Did Hizballah Kill Rafik Hariri?

Suddenly everyone in Lebanon is asking that question thanks to an article published over the weekend by the German magazine Der Spiegel, which claims that the U.N. tribunal investigating the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister now believes Hizballah to be a prime suspect. Based on unnamed sources "close" to the investigation and backed by undisclosed "internal" documents, Der Spiegel wrote that the evidence that led to Hizballah started with an ill-considered phone call from one of the assassins to his girlfriend, which allowed investigators to identify the caller as a member of Hizballah special operations.

Until now, the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad had been the presumed main suspect under investigation. Almost as soon as Hariri was killed on Valentines Day 2005 in a massive car bombing in central Beirut, the United States and France led world opinion in blaming Syria -- which at the time occupied Lebanon -- for the attack. Hariri had cooperated with Syria during his years as prime minister when he led efforts to rebuilt the country after the end of its civil war in 1990. But before he died, he had fallen out of favor with Assad over Hariri's vision for an ever more independent and prosperous Lebanon. And the massive demonstrations after his death -- which became known as the Cedar Revolution -- helped push the Syrians out of Lebanon later that summer.

However, any evidence that Hizballah either collaborated in or else masterminded the plot against Hariri would also be welcome news to the U.S, which considers the militant group to be a terrorist organization, and to Israel, which has been fighting with Hizballah ever since the group formed in 1982 to resist the Israeli occupation of Lebanon.

But there are reasons to view the Der Spiegel story with suspicion. A rumor that the UN tribunal had begun to focus on Hizballah had been making the rounds in Washington for weeks now. For it to have a public airing in the press just a few days ahead of Lebanon's parliamentary elections on June 7th -- a contest which the Hizballah-led opposition is poised to win -- makes it appear that someone opposed to Hizballah has been shopping this story around in a desperate measure to affect the elections.

The Der Spiegel theory also doesn't fit with the current understanding about the relationship between Hizaballah and Hariri. The former prime minister and billionaire businessman may have been one of the few other people in Lebanon whose outsized character could compete in the spotlight with Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah, but Hariri was not a threat to Hizballah's main concern -- its military infrastructure. True at some point, Hariri's push for greater autonomy could have been a problem for Hizballah, if independence came with pressure on Hizballah to disarm, or if it became difficult to get weapons over the Syrian border. But as my colleague Nick Blanford ponits out in his excellent book about the Hariri assassination, "Killing Mr. Lebanon" in the weeks before his death, Hariri began a series of clandestine meeting with Nasrallah in order to reconcile their two visions of Lebanon. Hariri believed that he was close to reaching an agreement.

For his part, Nasrallah heaped scorn on the Der Spiegel article in a speech last night, and accused the magazine of being party to an Israeli plot. Eventually, time will tell if Der Spiegel is right: sooner or later the UN tribunal -- which is ostensibly keeping its investigation secret -- will have to issue its findings and announce suspects if there are any.

But even such a finding against Hizballah would not necessarily unite public opinion in Lebanon against the group. By now, the tribunal is viewed by Hizballah supporters and their many allies in Lebanon as a partisan institution, and not without reason. From its inception, the tribunal was intended by its supporters on the Security Council (France and the U.S.) as a tool for putting pressure on the Asasd regime, and by extension, its proxies such as Hizballah. None of the dozens of other assassinated politicians in Lebanon before Hariri had their own international investigation, nor for that matter did the thousands of ordinary people who died in the country's 15-year civil war, such as the massacred inhabitants of the Palestinian refugee camps Sabra and Chatila. In fact, the Hariri tribunal was the first U.N. tribunal created to investigate the death of just one man (though later its scope was broadened to investigate the deaths of other assassinated anti-Syrian politicians and journalists.) Since then, the tribunal has damaged its own reputation for impartiality. One of its early reports implicated the highest levels of the Syrian government in the assassination, but later reports backed away from the claim. The UN investigators also ordered the arrest of four of the top pro-Syrian security chiefs in Lebanon, and had them held in jail for four years without charges. The Der Spiegel leak ahead of the election will hurt the tribunal even more.

And even if the U.N. does eventually target Hizballah, the result will probably be more harm then good. Considering the mighty Israeli army hasn't been able to budge Hizballah in 27 years of war, the chances of an international court dragging the guerilla group to the Hague for a trial date are pretty slim. Instead of justice being served, it's more likely that such a finding will result in another civil war in Lebanon, this time between the Shia Muslim followers of Hizballah, and the country's Sunni Muslims, who regarded Hariri as their leader. Sectarian tensions are already hanging on the balance. The supporters of the Hariri tribunal may want "The Truth" as they repeat on many a poster and billboard; but Lebanon may not be able to handle the truth.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut