American democracy has often perplexed me, because it has a number of times trampled on democracy. Richard Nixon spied on his adversaries. Ronald Reagan sold arms to the Iranians and George W. Bush invented the Patriot Act. And now the Obama administration expects the Special Tribunal for Lebanon indictment to be unrelenting because it emanates from the U.N. Security Council under Chapter 7. It’s written in the context of a vision that assumes that the expectation of a thing is worse than confronting the thing itself, which is internal strife.

As usual, wishful thinking always dominates rational thinking when it comes to American foreign policy. The indictment will not produce strife among the Lebanese because the Lebanese know, and have known throughout history, that strife among them will end in reconciliation.

They also know those who value the security of Lebanon. America is not among them. Neither, naturally, is Israel, nor certain European capitals. The Lebanese no longer believe the repeated clichés to the effect that Lebanese matters remain domestic affairs which should be treated by the Lebanese themselves.

What has made this crime so shocking to the Lebanese is the entry of the great powers onto the scene of the legal discussion in the name of justice. The Lebanese question why the international community chose to give a blind eye and a deaf ear to thousands of women and children, who have over the last thirty years, been brutally massacred, tortured and deported in Lebanon, but respond only in the case of the assassination of Rafik Hariri. And why the U.N. resolutions against Israel have remained dead documents, while the decision of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon must be enforced.

Further, the Lebanese now know that all the telecommunication networks in Lebanon are under the absolute control of Israel. Just as, naturally, no one knew the extent to which Israeli espionage had become involved in everything in Lebanon. That’s why the Lebanese are now asking where were the Israeli satellites on February 14, the ones controlling the Lebanese sky 24 hours a day and why has Serge Brammertz not yet named the 10 states which, he said in one of his reports, have not cooperated with the international inquiry. If Syria was one of these 10 states, would the head of the investigation have spared it? In any crime, the one most suspect has to be the one who received the most benefit, especially if in like crimes they have been the most proficient. Thus, Israel has the track record and both the means and motives.

Moreover, the Lebanese have not understood why the story of the judgment of the false witnesses is that of another Lebanese party, especially if justice is the objective of all the Lebanese with a common goal. The international tribunal is in principle supposed to be justice free of passion. And the judgment of the false witnesses, again in principle, is one of the ways of arriving at truth, since the crime of February 14 was a crime against Lebanon.

But, the international judge sees in the matter of the false witnesses a useless affair. Because, he says, the evidence in his possession is no more than conversations between criminals over cell phones.

I ask every reader: Is this fair and lawful? When the plaintiff is right, the need for a false witness disappears since the truth emanates from frank testimony. The presence of false witnesses is evidence that there is no proof. This requires a serious inquiry leading to the truth. Does reaching the truth paralyze the action of the international tribunal?

Yes, it does, and those who say that international institutions are committed to the law know quite well that America, very committed to the STL, does not acknowledge the International Criminal Court. This explains the reaction against Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, because he has discovered what the politics of organized chaos wanted to keep secret. Many analysts express astonishment at what they see as an apparently contradictory situation. Therefore, even those who have confidence in the STL feel international justice has lost its foothold.

Unfortunately for the International Community, the Tribunal will take the expected action of reprobation. I remember when George W. Bush and the former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, preached that removing Saddam Hussein would halt terrorism. The invasion of Iraq took place, and before Iraq, Afghanistan. And terrorism increased to the extent that the perpetrators of the invasion have been obliged to negotiate with terrorists. Pressuring China to free Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned dissident, by giving him the Nobel Prize, convinced Beijing to keep him in jail. Now, the West is doing everything it can to do away with Hizbullah. But if this pressure continues, Hizbullah could petition to be declared a ‘legitimate’ framework, holding parallel elections, and gaining legitimacy on the world stage. We saw this very same process happen in Palestine in 2006.

Terrorism can only be eliminated by justice. The first international tribunal which was held in Nuremberg in 1945 did not stop the emergence of murderers more vicious to other humans than the ones who were convicted.

Justice prevents injustice, while love and forgiveness achieve peace. Therefore, all this can be resolved by a single word, a word of heroism and nobility, from Saad Hariri. When true leaders, not the zaïms, seek to tackle the challenges to be met, the solution to problems becomes feasible and conflicts become less.

Jamal Bittar is a professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at The University of Toledo in Ohio.