A Syrian national has been arrested in France in connection with the assassination of the former Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafik al-Hariri, and this week a UN report is “expected to implicate Syrian officials in [the] assassination that plunged Lebanon into its worst security crisis since a 1975-1990 civil war.” And Jeffrey Gedmin, director of the Aspen Institute Berlin, reports that it’s a good thing Syrian democracy is thriving-“in exile.”
It is hard to say exactly where Syria’s tipping point may be. It could be the Mehlis report–the inquiry by U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. The hard-nosed investigator from Germany will publish a report, which many believe will implicate Damascus in the murder. The suicide (some claim liquidation) of Syria’s interior minister Ghazi Kanaan on October 12 piques one’s curiosity. Kanaan was responsible for security in Lebanon through 2003 and had just been interviewed by Mehlis. The Mehlis report is due any day, which makes me think that if Ghadry and his colleagues want a parliament in exile, maybe they had better hurry.
