Those Silly Compromise Plans

So Assafir regaled us this morning with a 5-point plan that would “strengthen the calm” in Lebanon. Here’s the best part of that plan:

the plan allows Hariri to declare Hezbollah’s innocence right after issuance of the indictment by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

The thing about those plans is that they’re never specific enough. By “declare Hezbollah’s innocence”, do they mean Mr. Hariri to say: “Not a single element of Hezbollah has anything to do with the murder”, or “Hezbollah as a party has nothing to do with the murder but some rogue elements could have played a role”.

Because if it’s the latter, it would be redundant since that’s the current position of Mr. Hariri. If it’s the former, we would have a bigger problem still.

If Mr. Hariri declares null and void the judgment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, then why has he been deferring to it all these years? Wouldn’t this undermine the entire process that his camp has always stood behind? And suppose he did say that, wouldn’t his base understand that he’s only saying this because he wants calm, and that the STL is in reality saying the truth?

How would that help calm? By enforcing the idea in the minds of people that the killers coerced the victim under the threat of violence to denounce justice?