We should ask cui bono? We have no choice but to note that those who were likely to wish for Pierre Gemayel's death are all those who wanted Syria to reappear on the Lebanese stage and the disintegration og the Lebanese State. The perpetrators are perhaps Lebanese but the orders came from the Syrians. The construction of a strong and independent Lebanese State is the worst thing that could happen to Syria, who can, at the moment, act in Lebanon as if she was at home.		Il faut chercher à qui profite le crime. On est bien obligé de constater que ceux qui pouvaient souhaiter la mort de Pierre Gemayel sont tous ceux qui veulent le retour de la Syrie sur la scène libanaise et la désintégration de l'Etat libanais. Les exécutants sont peut-être libanais mais les commanditaires sont syriens. La construction d'un Etat libanais fort et indépendant est ce qui peut arriver de pire à la Syrie, qui peut pour l'instant agir au Liban comme si elle était chez elle.
LM: The very day of the assassination, Syria moved closer to Iraq and said she was ready to cooperate with Baghdad. Isn't there a contradiction between a Syria putting up a good show on the international scene, and a Syria assassinating in Lebanon? AS: Syria wants closer relations with Baghdad but that doesn't mean at all that she wants closer relations with the Americans. Damascus can make moves towards Iraq while continuing to acrt as she wishes in her traditional zone of influence. The signal is dispatched more to the Lebanese themselves : Syria will not accept the constitution of a tribunal to judge Rafik Hariri's murderers, and doesn't want her pawns in Lebanon ejected. But this murder also show that Damascus is more and more under Tehran's orders.		LM : Le jour même de l'assassinat, la Syrie se rapproche de l'Irak et se dit prête à coopérer avec Bagdad. N'y a-t-il pas une contradiction entre une Syrie qui fait bonne figure sur la scène internationale et une Syrie qui assassine au Liban ? AS : La Syrie veut se rapprocher de Bagdad mais cela ne signifie nullement qu'elle cherche à se rapprocher des Américains. Damas peut faire des avancées vers l'Irak tout en continuant à agir à sa guise dans son aire d'influence traditionnelle. Le signal est davantage destiné aux Libanais eux-mêmes : la Syrie n'acceptera pas la constitution d'un tribunal pour juger les assassins de Rafic Hariri et ne veut pas que ses pions au Liban soient évincés. Mais cet assassinat montre aussi que Damas se met de plus en plus à la botte de Téhéran.

No guarantees as to whether Sfeir is right.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

...nothing happens by accident in Lebanon and political detectives - as opposed to the police kind who most assuredly will not find Gemayel's killers - have to look beyond this country's frontiers to understand why ghosts may soon climb out of the mass graves of the civil war.

Why did Gemayel die just hours after Syria announced the restoration of diplomatic relations with Iraq after a quarter of a century? Why has Nasrallah threatened street demonstrations in Beirut to bring down the government when Siniora's cabinet had just accepted the UN's tribunal to try Hariri's assassins?

And why did America's UN ambassador, John Bolton, weep crocodile tears for Lebanon's democracy - which he cared so little about when Israel smashed into Lebanon this summer - without mentioning Syria?

The whole piece is worth reading.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

Lebanon for the past two years has been caught between several outside forces. The Hariris represent Saudi interests. Hizbullah and Amal, the Shiite parties, are aligned with Syria. The Gemayels have an old, longstanding behind the scenes alliance with Israel and the United States.

As I read the record, Syria provoked the initial crisis in fall, 2004, by overplaying its hand and making the Lebanese accept its choice for president, Gen. Emile Lahoud, for a further 3-year term. PM Rafiq al-Hariri resigned over this heavy-handed interference and looked set to challenge Damascus in the spring, 2005 elections. He was then assassinated in February, 2005. The assassin was himself a Sunni fundamentalist, but the operation may have been encouraged by Syrian or pro-Syrian actors.

The assassination of Hariri touched off a mass protest demanding that Syrian troops finally leave Lebanon (a peacekeeping force came in in 1976 with a US green light, during the civil war). The Syrians were supported by the Shiite Hizbullah, which staged demonstrations nearly as big as those of the pro-Hariri forces. Hariri was a Sunni, but the coalition put together after his death included Christians and Druze, as well.

Syria did withdraw. At that point, Lebanese politics became less polarized, and elections produced a national unity government that Hizbullah also joined.

But then in summer of 2006, Israel launched its long-planned war on little Lebanon, wreaking vast destruction on south Lebanon and on the southern slums of Beirut where Hizbullah was based. Israeli policy was in part to attempt to divide and conquer the Lebanese by making the reform government of Fuad Seniora attempt to disarm Hizbullah, which maintains a small paramilitary force of 3,000 to 5,000. The Lebanese government is too weak to take on Hizbullah, but members of the March 14th reform movement did lay the blame for the war at its feet.

As a result, Hizbullah has pulled out of the government. With Gemayel's assassination, the government will fall if it loses even one more cabinet minister. Worse, the society has now been economically devastated by Israeli bombing raids and is increasingly polarized. The Olmert government's plan for the second Lebanese civil war seems increasingly plausible. Syria has stupidly played into Israel's hands in this regard. The Lebanese themselves are in danger of once again allowing themselves to be used as proxies by people like Bush and Asad and Olmert. The positive achievements of the national unity government of summer-fall 2005 have been undone. Lebanon is on the brink.

1. the Syrians and/or their allies
   
2. The US and/or their allies