All Over But the Shooting
David Ignatius is employing the noir western trope to describe the near-completed UN probe into the murder of Lebanese reformer Rafiq Hariri:
A warning of the bloody denouement of this drama came last week, when Syria's interior minister, Ghazi Kanaan, was found dead in Damascus of a reported suicide. Almost nobody takes that at face value. One version has it that Kanaan was killed (or handed the gun and told to do the honorable thing) as a fall guy in the Hariri killing. I tend to doubt that version, because Kanaan had been close to both Hariri and Washington. Instead, I wonder if his death was a counter-coup by pro-Assad operatives in Damascus who feared Kanaan as a potential rival. I'm told that [UN investigator Detlev] Mehlis asked to examine Kanaan's body before it was quickly buried, but was refused.
Of coursehe was refused. What, is it so implausible that Kanaan shot himself in the head four times -- Mehlis needs to see thebullet holes?--MICHAEL WEISS
High Noon for Syria [WaPo]
RELATED: Mind the Dead Pols on the Road to Damascus [Wonkette]