After seventeen years since the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon, it can be said, with a clear conscience, that Lebanon is finished. However, Syria has also come to an end. On the twenty-sixth of April 2005, the Syrian army withdrew from Lebanon along with its affiliated security apparatus. The army was subordinate to the security agencies, as was the case within Syria.
After seventeen years since the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon, there is no escape from acknowledging that Lebanon is in a worse situation than it was before. The fate of the country is under scrutiny. However, Syria itself is in a state of collapse, given the coverage of the regime’s decision in light of Iran’s directive to assassinate Rafik Hariri.
After seventeen years since the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon, it can be said, with a clear conscience, that Lebanon is finished… but Syria has also come to an end. Lebanon and Syria simultaneously paid the price for Iran’s decision to assassinate Rafik Hariri, a decision that Bashar al-Assad, who participated in it, did not fully comprehend its implications and the resulting consequences.
Rustom Ghazaleh was the last Syrian officer overseeing Lebanon as the High Commissioner appointed by the occupying authority. Following Rustom (Sunni), Ghazi Kanaan (Alawite) took over, and Bashar al-Assad had a score to settle with him as he collaborated with Rafik Hariri within certain limits. Some collaboration was linked to personal interests, while others were related to the relationship between Ghazi Kanaan on one side and the Chief of Staff Hikmat Al-Shihabi and Abdul Halim Khaddam on the other. Ghazi Kanaan shared the conviction with Hikmat Al-Shihabi and Abdul Halim Khaddam that Bashar al-Assad was not fit to succeed his father and that he would lead Syria to ruin. This is precisely what happened. Ghazi Kanaan reportedly committed suicide, and it was said that the regime compelled him to do so, while death later claimed Hikmat Al-Shihabi and Abdul Halim Khaddam.
The fate of Rustom Ghazaleh, who was liquidated by the Syrian regime upon his return to the country, encapsulates the tragedy of Lebanon and Syria simultaneously. It was a coincidence that the Sunni officer from the Hauran region was brutally eliminated, ten years after the explosion of Rafik Hariri’s convoy
It is difficult to assert that Rustom Ghazaleh knew the precise details of the preparations for the crime of the explosion of the convoy. This is because such details related to a decision of significant regional and international dimensions, aimed at eliminating the person behind the latest attempt to reintegrate Lebanon into the Middle East map, remain within a very tight circle in Damascus and Tehran. However, what is certain is that he was within its atmospheres, like many others in Lebanon and Syria, knowing something about Bashar al-Assad’s psychology, mindset, and the Iranian expansionist project. This project found a new opportunity in all directions, especially in Syria and Lebanon, with the US occupation of Iraq.
Since the Syrian army’s withdrawal from Lebanon, Rustom slowly died. His death took ten years. It is known that he breathed his last on the twenty-fourth of April – April 2015. Just two days after the last Syrian soldier left Lebanese territory.
In Syria, Rustom returned as a Sunni officer, nothing more, meaning an officer of the second rank who had to gain the daily approval of his Alawite superior. Despite the wealth he accumulated in Lebanon and the status he enjoyed, he no longer had a task to perform other than showing loyalty. Loyalty meant practicing all possible brutality against the people of his Sunni region who rebelled against the regime along with other Syrians since 2011.
Many have been eliminated since the assassination of Rafik Hariri, but Rustom Ghazaleh’s experience gives an idea of the impact of the withdrawal from Lebanon on the Syrian regime itself. The regime transformed from a partner with Iran in Lebanon to its subordinate in Syria and Lebanon simultaneously.
The Syrian military withdrawal from Lebanon was not a transient event in light of two pivotal developments. The first development is represented by Iran, through Hezbollah and its weapons, filling the security void left by the Syrian army’s departure. The second development lies in the consequences that resulted internally in Syria due to the withdrawal.
The aftermath of the Syrian military withdrawal from Lebanon explains why there has been a persistent determination, since Hafez al-Assad’s arrival on November 16, 1970, to cling to all the levers of power. This determination extended to exporting Syrian crises beyond its borders, specifically to Lebanon, and allowing the infiltration of the “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” into Baalbek in the Lebanese Beqaa Valley in the summer of 1982. The pretext presented by Assad Sr. was participating in confronting Israel, which had initiated a wide war in Lebanon on June 6 of that year to expel fighters of the Palestine Liberation Organization from it.
Syria paid dearly for the regime’s belief that it could use Iran and the “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” to blackmail other Arabs and the world. Over time, it became clear that the difference between Hafez al-Assad and his successor lies in the fact that the former understood the limits of the balance game in the region and its precision. Hafez al-Assad would not embark on any adventure without calculations considering how to find an exit in case of failure to achieve what he wanted or aspired to.
Undoubtedly, the “Islamic Republic” knew how to benefit from him in the long run and waited for his death to pounce on both Lebanon and Syria simultaneously. Its first ally in this onslaught was Bashar al-Assad, who did not realize the meaning of participation, or at least, covering up the disposal of Rafik Hariri at a time when the man represented a unifying Lebanese symbol refusing to be a mere tool for the Syrian intelligence officer ruling Lebanon, whose name was Rustom Ghazaleh.
For those who did not grasp the meaning of the Syrian army’s withdrawal from Lebanon less than two months after the explosion of Rafik Hariri, it is challenging for them at present to comprehend the meaning of the Syrian and Lebanese collapses, and the cost of falling under Iran’s dominance.