing a new head of a state on its own if there was no vote on Friday. The opposition have said such a move would plunge Lebanon into chaos. "It is unacceptable and incomprehensible to leave the country without a president," Geagea said.
Lahoud hinted that he would act before leaving office if there was no deal on his successor. In a speech to mark Independence Day, he said he would take a step which would keep the nation's "head held high". He did not say what it was.

Phares warns: "Axis" propaganda machine is spinning Lebanon
Washington DC, November 22, 2007, Mideast Newswire
At one day from the final deadline to elect a new President in Lebanon, within the constitutional time frame, Mideast expert Walid Phares said "the Syrian-Iranian propaganda machine was so far successful in spinning the game in Lebanon so that no President would be elected by midnight of Friday November the 23rd." Phares, the Director of the Future Terrorism Project of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington added: "The intelligence and policy architects in Tehran and Damascus were so far successful in undermining the political process in Beirut and creating the illusion that short of satisfying them, hell would break loose in Lebanon. Lebanon's Government and the Parliamentary majority were led to believe that by proceeding to elect a President by normally voting for a candidate with the universal principle of simple majority will lead to disaster and bloodshed in the streets. Hence, by waiting all the way till the end of the constitutional period, and trying to accommodate Hezbollah, the March 14 Coalition would be faced with two choices: either accept a "defeat President" or move to the next stage that is two Governments in Lebanon. The third choice, to elect a strong President with simple majority is still open though, even after the end of the constitutional time period."
Phares said the "axis" plan was to lead their opponents to believe that:
1. The United States and the UN will not confront the terror threat if a President is elected by a majority in Parliament, which is wrong.
2. That France wanted to impose a "Hezbollah-blessed" President, which is wrong.
3. That some deal with Syria was cut with the Arab countries at the eve of the Annapolis conference, which is not accurate.
Reality is that all these points and others are mirages created by the Syro-Iranian propaganda machine to intimidate March 14 and crumble the willingness of the majority to perform its duties and elect a President. Unfortunately, it has worked till now."
Phares, who was one of the architects of the introduction of UNSCR 1559 in 2004 told France 24 that "the deputies have the right to meet, to elect whomever they wanted and that the so-called opposition can continue to oppose the new President politically and prepare itself for the next legislative and Presidential elections. This is how all countries with political crisis and tensions behave. But in Lebanon, said Phares to the French cable, "it is not an issue of a normal opposition dealing with a constitutional crisis. There is an armed group, that calls itself an opposition, and is threatening to seize power in the streets if their candidate is not chosen. This is called terrorism not opposition." Responding to a journalist from TF1 participating in the panel, Phares said "there is public evidence that Mr Hassan Nasrallah and his deputy Naim Qassem who say they command twenty thousand missiles and rockets openly stated that unless things goes their way, they will launch an insurgency against the democratically elected President. That is the heart of the matter," said Phares. "For after six legislators -voting for the President- were assassinated over the past two years by 'axis' terror networks, and as terrorist threats are made against the Seniora Government and the Parliamentary majority openly, what is happening in Lebanon is not a normal election in normal circumstances. The political process has been subverted by a terror war directed against the legislators and Lebanon's civil society."
Addressing the options available, Phares told the "Right Balance" radio in the US that "three roads are open now:
1. If the anti terrorist Majority elect a strong President within the constitutional term, which is a very remote possibility today at 24 hours from the deadline, the country will have an internationally recognized President and a cabinet. However, the "axis" will mount an insurgency and pro-Syrian President Lahoud will form a pro-Syrian cabinet.
2. If a last minute agreement is reached over a weak President, Lebanon will slowly fall back into the hands of the Syrian-Iranian axis. It would be a gradual death of the Cedars Revolution. This is the worse situation.
3. If no election is done by the end of the constitutional term, the Seniora Government would resume as a care taker, according to the constitution, and would work on bringing the deputies to elect a President. But expect Lahoud to form another Hezbollah controlled Government. In this situation Lebanon will have two Governments as well."
