Secret document: How to pressure Syria to save Lebanon

Saudi news­pa­per Alwatan reported today about a new secret doc­u­ment cir­cu­lat­ing around Amer­i­can intel­li­gence agen­cies on how to pres­sure Syria to save Lebanon, I trans­lated few excerpts from the orig­i­nal report.

A secret doc­u­ment issued by an Amer­i­can research cen­ter is cir­cu­lat­ing around the Intel­li­gence agen­cies in Wash­ing­ton includes a strat­egy to “save Lebanon” after this coun­try reached the point of col­lapse as a result of the pres­i­den­tial vac­uum and the inabil­ity of the Lebanese par­ties to elect a President.

The doc­u­ment based its con­clu­sions on what comes out of Dam­as­cus state­ments which reflect the nos­tal­gia to the sit­u­a­tion to the sit­u­a­tion before April 2005, the date of the Syr­ian mil­i­tary with­drawal from Lebanon.
The doc­u­ment urges the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity on the basis of main­tain­ing its cred­i­bil­ity in the Mid­dle East, to inter­vene in Lebanon, par­tic­u­larly with regard to the Israeli con­flict — Palestinian.

The doc­u­ment empha­sizes upcom­ing Arab sum­mit in Dam­as­cus next March, under the cur­rent cir­cum­stances would be a vic­tory for the Syr­ian regime and the defeat of the forces sup­port­ing democ­racy, where the doc­u­ment calls to increase the iso­la­tion of Dam­as­cus and to boy­cott the summit.

The doc­u­ment counts a num­ber of mea­sures should be taken to iso­late Syria, such as the reduc­tion of diplo­matic rela­tions, the with­drawal of non-essential staff from its ter­ri­tory, and hold pub­lic meet­ings with the Syr­ian opposition.

The doc­u­ment calls to send a mes­sage to the inter­na­tional threat of the Syr­ian regime include finan­cial and polit­i­cal pro­ceed­ings, mov­ing the Navy of the United States allies to the east­ern Mediterranean.

The fol­low­ing are excerpts from the document:

Lis­ten­ing to Sec­re­tary of State Con­doleezza Rice remarks in Davos, one of the points raised in com­ment­ing on polit­i­cal free­dom in the Mid­dle East, point­ing to some extent, as Sec­re­tary Rice said:

Even when you cher­ish Demo­c­ra­tic ideals, it is never easy to turn them into an effec­tive demo­c­ra­tic insti­tu­tions, this process will takes decades, and will dri­ven as it should be and it only can be, by coura­geous lead­ers and cit­i­zens in the region.

The fact that democ­racy and its insti­tu­tions are already exist in Lebanon (Pak­istan also), the lead­ers and the brave cit­i­zens in Lebanon forced to move In an attempt to save democ­racy and its institutions.

Unless the United States takes a clear and firm in Lebanon, it will not be cred­i­ble for progress in any other issue in the Mid­dle East, includ­ing in the Arab — Israeli con­flict, will not be able to con­vince the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity to sup­port their efforts.
Strat­egy should include:

1– Pro­ce­dures for deal­ing with the con­tin­u­a­tion of for­eign inter­ven­tion in the Lebanese polit­i­cal process.

2– A pow­er­ful mes­sage to Dam­as­cus car­ried by high level politi­cian (per­haps the Secretary-General of the United Nations) on behalf of the inter­na­tional community.

3– Inter­na­tional efforts to obtain an inter­na­tional sup­port for col­lec­tive action to pre­vent any inter­fer­ence with the Lebanese polit­i­cal process.

4– Imme­di­ate start of the Inter­na­tional Tri­bunal for the assas­si­na­tion of Hariri, which is a mes­sage says that the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity, will not allow the Syr­ian regime to inter­vene either directly or through oth­ers in impos­ing its polit­i­cal program.

To demon­strate its good faith, Syria must close the offices of Hamas move­ment, and bet­ter con­trol its bor­ders with Iraq and Lebanon to ensure the stop the ille­gal traf­fic of peo­ple and weapons.

For the Arab gov­ern­ments, it is time for them to learn that the irre­spon­si­ble poli­cies of the Syr­ian regime brought the for­eign­ers (ie, the United States, Europe and Iran) to the Arab Governments.