John Burgess posts an unsigned editorial in Arab news condemning Syria for the assassination of ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

It may take weeks, if not years, before we know who killed Rafik Hariri. Whoever was behind the dastardly deed clearly wanted to achieve two objectives. The first was to deprive the emerging Lebanese opposition front from a credible leader capable of cutting across sectarian divides in the name of national unity. The second was to create the impression that without Syrian troops on its soil, Lebanon would be plunged into chaos and civil war. It is important that the Lebanese people, with support from the international community, unite to deny the perpetrators of the murder what they set out to achieve.

Although Hariri is certainly irreplaceable in personal terms, the policies that he espoused and the goals he set for his people could, and should, be taken up and promoted by other Lebanese leaders who also want their nation to reassert its national sovereignty. Contrary to some claims, Lebanon will not return to civil war. All communities are tired of war and remember well that the bloodletting which they experienced in the 1970s and 1980s was the fruit of sinister plots by foreign powers fighting proxy wars in Lebanon. Today, more than ever before, any attempt at pushing Lebanon into civil war would be a direct result, not of internal dynamics but of outside machinations. It is important that the truth about the murder be found and made public. That task cannot be left to the Lebanese authorities whose credibility is bound to be questioned.

Here is the news coming out of the region. The U.S. has recalled its ambassador from Syria, on the founded belief that the hit was ordered by the occupier. Kofi Annan has actually joined in with calls for Syria to leave Lebanon. More astoundingly, Hariri’s funeral has turned into a giant anti-Syria protest:

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Thousands of Lebanese chanting anti-Syrian slogans flooded into streets around the home of slain former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri on Wednesday amid mounting U.S.-led pressure on Syria to get out of Lebanon.

“We want to say the truth, we don’t want Syria,” the mourners chanted. “Syria out, Syria out.”

Black flags flew from buildings and electricity poles in Beirut streets plastered with posters of the Sunni Muslim billionaire killed in a suspected suicide car bombing on Monday.

Hariri’s coffin, draped in a Lebanese flag, was loaded into an ambulance at his house and began to make its way through thousands of mourners toward a mosque in central Beirut.

The flag-waving crowds had gathered to accompany Hariri’s body in a funeral march to an unfinished downtown mosque financed by Hariri where his body was to be buried.

The heart of Beirut, once a shattered battlefield, was rebuilt in a postwar reconstruction drive that Hariri led.

“They feared you, they killed you,” read a banner near Hariri’s house. Inside, black-clad female relatives wept over his coffin and a sheikh recited Muslim prayers for the dead.

“We are all shouting for Syria to get out. I want to kill someone today — a Syrian,” one mourner said.

Definitely an incredible situation going down there, so we’ll continue to cover it with great interest. If you haven’t already, read Kirk’s recent piece that he posted about Lebanon.

UPDATE: Daniel Drezner has more commentary available from various sources.