Phares told Mideast Newswire that the first and best option strategically is for the Lebanese MPs opposed to terrorism to meet and elect a strong President with a 50% plus one vote. They will have all the time they need to negotiate after. Nothing else would protect Lebanon than having a free President, a free cabinet and a free parliamentary majority for the next two years, and possibly six years. For the other side will carry as much as it can from its threats, regardless. Hezbollah is not expected to be tender with the Cedars Revolution if a so-called consensus candidate is selected. If the March 14 Coalition allow Iran and Syria to impose a weak President, the latter will not protect them from terrorism. If they wait too long and have Lahoud appoint another Government, this would complicate things internationally." Bottom line, concluded Phares "there is one sound choice for the deputies, that is to elect a committed President now better than tomorrow, and tomorrow better than later, but to elect a free President anytime better than a Hezbollah chosen President now."

Few hours before election deadline, Lebanese leaders remain deadlocked
The Associated PressPublished: November 22, 2007
BEIRUT, Lebanon: Rival Lebanese leaders were in last-ditch efforts to find a compromise candidate for the presidency Thursday with no sign of a solution a day ahead of a constitutional deadline, leaving Lebanese despairing and fearful of turmoil.
Parliament is scheduled to convene at 1 p.m. (1100 GMT) Friday to pick a successor for pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud — only 11 hours before his term ends. Three previous attempts failed because of disagreements between the country's feuding pro- and anti-Syrian politicians over a replacement.
Failure to elect a new president on time could lead to a power vacuum, or two rival governments, much like during the last two years of the 1975-90 civil war.
As the country marked its Independence Day holiday Thursday, a mood of pessimism settled over the Lebanese, as efforts to find some sort of agreement appeared to evaporate.
"The last day before zero-hour: A miracle or power vacuum," read the headline of Lebanon's leading An-Nahar daily.
Today in Africa & Middle East
Influential Iranian daily issues a rare rebuke to AhmadinejadForeign fighters in Iraq are tied to allies of U.S.Deadly fighting between Sunnis near Baghdad
Al-Mustaqbal daily, owned by legislator Saad Hariri who heads the anti-Syrian majority in parliament, accused Syria of "blocking" a compromise through its Lebanese allies.
Hariri and opposition leader Michel Aoun, a Christian who is allied with the pro-Syrian Shiite Muslim Hezbollah group and is himself seeking the presidential post, held a rare meeting Wednesday night but failed to break the deadlock.
The meeting took place following a telephone call to both leaders by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been leading mediations between the two camps through his foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner.
Aoun, who Thursday held talks with Kouchner and visiting Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, told reporters the meeting with Hariri did not achieve results.
He insisted he remains the best compromise for Lebanon's next president, describing himself a "national unity candidate."
Italian Foreign minister Massimo D'Alema also arrived Thursday to join Moratinos and Kouchner, who has been in Lebanon since Monday.
The three European countries are the top contributors to the 13,600-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.
The controversial Aoun, who enjoys a strong support base particularly among Christians and Shiites, has kept his name in contention for the presidency as other names floated as compromises were dropped in recent days. Michel Edde, a former culture and information minister, appeared at one point to be gaining traction but has been reportedly rejected by Hariri's camp as too pro-Syrian. A one-time Hariri ally who has recently taken a more neutral stance, Robert Ghanem, was rejected by the opposition.
Accepting Aoun as president would be a hard pill to swallow for the Hariri camp. Though he was long an opponent of Damascus, Aoun has sided with Hezbollah, an ally of Syria and Tehran, throughout Lebanon's political crisis the past year.
The choice of president has been deadlocked amid a power struggle between the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and the opposition, led by the Hezbollah.
Saniora's camp wants to put an anti-Syrian figure in the post to replace Lahoud, a staunch ally of Damascus. Saniora's supporters have a slim majority in parliament, but the opposition has called a boycott of sessions until an acceptable candidate is agreed on. Amid the boycott, a Sept. 25 parliament session failed to muster a quorum and three other scheduled sessions have been postponed with no deal reached.
