If Shakespeare were alive and searching for a new tragic hero, he might well consider Saad Hariri, Lebanon’s beleaguered prime minister. Hariri’s father, Rafik, presided over five governments in the most fragmented democracy in the world. He was murdered in a car bombing in Beirut on Valentine’s Day, 2005. Because of the fractious nature of Lebanese politics, which is a kind of board game played by its neighbors, only an international tribunal could hope to get to the bottom of the killing. The United Nations appointed one special investigator, and then another, to find the the bombers.
At first the finger seemed to be pointing to Syria. President Bashar al-Assad had supposedly threatened Rafik Hariri, telling him that he would “break Lebanon” if Hariri supported the removal of Syrian troops. But since Daniel Bellemare, a Canadian prosecutor, took over the U.N. investigation, rumors indicate that the indictments will focus on members of Hezbollah.
Lebanon is still recovering from the wounds of its many wars. Hezbollah, a powerful Shiite militia, repelled an Israeli invasion in 2006 and easily took over West Beirut in a one-sided civil war in 2008. The organization is supported by its alliances with Syria and Iran. Perhaps only the memory of the sectarian bloodletting of the previous civil war, from 1975 to 1990, which took as many as a quarter million Lebanese lives, keeps Hezbollah from attempting to seize total control of the country.
This week, while Saad Hariri was meeting with President Obama, the ten members of Hezbollah who are represented in the Lebanese coalition government, plus one independent, resigned en bloc, signalling an end to Hariri’s reign as prime minister. They demand that he renounce in advance the findings of the U.N. tribunal, suggesting that they would return to the coalition if Hariri spurns the search for his father’s killers. Such Hobson’s choices are the stuff of high drama, but unfortunately for poor, lovely Lebanon it is a tragedy that never seems to end.
Photograph: Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images
