Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Another voice for Syria

Thursday, April 18, 2002 | 8:59 a.m.

RAFIK HARIRI, POSING AS the prime minister of Lebanon, came to the White House this week. Every American who is aware of what happens in the Middle East knows that he holds his position because Syria allows him to have the title. Very simply, he's a Syrian puppet who is supported by the more than 20,000 Syrian troops in his country. The line he was giving ABC's Charlie Gibson Tuesday morning sounded like he had just arrived from Damascus, not Beirut.

Four years ago I was told by several Middle East Arabs that all the Hezbollah, or Party of God, wanted was for Israel to abandon the security zone it had created in Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak did exactly that two years later, and the Hezbollah pushed right on down to the border of Israel where today they fire more rockets and mortars into that country's farms and villages. So much for the promise of peace for land.

How did Syria take over Lebanon? The best answer was given by Las Vegan Maroun Hanash written to me in 1991:

"On Oct. 13, 1990, Syria completed its takeover of Lebanon by overthrowing the legal and constitutional government of Lebanon led by Prime Minister Gen. Michel Aoun, followed by wide spread executions.

"On Oct. 21, 1990, Danny Chamoun -- anti Syrian Lebanese politician -- his wife, and his two small sons were assassinated.

"Today Lebanon is occupied. Only the removal of the foreign forces and their collaborators can restore democracy and freedom.

"Syria, a dictatorship, cannot be entrusted with the 'rehabilitation' of the Lebanese democratic institutions.

"The public declarations in support of Lebanon's sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity are not enough."

Five years later The World Lebanese Organization asked the Israeli people:

Last year Cardinal Nasrallah Butros Sfeir, a living hero, who Susan Sachs of the New York Times described as a "tiny old man," asked the Syrians to leave. The 80-year-old Maronite Catholic had had enough watching the Syrians manipulate the elections in Lebanon. Sachs also wrote, " 'The common belief in the Christian community is that whenever this added influence is removed, the internal situation will balance itself out naturally,' said Simon M. Karam, a Maronite activist and former ambassador to Washington."

The Syrians are still there encouraging the Iranian-funded Hezbollah to continue attacking the Israelis south of the border. The very thought of Rafik Hariri acting on television and in the White House as anything but a Syrian puppet is amusing if not confusing. For a puppet of Syria being treated as some kind of an equal partner in seeking peace is a sign of ignorance on the part of those who allow him to play this role on the world stage.