Beirut: Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Junblatt hailed Sa’ad Hariri as a “great statesman” whose television interview on Thursday evening highlighted the former prime minister’s “profound concerns about Lebanon’s stability and recovery.”
Junblatt urged political parties to “respond to his initiative,” which concentrated around a “serious dialogue” with Hezbollah, a sentiment that was backed by the Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, who expected the dialogue to start by the end of the year.
Berri cautioned, however, that the ongoing controversy regarding Hezbollah’s arsenal — perceived by many as being illegal because they do not fall under the legitimate authority of the State — along with the party’s presence in Syria would not be on the agenda. There were other issues that needed vetting, claimed Berri, without identifying any.
Hariri was eloquent in his offers to compromise though he insisted that “matters of principle” were not subject to debate. Still, because he was seriously worried about the direction that politicians espoused, the leader of the Future Movement opined that the solution to bring stability back to Lebanon rested with the election of a consensual president. “Our current [presidential] candidate is Samir Geagea,” he declared, “but if Amine Gemayel or Boutrous Harb secure a majority vote, then neither March 14 nor Samir Geagea would be disappointed,” he hammered.
He ruled out the possibility that dialogue with Hezbollah would focus on the identity of a putative candidate, and while he stressed the need to settle on a consensual candidate, he seemed to rule out the Hezbollah nominee, General Michel Aoun, as being that individual. “The consensus candidate,” he reiterated, was the one that “everyone agrees upon, a candidate that everyone supports to revive the country, a candidate that could address the country’s problems and could hold talks with everyone” that, in more ways than one, excluded Aoun even if Hariri repeated that “the problem was not Aoun” but March 8, because of the latter’s ongoing boycotts.
Hariri provided another clue as to the reasons why Aoun could not be a consensual candidate when he stated: “If the president would maintain close ties with, and repeatedly back [Syrian president] Bashar Al Assad, then we wouldn’t want him.” In fact, the Damascus hurdle was explicitly cited on several occasions in this interview because Hariri believed that the Al Assad regime was no longer a legitimate power, but only survived with Iranian and Russian support.
Three weeks after Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah issued his call to resume dialogue, Hariri responded positively, although he packaged his acceptance around the Army and the need to stand by the legitimate military institution. When he was asked why the Army was loathe to accept an Iranian grant, Hariri replied: “The most important donation Iran could give the Lebanese is to order Hezbollah to withdraw from Syria.”
