A Memory of Things to Come

BEIRUT – Well, well… It appears at first blush that things must have gone well for Syria in Annapo­lis. Army Com­man­der Gen. Michel Suleiman has got­ten the nod from Hariri camp inside March 14 as a con­sen­sus can­di­date for Baabda Palace. This is curi­ous because many in the pro-March 14 press have been label­ing him as sym­pa­thetic to Syria. Hezbol­lah, too, seems to be inch­ing toward Suleiman, giv­ing only luke­warm objec­tions on pro­ce­dural grounds. “To me, at the per­sonal level, I believe a con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment in par­lia­ment is pos­si­ble after res­ig­na­tion of Fouad San­iora from the gov­ern­ment which is nei­ther con­sti­tu­tional nor legit­i­mate,” said MP Mohammed Raad, the head of Hezbollah’s par­lia­men­tary bloc. But he stressed his views were entirely per­sonal. “We will not block any con­sen­sus pos­si­bil­ity if the intro to it is a con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment, pro­vided that all oppo­si­tion fac­tions have agreed on it.”
Even that old war­lord Samir Geagea, one of the most anti-Syrians of the March 14 coali­tion said the con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment allow­ing Suleiman into the pres­i­dency was “an option.”
So what hap­pened? Well, as I wrote on Sun­day, Syria got the Golan Heights on the table at Annapo­lis. And I pre­dicted then:

A suc­cess in Annapo­lis might mean the begin­ning of a real dis­cus­sion of a Grand Bar­gain for the region, not just another fit­ful start to Israeli-Palestinian nego­ti­a­tions. The think­ing is that if the Syr­i­ans are shown some flex­i­bil­ity on the Golan, they might also show some flex­i­bil­ity in Lebanon, which is in the midst of its worst polit­i­cal cri­sis since the end of the 1975 – 1990 Civil War — a polit­i­cal cri­sis stoked in large part by Syria and its allies in Lebanon.

And by “suc­cess” I meant some signs of thaw­ing on the part of Syria, the United States and Israel. Now, it’s too soon to tell what is going down, but the fact that every­one started talk­ing nicely to each other here in Lebanon the day after Annapo­lis is pretty sig­nif­i­cant. Does it mean Syria has had a change of heart regard­ing Lebanon? Not likely. The inter­na­tional tri­bunal is still a Sword of Damo­cles over Bashar al-Assad’s head, and the Golan hasn’t been returned yet.
But my feel­ing is that the Amer­i­cans soft­ened their sup­port for Lebanon’s March 14 alliance a bit. There wouldn’t be this talk of Suleiman oth­er­wise. Still, he’s not totally pro-Syrian and the oppo­si­tion has its doubts about him, so no one got a total vic­tory if this thing goes through. What’s this mean for U.S.–Syr­ian rela­tions? Sounds like the hints of a thaw, which can be a good thing for almost every­one but anti-Syrian fac­tions in Beirut.
And what’s next? Ah, I have a text mes­sage that Serge Bram­mertz just deliv­ered his final report on the assas­si­na­tion of Rafik Hariri to Prime Min­is­ter Fuad Sin­iora and he allegedly names names. Wanna bet it’s the four he named last year — a list that includes Assad’s brother-in-law?
Hang on, we’re not out of the woods yet.

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts