The arrival of the Arab leaders to Beirut will reassure the Lebanese, as it implies that the Arab protection for Lebanese stability is extended, a fact which spares them a fiery summer before the so-called “tense autumn”. Preempting the indictment, which is expected to be issued by the Special Tribunal that looks into the crime of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri's assassination, was approached in different ways that range between containing strife that might lie in wait for the country, or leaving it face the repercussions of a decision that remains within the hands of the tribunal alone. But renewing the Arab protection for Lebanon will not raise the issue of interfering in the work of the judges or influencing its course. While it was noticeable on the eve of the Sharm el-Sheikh summit that grouped the Servant of the Two Holy Shrines King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz and Egyptian President Husni Mubarak that Egypt stresses the priority of the Lebanese file alongside the Palestinian one in the summit's talks, the round of King Abdullah, including his visit to Lebanon after Syria and Egypt, is certainly a continuation of his initiative aimed at consolidating the inter-Arab reconciliation which turns Lebanon into one of its integral pillars. These same reconciliations, if they overlook the period of categorizing the countries between moderate ones and others, concern all Arab countries with alleviating the crisis extending from the Gulf (Iran), the Arab Peninsula (Yemen), Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Sudan. Iraq is on the verge of a catastrophe represented by the constitutional vacuum, and Yemen is still threatened with a new war with the Huthis, while no one knows who is provoking it, or at least abstains from revealing it to avoid expanding the fire. While the Iraqi file today is a domestic issue, and the Yemeni one as well considering its field facts, the issue of the Special Tribunal is an Arab and international issue just as much as it is a Lebanese one. Lebanon cannot topple or cancel it ever since it has seen light upon a Security Council resolution. At the same time, the tribunal cannot base its indictment on Lebanese, Arab, or international signs. The new development in the positions of the Lebanese parties that followed Hezbollah's Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's statement in which he deprived the tribunal and the International Investigation Committee's credibility, was the announcement made by 14 March leaders, on top of whom is Prime Minister Saad Hariri, stating that any indictment should have a clear-cut evidence. But is this enough to alleviate the concerns of the party and reassure its leaders? The new aspect that appeared in Sayyed Nasrallah's statements is practically his recanting of the Lebanese consensus that was consolidated in the ministerial statement and on the dialogue table over distancing the issue of the tribunal from discussions and rejecting its politicization. But on the sideline of the tense debate, it was noted that all sides warned against the Israeli malice intentions which is waiting for the moment when the Lebanese fight each other, so as to repeat the Iraqi experience. It is clear that the Saudi call for rationalism to protect Lebanon's stability comes at the top of the messages that will be conveyed through the visit of King Abdullah and his meetings in Baabda, following the summit he will hold with President Michel Sleiman, which Syrian President Bashar al-Asad might join. The Saudi-Syrian rapprochement, which is accompanied by a good climate between Beirut and Damascus, based on Hariri's meetings with Assad, will certainly downplay the Lebanese disputes, as the region cannot withstand another war. Just as it has become a fact that no one in Lebanon wants at any price to “take revenge” from the assassins of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri and the rest of the martyrs, it is also a fact that no Arab country wants to use the tribunal to take revenge. There is a consensus over the rejection of politicization, and each of the Arab countries has its own way of expressing this position: - Saudi Arabia abstains from touching on any issue pertaining to the tribunal, which is the only body capable of looking into the assassinations, upon an international resolution which considers justice a way to protect Lebanon's stability. - Egypt clings to a two-track equation: No interference in the work of the tribunal and no easygoingness with any party that fiddles with Lebanon's stability. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu al-Ghait's refusal of a new May 7 means that what Cairo accepted at the time, or in other words its abstention from interfering, will no longer be duplicated because the regional circumstances have changed and the Arab crises are no longer tolerable. - Syria is against the politicization of the tribunal, but it announced its rejection for any decision that accuses any party of Al-Hariri's assassination. The tribunal, as Sayyed Nasrallah said, might accuse persons not the party itself, but these persons belong to the party. - Qatar, which sponsored the Doha Agreement and whose Prince Sheikh Hamad Ben Khalidah Al-Thani will visit Lebanon this week as well, finds itself concerned with protecting the political formula that followed the agreement, and distancing it from the tribunal's issue. It is in fact an Arab consensus on the fact that the Lebanese stability represents a pressing Arab need, which the Baabda summits will highlight through a message that will almost come united: Lebanon is not alone in the face of the Israeli threats, but the Lebanese should settle their choice and agree that the first red line is represented by their consensus at any price, with one exception: Cancelling the tribunal is not allowed. The price will not be cheap, especially when the divisions over the nature of the Arab role are renewed. Perhaps he who accuses Egypt of interfering in our “affairs” remembers Iran's complaints about the pressures regarding it, through the developments of the tribunal.
