The Syrian regime’s blacklisting as “terrorist” of a number of senior Lebanese officials will only hamper efforts to normalize relations between Beirut and Damascus, said political sources in Beirut that are opposed to the regime.
They told Asharq Al-Awsat that the regime was angered by the failure to postpone the Beirut economic summit, held earlier this month, until after its membership is restored in the Arab League.
It would have preferred for the summit not to be held at all in order to deliver a message to foreign powers that its troop withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005 has not stripped it of its ability to control the political affairs of its smaller neighbor.
As a result, Damascus issued “disciplinary” warrants against several of its Lebanese rivals, including Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and head of the Progressive Socialist Party Walid Jumblat. It also blacklisted Hariri’s Future Movement and Lebanon’s telecom company Alfa.
The sources said that the warrants are ultimately worthless because the regime knows full well that its members, who issued them, are wanted by international judiciary.
The measures will also not alter the balance of power in Lebanon, but they will act as a hurdle in normalizing ties between Beirut and Damascus. This issue will become a point of contention in the debate over the ministerial statement of a government that has yet to be formed.
The warrants will also harm Syria’s allies in Lebanon, including President Michel Aoun and the Free Patriotic Movement, in their arguments in favor of normalizing ties with Damascus, continued the sources.
The only way for normalization to be achieve lies in forming a one-sided government that does not include any of the officials who are “wanted” by Damascus, they added.
This is unlikely to happen because it is “impossible” to drag Lebanon into an “adventure” in order to appease the Syrian regime, they remarked.
The warrants will ultimately be ignored because they only impede returning Lebanese-Syrian ties to their normal course. Moreover, they are nothing more than political “vengeance” that cannot be implemented locally or internationally, they said.
