Tehran, Damascus tell Hizballah to grab Beirut right after Ahmadinejad’s visit
The presidents of Iran and Syria agreed in Tehran Saturday, Oct. 2, to support a Hizballah military takeover of Lebanon's power centers, including the capital Beirut, right after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ends his controversial two-day visit to the country on October 13-14.
Ahmadinejad and Assad also decided to continue to harass Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri by de-legitimization of his government, intimidation and humiliation to force him to dissolve the Special Tribunal for Lebanon-STL which has brought charges against Hizballlah officials for the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005.
If this campaign disables the Hariri government, so much the better, because then Hizballah will be able to walk in and set up a transitional administration together with it allies, the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and the Christian ex-general Michel Aoun. This administration will rule the regions dominated by Hizballah gunmen and proclaim its legality as a viable alternative to the failed Hariri government.
As part of this Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah master plan, President Assad Sunday, Oct. 3 released a list – referred to the former Lebanese head of internal security Maj. Gen. Jamil Sayyed – of 33 international and Lebanese individuals against whom the Syrian prosecutor general had issued arrest warrants on charges of false testimony and perjury in the UN probe of the Hariri murder.
debkafile reports that this defiance of an internationally recognized UN court is unprecedented and tantamount to a declaration of war on Lebanon.
Sources in Damascus said the list would be handed to Interpol for the execution of international warrants.
Lebanese police chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi said the next day that Interpol would not execute the 33 warrants, because they were politically motivated.
On that list are the first UN investigating prosecutor of the Hariri probe, Detlev Mehlis and his deputy, Gerhard Lehmann. Both turned up evidence of the complicity of high-ranking Syrian government and military officials' in the crime. Syria also wants the two Lebanese judges on the special tribunal arrested, together with most members of the Lebanese judiciary, the heads of Lebanese security and intelligence services, leaders of the anti-Assad opposition parties in Syria, especially the exiled former vice president Abdul Halim Khaddam, and a string of Lebanese and Kuwaiti public figures and journalists who are opponents of the Syrian and Iranian regimes.
This document was published in Damascus to scare Persian Gulf and Saudi rulers from coming to the aid of the Lebanese prime minister or interfering with its plans for bringing Hizballah to power in Beirut.
To ward off the threat Hariri travelled to Riyadh and asked Saudi rulers for help – firstly, to block off the Iranian-Syrian conspiracy against his government and secondly, for money to buy arms for Lebanese Sunni and Christian militias to defend their fiefdoms against takeover by the Hizballah.
Hariri is planning an emergency government session to discuss the crisis. At the same time, his energy minister Gebran Bassil, while visiting Tehran was told by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki: Stability and unity in Lebanon would foil the plots of enemies."
The Lebanese minister understood this to mean that his government would enjoy stability if it united behind the master plan designed for Lebanon by Ahmadinejad and Assad. It was therefore taken as a threat rather than reassurance.
"If the Zionist Regime [of Israel] attacks Lebanon and Syria, all regional countries including Iran will stand behind Beirut and Damascus," Mottaki said on Monday.
Israel has good reason to be deeply apprehensive of the civil war and violent carving up of Lebanon most likely to result from the Iranian-Syrian plan with serious upsets on the Lebanese-Israeli border, especially if the belligerent Hizballah decides to go for Iran's "enemies" too – namely, Israel. So far there is no sign of Israel taking any steps to prevent this happening.