The anti-Syrian majority is threatening to elect a president by a simple majority if there is no quorum — a move that would likely create turmoil and increase the risk of street violence.
In the absence of a president, the government takes executive power. But Lahoud has vowed not to hand his authorities over to Saniora's administration, considering it unconstitutional after all five ministers of the Shiite Muslim community quit a year ago.
Possible scenarios include Lahoud handing over power to the military chiefs, creating a rival government to hand power to, or even declaring a state of emergency — deepening the struggle with Saniora.

Lahoud: Remnant of Syrian Hegemony
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, whose mandate expires at midnight on Friday, has insisted on serving his full extended term despite pressure from the government that considers him a puppet of Syria.
Backed by Damascus and its Lebanese allies, mainly Hizbullah, he has resisted a barrage of calls for his resignation and been snubbed for the past two years by most Western states.
The 71-year-old former army chief, known for a perennial smile and year-round suntan which triggers critics to claim that he spends most of his time at the beach, has remained head of state for nine years.
He was elected president in 1998 and had been due to step down in 2004, but the country's then powerbroker Syria pushed through parliament a controversial constitutional amendment extending his term for three more years.
His own Maronite church strongly opposed his re-election and the anti-Syrian ruling majority and Western officials have since boycotted Lahoud.
He in turn has refused to recognize the legitimacy of Prime Minister Fouad Saniora's government following the November resignation of six pro-Syrian ministers.
Lebanon has also been in political limbo since the February 2005 murder of former Premier Rafik Hariri, which forced Syria to end its 29-year military presence in the country.
Four top Lebanese generals close to Lahoud have already been jailed under the international investigation into Hariri's murder in which senior Syrian officials have been implicated. Syria denies any links with the assassination.
Born January 12, 1936, Lahoud hails from the mountain town of Baabdat, east of Beirut, and comes from a family of Maronites that has produced government ministers, MPs, military men and magistrates in Lebanon.
His mother and wife are both Armenian and he has three children. Eldest son Emile Emile Lahoud was a member of parliament between 2000 and 2005.
Lahoud entered the political arena after a long military career.
He first enrolled in military school in 1956 and became a naval officer in 1959 before earning a maritime engineering degree from Britain and completing military training in the United States.
After his return to Lebanon, he was promoted to navy commander in the 1970s and held several senior positions at the defense ministry before becoming commander-in-chief of the army in November 1989.
His troops took part in the October 1990 Syrian-led military offensive that ended the rebellion of then-prime minister General Michel Aoun, who was later forced into exile in France.
Ironically, the two men have for the past year been in the same opposition camp.
After the end of the 1975-1990 civil war, Lahoud succeeded in reuniting and rebuilding the Lebanese army, which had splintered during wartime into feuding Christian and Muslim factions.
He gave cautious backing for Hizbullah's fight against Israel's occupation of south Lebanon that led to a unilateral Israeli withdrawal in May 2000 during his first mandate.
However, he took no steps to assert Lebanese military control over the south until the Israeli-Hizbullah war of July-August 2006 that forced Hizbullah to end its military presence on the borders with the Jewish state.
Parliament first elected Lahoud as president in October 1998. He promised then to establish a state of law and to put an end to endemic corruption in public life.
But he was unsuccessful, hampered by the cronyism that lies at the root of Lebanese society.(AFP) Beirut, 22 Nov 07, 13:10

Make-or-break talks on eve of Lebanon vote
BEIRUT (AFP) — Foreign envoys and Lebanese leaders were engaged in make-or-break talks on Thursday on holding a presidential election as the clock ticked down to a Friday deadline with no breakthrough in sight.
The foreign ministers of France, Italy and Spain were shuttling between the bitterly divided parties in an ultimate bid to wrench an agreement on a compromise candidate before midnight Friday, when the term of Syrian-backed President Emile Lahoud expires.
All indicators on Thursday, Lebanon's independence day, were that the Western-backed ruling majority and the Hezbollah-led opposition remained as divided as ever ahead of a scheduled vote in parliament to replace Lahoud.
