BEIRUT, Lebanon, October 26 (Lebanonwire) -- As the international community continues its push to isolate Syria and implicate it in the former Premier Rafik Hariri’s murder probe, Syria’s traditional Lebanese allies chose to play it safe, neither agreeing with nor condemning lead investigator Detlev Mehlis’s UN report findings, daily Al Mustaqbal said Wednesday.

The daily’s political analyst Nasir al Asaad said that the Shiite political parties Amal Movement and Hezbollah, traditional supporters of the Syrian regime, chose the lesser of two evils, when they recently called for the UN investigators’ need to gather more evidence, while refusing to accept sanctions on Syria.

Asaad wrote that the Shiite declaration did not attack the report even when it considered that “it did not bring Lebanese closer to the truth”, thus acknowledging that some facts are valid, but insufficient to reach any conclusions.

“This converged with the Saad Hariri-led government’s position, inside the parliament and Cabinet,” the analyst said.

Asaad wrote that the Shiite declaration, which had taken precautions against attacking Hariri’s camp, also sought not to “disturb” their Syrian ally, thus prolonging the issue of President Lahoud’s tenure and the political standstill that has Syria tightly connected to and in the way of Lebanon’s efforts at achieving real independence from the symbols of the old Lebanese-Syrian security regime.

“By refusing to accept international sanctions against Syria despite converging evidence of Syria’s involvement in the probe, the Shiite parties put themselves outside the currents of change within the new local and international political climates,” Asaad said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora announced on Tuesday that the UN report has revealed “the essential elements for reaching the truth and the mechanism of Lebanon’s tutelage under the previous regime.”

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat said following a meeting with Speaker Nabih Berri that he supported the demonstrations that took place in Syria, which denounced the course the UN investigation is taking.

“We simply refuse any collective action against Syria,” Jumblat announced.

And after a meeting with Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, Jumblat said that “parts of the report are one issue, and the entire testimony is another.”

Syria has maintained that it was not in any involved in the probe, which it called “a big lie”.

Copyright © 1999-2005 Lebanonwire^®.com. All rights reserved.