The expected visit by Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to Damascus during the next two days, to meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is assumed to usher in a new phase, one that will allow building a relationship between the two sides, whether on the personal side, or as one between two states. One would be mistaken to think the visit will start with the process of treating pending issues between Syria and Lebanon, right from the first session. The visit will come, first and foremost, under the heading of reconciliation between the two men. In fact, this reconciliation should be seen as part of the Arab reconciliations currently underway, before anything else. It should be seen as one of the steps of the Saudi-Syrian reconciliation, which began at the Kuwait Economic Summit at the beginning of the year. Proof of this is that there is no Lebanese side other than Hariri who is familiar with the details of this reconciliation between the two states, and the contact undertaken between Saudi Arabia and Syria with regard to seeing the visit take place and achieving a Lebanese-Syrian reconciliation. It would be illogical to expect during this visit that Assad and Hariri will broach pending issues between Lebanon and Syria in one go, during the first session between the two men. The function of the visit, according to the presumed viewpoint of both men, not to mention those familiar with the sensitive issues in their relationship, is to clear up the personal ties between Assad and Hariri. This renders the stance that Hariri brings with him to Damascus of secondary importance, during the first meeting, which might last for either a long or short period of time. Hariri's stance will become more important when the process of discussing political relations begins. Clearing up the personal relationship begins with what each man tells the other, especially Hariri, when he looks into the eyes of his host. What will be the other man's answer? Assad is accused of doing many things against Hariri and other Lebanese. Hariri has an indictment, an opinion which many others share. The decisive issues between them are not limited to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, but go beyond this, to something that can be called how to reconcile justice and the policy of insisting on it, and the requirements of Arab reconciliation, and the joint Syrian-Lebanese need to clear up relations between the two states. When this happens, the time element will become another decisive issue in the relationship between Assad and Hariri. Then, there will be a resort to the principle of politicizing justice – then and only then, since the STL is not and will not be subject to politicization, despite the outcry of some of its foes, before it was even formed… The requirements of politicization are in this case connected to objective conditions, linked to the inter-state relations and the need to normalize them and settle differences, instead of seeing them lurch into crisis… However, the opportunity to clear up the personal relationship, which is provided by the visit, remains the fundamental issue, the objective, and the desired result. This will pave the way for relations between the two men as representatives of their countries, relations that require the establishment of a new phase. It is a challenge to both Assad and Hariri, and not only the latter. If the reconciliation between the two is part of a wider Arab reconciliation process whose objective is re-establishing the personal relationship, then it would be a Lebanese exaggeration to read too much into the visit, by expecting that it will solve pending issues. On the other hand, it would be a Syrian exaggeration to expect a return by Damascus to playing the role of dictating to Lebanon and pressuring it, as in the past, through creating new issues (such as the Syrian warrants against some Lebanese) to add to the older ones. This is because it will obstruct the clearing up of the personal relationship. Hariri is not going with the intention of allowing Syria to intervene in Lebanese policies and matters related to political authority. Assad is not seeking, from the visit, to acknowledge big mistakes made by the Syrian leadership in Lebanon in the previous era. Just as it is unrealistic for some Lebanese to expect that Hariri will obtain practical answers on the issue of demarcating borders, removing Palestinian weapons outside the camps or resolving the issue of Lebanese missing in Syria, it is unrealistic for the Syrians to expect Hariri, as a scaling down of his visit and role, to raise with Assad the issue of the Syrian warrants, and ask that they be retracted, if it is the goal of Damascus to put it on the discussion table, in exchange for other issues that might be raised by the Lebanese side. Most likely, Hariri will behave as if the warrants do not exist, especially after states sponsoring the reconciliation with Syria saw them as a negative step, as well as unhelpful and unjustified, and outside the context of preparing for Hariri's visit. The process of broaching the pending issues with Syria by the Lebanese might take place later on. Just as regional developments require the end of hostility with Syria, the developments of that past era require that the Syrians enter the reconciliation taking into consideration that things have happened in the past. Syria will receive Hariri as the first Lebanese prime minister since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, and the resulting new relations with Lebanon. Syria will receive the son of the late prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, with whom it was at odds, as a result of its earlier policies in Lebanon.
