The Syrian regime's problem is not with Lebanon

The problem of the Syrian regime is not with Lebanon, northern Lebanon, nor with Tripoli or poor Akkar in particular. The basis of the problem of Tripoli and Akkar is the problem of the Syrian regime with the Syrian people first and foremost. This is what the Syrian regime forgets daily, refusing to confess that it is facing a real people’s revolution, which is the mother of all Arab revolutions in modern times. What the Syrian regime does not understand is that it cannot overcome its problem with its people through fabricating external crises, including pushing the probelm towards Tripoli, the city that symbolises moderation and civilised Arabism that is represented in the coexistence of Lebanese of all the sects and doctrines. There is no way for the Syrian crisis, especially through assaulting certain figures in Akkar, where the people there constitute the backbone of the Lebanese army. The Syrian adventure in Tripoli and Akkar, like sending Palestinians towards Jordan, represents the peak of the hopelessness facing the Syrian regime, which is trying to portray Tripoli, the second largest city in Lebanon, as being a den for al-Qaeda and extremist organisations. Who remembers Shaker al-Absi, the Palestinian who was plucked in 2007 from Syrian jails to fabricate the incidents of Nahr al-Bared refugee camp which is not far from Tripoli? Who remembers that the Lebanese army eliminated the plot that the Syrian regime was behind and that most of the martyrs of the Lebanese army's war of the people of Akkar were as a result of Syrian bullets? The Tripoli or Akkar residents, never knew any kind of extremism or sectarian intolerance before the Syrian entry into Lebanon. All the extremist organisations in northern Lebanon, whether Sunni or Alawite, are creations of the Syrian regime, which adopts the policy of division between the Lebanese in order to separate them. The year 2012 sees policies and maneuvers that are outdated, and which could have only worked until April 2005, when the Syrian army had to withdraw from Lebanese land as a result of the assassination of Rafik Hariri. Why then does Damascus choose to cause chaos in Tripoli and Akkar? The answer is that the Syrian regime cannot face the reality that it died on the day it discovered it had no option but to kill its people. It learnt nothing from the Lebanese experience. It did not understand that the killings cannot achieve any goals, and that dealing with the worst kinds of Lebanese and getting rid of the best of them will lead it, inevitably, to disaster. There is a mobilisation in Tripoli and most of the parts of northern Lebanon, including Akkar, against the Syrian regime that has committed all types of massacres against the people of the city and the region. Those who know Tripoli know that the Syrian regime is hated by the people of the city to a large extent, as before the Syrian entry to Tripoli there had been no kind of discrimination between Alawite and Sunni. Before the Syrian entry to the city, Tripoli was a Sunni-Christian city where there was no first class citizen or second class one. All of a sudden a large number of Christians left Tripoli and the Alawites became a distinct category, having known that there had been normal relationships between them and the Sunnis, who constitute a majority in the city. What applies to Tripoli, applies to Akkar as well, as its Christian villages were exposed to massacres that the Syrian regime was behind. The Syrian regime has encouraged all the types of extremism in Lebanon. Its goal from the beginning was to tear the social fabric of the country. What the Syrian regime is practicing, in coordination with its Lebanese allies, is a game of the past. Sooner or later, the regime will discover that it has to be concerned with other issues that have nothing to do with Tripoli or Lebanon. It has to be concerned with the internal affairs of Syria first and foremost. It has to find a way to hand over power according to the Yemeni method, in the best case scenario. Betting on Lebanon is betting on a mirage. The Syrian regime will discover that the complaints it submits to the Security Council are of no benefit to it. If the complaints which it submitted to the security council true, why was the information which was not included, raised by the Lebanese security authorities first? Do the Lebanese security authorities not have enough courage to present these facts to the Lebanese people first? The complaint is not of Lebanon. The complaint is basically of the hero Syrian people, and of the existence of some Arab countries and regional powers that have become convinced that the Syrian regime became a burden on the Syrians and on the region. The adventure into Lebanon will not help the Syrian regime in the least. It had previously fabricated the incidents of Nahr al-Bared camp, in northern Lebanon five years ago, through what is called “Fatah al-Islam,” which is part and parcel of the Syrian regime. Also, it had previously sent elements of al-Qaeda to Iraq. This is something which has been documented. This is what prompted the Iraqi government at this time to refer the Syrian regime to an international court, but then retreated from this due to Iranian pressure. What the Syrian regime did not ever realise is that Tripoli, Beirut and all of Lebanon cling to the concept of ‘life.’ This clinging exists even in the cities and areas that have suffered from deprivation and the negligence of the state. The oppressed Tripoli and the deprived Akkar are resisting as does all of Lebanon. They resist underdevelopment as well as Syrian attempts to incite sectarian division on them.