"They have no more cards to play and I don't think there will be a breakthrough by tomorrow," a high-level Lebanese official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "We are at an impasse." The official predicted that Friday's session for MPs to pick a successor to Lahoud before he steps down would be cancelled with the two sides agreeing to continue negotiations into next week or beyond. Social Affairs Minister and MP Nayla Moawad echoed his comments.
"I don't have a feeling that there will be elections tomorrow," she told AFP. "Until now, there is no accord."
According to Article 62 of the Lebanese constitution, if no candidate is chosen by parliament to replace Lahoud, his powers are automatically transferred to the government. The ruling coalition, which has 68 of the 127 seats in parliament, had previously vowed to proceed with a simple majority vote but that option now appears unlikely for fear it could spark unrest, according to political officials.
The opposition for its part has threatened to set up a parallel government, a grim reminder of the end of the 1975-1990 civil war when two administrations battled it out. Lebanese newspapers ran doom-and-gloom headlines and predicted that Friday's session would be scrapped barring a miracle. "Last day before zero hour: either a miracle or a political void," the leading An-Nahar newspaper said. "The key to the presidency is missing," blared a headline in As-Safir, which is close to the opposition, while the French-language daily L'Orient-Le Jour said "nothing is less sure today than the election of the president".
Four previous sessions over the past two months have already been postponed despite a host of foreign diplomats and politicians, including the UN chief and the head of the Arab League, scrambling to Beirut to mediate between the sides. The crisis, the worst since the end of the civil war, is widely seen as an extension of the regional confrontation pitting the United States against Iran and Syria. Hezbollah, considered a terrorist organisation by Washington, has said it would not settle for a president under US tutelage while the Western-backed majority has balked at any candidate close to Syria and Iran.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday warned Damascus that if it wanted to improve its relations with Washington it must allow for a free election in Lebanon. France has also dispatched top envoys to Damascus, which was forced to end its 29-year troop presence in Lebanon in 2005, following the assassination of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.The political crisis has left the country on edge, with many schools to shut on Friday and the army out in force in the capital to prevent any outbreak of violence.Several prominent anti-Syrian figures have been killed in a wave of attacks in Lebanon since Hariri's murder, which many have blamed on Damascus. The annual military parade to mark independence day was cancelled for the second consecutive year in light of the situation. Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's government has been paralysed since the opposition withdrew its six ministers from the cabinet in November 2006 in a bid to gain more representation in government.

Place the Hariri trial on a fast track
By Michael Young -Daily Star staff
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Those of us who welcomed the naming of Bernard Kouchner as foreign minister of France are wearing a hair shirt in penance. We deserve no better for having believed in a man with a scaffolding of recklessness to prop up a towering ego. Before his latest return to Lebanon - we've lost track of how many - he said this: "I realized that arriving at the last minute would be insufficient and that Lebanon merits more, even if this comes at the expense of my personal rest and my family life."
Super Kouchner to the rescue, and defying France's 35-hour working week on top of it! If only the minister were here to rescue Lebanon from a mess that he and his boss, President Nicolas Sarkozy, have been so instrumental in helping create (bizarrely, with Washington's bland acquiescence). On Monday, Kouchner held back from blaming the Syrians for blocking the French initiative on the presidency, but his government has made two critical mistakes in recent weeks in its dealings with Damascus, which Lebanon will pay dearly for.
The first was to formally bring Syria back into the Lebanese presidential election process, when United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 (which France co-sponsored) was designed to do the exact opposite. France pleaded with Syria to be flexible on the presidency, offering normalized relations in exchange. Syrian President Bashar Assad saw a golden opportunity to jack up his price on the panicking French, and we are where we are today, with Syria not only looking to capitalize on French eagerness, but also working to use that eagerness as leverage to bring in one of their favorites as Lebanese president.
The second mistake remains to be confirmed, but if confirmed it would be very dangerous. According to sources in Paris, when Sarkozy's envoys, Claude Gueant and Jean-David Levitte, met with Syrian officials, including Assad, in Damascus two weeks ago, they reportedly agreed that the Hariri tribunal was one of the issues that could be discussed if Syria fulfilled what was required of it in Lebanon. One version of the story is that the French made no specific commitments on the tribunal, merely affirming that if Syria satisfied certain conditions in Lebanon, including allowing a presidential election and other concessions that were less clear, then the matter of the tribunal would not be off the table. A second version was that the sides were more specific when it came to the tribunal.
The first version may be the more accurate one. By upping the ante on the French initiative, the Syrians have implied that any discussion of the tribunal, and doubtless much else, remained too vague to earn France a Lebanon deal. Nor would Sarkozy risk making commitments on an international tribunal over which he has little real power. However, even if this minimal interpretation of what the French allegedly said is true, it would be alarming, showing Assad that all Syria needs to do is pursue its destabilization of Lebanon to make the international community fold. If the thought of accepting a bargain on the tribunal is taken seriously, even though Syria has conceded nothing on Lebanese sovereignty and independence, then expect a return of Syrian hegemony over Lebanon.
What of the Hariri investigation and tribunal, which will be soon be headed by one Daniel Bellemare? The appointment is welcome but not reassuring. Bellemare has never managed a major international terrorist investigation and you have to wonder whether the UN could not find better than a former Canadian assistant deputy attorney general to handle so highly complex a political crime. That said, Bellemare deserves the benefit of the doubt and might surprise, given that Serge Brammertz passed through the Hariri investigation like a submarine, leaving little behind but an array of dry "technical" reports that, until now, have failed to name names. Why Brammertz agreed this month to become prosecutor of the tribunal for the former Yugoslavia when he should have prosecuted the case he has spent two years investigating may remain a mystery. However, it does make you wonder what the Belgian is all about.
For some time Brammertz has had his critics, while many journalists - present company included - have defended his discretion. It's time to give belated credit to the critics to ensure that Bellemare, whom Brammertz recommended, won't hesitate to name names soon. Rafik Hariri's elimination involved a wide array of means, both local and international, as Brammertz has argued many times. The investigator has implicitly pointed the finger at Syria on dozens of occasions in his reports, not least in his description of the motives for the assassination. Yet he has never mentioned specific states or individuals. But people somewhere did commit the crime and they need to be arrested. This elusiveness cannot continue without grave damage being done to the UN's credibility.
The international lawyer and presidential candidate Chibli Mallat probably put it best in a column written for this newspaper: "After two years of reports, the Lebanese and Syrian publics, and the world, are entitled to know more. Either the investigator has no evidence of the involvement of the Syrian leadership and its Lebanese allies - in which case [former UN investigator Detlev] Mehlis and the initial UN investigator of the case, Peter Fitzgerald, were wrong, and Brammertz should say so publicly ... or Brammertz thinks the conclusions of his predecessors were correct, and he must say so publicly."
However, even more withering is the assessment of a former official involved in the Hariri investigation. Describing the results of the two Brammertz years as "meager," the official noted that "apparently out of lack of professionalism" the current Hariri investigation team has actually fallen much behind what the previous Mehlis commission found. The official is equally critical of the UN (as well as the Lebanese judicial system and media) for "tolerating" Brammertz for so long and fears that there is a lack of international will to see the Hariri case through, as well as a more general absence of international interest in Lebanon.
So severe a verdict hardly implies that Syria is out of the woods. But it is a needed warning shot. The Brammertz reports, while bureaucratically safe, have all pointed at a single overriding culprit. The Belgian may not have wanted to take risks, but Bellemare will find that unavoidable if he prosecutes the case. Mehlis and Fitzgerald made it clear whom they thought were behind Hariri's murder, and nothing in Brammertz's reports has contradicted their findings. If anything, the information from the UN commission in the past two years has confirmed previous assumptions.
That's why the UN must ensure that Bellemare has what it takes to carry the Hariri trial to a satisfactory conclusion. The tribunal's legal framework is such that it can begin operating while the investigation continues, in the event the latter is still not over. There is no need to wait for the investigation to end before handing down formal accusations. No one will stop the tribunal, but it can be delayed and has been; its effectiveness can be watered down and has been; its judges and staff can be swayed or threatened. Hopefully, when it's all over, the international community will not have spent hundreds of millions of dollars just to get something like the Lockerbie deal that exonerated Libya's Moammar Gadhafi.
However, it's difficult to relax when a central player in the final chapter of that international whitewash was Nicolas Sarkozy. Even though Syria has been trashing France's Lebanon plan, Sarkozy called Assad on Tuesday and is still sending his men to Damascus to chat up the Syrian president. Assad is fast learning just how boneless his Western counterparts can be when negotiating with Arab dictators.
**Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.

Not so independent Lebanon has Independence Day
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese took a day off work on Thursday, 64th anniversary of independence, but with foreign powers hovering over the search for a new president, many Lebanese wonder if they can ever shake off outside intervention. "Nothing shows the bitter reality of independence better than the crisis over the presidency," said commentator Rafik Khouri, writing in the conservative Beirut newspaper al-Anwar. Lebanon in its present form began as a French creation in the 1920s and in its troubled history more than a dozen foreign governments have sent troops here, often with, sometimes without the consent of successive Lebanese governments.
Israel has made three major invasions, U.S. troops have intervened twice to prop up governments they liked and Syrian troops underpinned Syrian dominance for most of the period from 1976 until they left on U.N. orders in 2005. Other troops have come from Britain, France, Iraq, Italy, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates. Many other countries have contributed separately to a U.N. peace force deployed along the Israeli border since 1978.
On the political scene, intervention has been more subtle and harder to document. But Lebanese politicians have routinely had close ties with one or another foreign power. During the civil war of 1975 to 1990 many Lebanese and Palestinian militia groups depended for weapons and money on foreign sponsors, turning Lebanon into a theatre of choice for complex proxy wars between regional and global powers.
A small and diverse country wedged between two powerful and mutually hostile neighbours -- Israel and Syria, Lebanon has for the last four decades often been the scene of the action when one of the two wanted to strike at the interests of the other.
The country also has to deal with the inescapable geographical fact that Syria controls its access to the Middle East hinterland, giving Damascus the power to make or break a Lebanese economy based on trade and services.
COMMON PERCEPTION
On the eve of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud's last day in office, and with no consensus yet on a successor acceptable to the major players, the reality of foreign interference is a given in the wrangling over who should replace him.
On one side, Iran and Syria stand behind the opposition alliance led by the Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah movement. On the other side the United States, with French and Saudi sympathy, pressing for a candidate favourable to its interests. An Independence Day cartoon in the conservative Beirut daily an-Nahar reflected the common perception -- a Lebanese flag, one half intact, the other half covered by the flags of Egypt, Syria, Iran, Russia, France and the United States, with the presidential throne empty between them. "There is a vast gulf between independence in its nationalist sense and the state we are in, not just since the start of the current frightening dispute but since the year 1943," said a commentary in al-Liwa daily.
The parliamentary majority accuses Syria of intervention in a direct and violent form, through the assassination of a succession of Lebanese politicians who stood in its way, most notably former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in 2005. Syria denies any responsibility for the killings and its allies accuse the Lebanese cabinet and parliamentary majority of collaborating in an American-Israeli plan for the Middle East.
U.S. intervention has tended to take judicial and economic forms, for example by pressing for the prosecution of Hariri's assassins and threatening to freeze the assets of any Lebanese deemed to have tried to undermine the Beirut government.
Iran has supplied large amounts of money to Hezbollah, helping the movement to retain its influence among those who suffered in last year's war with Israel, analysts say. Saudi Arabia has influence in Lebanon mainly through close business relationships. The late Hariri made his fortune in the Saudi construction industry and was close to the ruling family. A political advertisement on a television station owned by the Hariri family optimistically promised real independence. As a firm hand quells the storm swirling around the country, the slogan reads: "Lebanon is not a plaything in anyone's hand."