MGLE01: AOUNISTS AGREE TO DIALOGUE, STILL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BEIRUT 000545

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

NSC FOR ABRAMS/WERNER/SINGH/DORAN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/22/2016
TAGS: KDEM PGOV SY LE
SUBJECT: MGLE01: AOUNISTS AGREE TO DIALOGUE, STILL
STINGING FROM USG "REBUKE"

REF: BEIRUT 413

Classified By: Jeffrey Feltman, Ambassador. Reasons, Section 1.5(b)


1. (C) Summary: Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) member and
advisor to Michel Aoun Gebran Basile met with Poloff to
discuss his party's position on the national dialogue
proposal of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Basile said that
Michel Aoun would represent his party at the March 2-3
meetings, unless other parties chose to send lower-level
representatives. He welcomed the call for dialogue, and
insisted that his party would attend without any
pre-conceived notions about certain outcomes. The FPM would,
according to Basile, seek to include some practical matters
of governance, such as economic reform, on the March 2-3
agenda. Basile said that Berri announced three agenda items
in his call for talks: the Hariri investigation, UNSCR 1559,
and relations with Syria. Basile said that he understood
that all three of these topics would touch on the future of
the presidency. The FPM would be more than willing to
discuss the departure of Emile Lahoud from office, he said.
But any discussion of Lahoud's departure has to touch on who
comes next, and for Basile and his party that can only lead
to one man. Repeating a familiar formula, Basile said that
people need to feel safe with someone in the presidency. He
said if Hariri can bring a candidate who will accomplish
that, he should do so. However, Basile was confident that
Hariri knew the importance of Michel Aoun. But Basile was
concerned about Hariri's commitment to reform. In his
meeting with Aoun, Saad Hariri apparently told Aoun that all
serious dialogue between parties should be on hold until
Lahoud is removed from power. At this suggestion, Basile
commented, why would they engage in a dialogue after they
have control of the Parliament, the Prime Minister and the
Presidency? End summary.


2. (C) Basile told us on February 18 that Aoun was
concerned by the growing tensions between Hizballah on one
side and Jumblatt and his allies on the other side. Basile
expressed the conviction that Jumblatt and Hariri are
encouraged by USG support, and the popular view would hold
the USG responsible for any violence that resulted from a
popular protest to remove the President from office before
the end of his mandate. Gebran also denied reports that had
appeared in the 2/19 local press that the FPM was considering
a plan that would allow Lahoud to leave office to be replaced
by Aoun for the remainder of the Lahoud mandate. Of the
plan, Basile said he did not know who placed it in the press,
and Aoun would be unlikely to support it.


3. (C) According to Basile, Aoun had met with both
Patriarch Sfeir and Saad Hariri in the previous 48 hours. He
said both meetings went well but gave few details.
Initially, Basile said the meeting with Sfeir was positive.
But when pressed for details, he said, "Look, you know the
Patriarch. You can't count on him for strong statements."
But Basile did praise Sfeir for an earlier public statement
in which the Maronite spiritual leader spoke out against any
attempt to dislodge Lahoud through street protests. Basile
was convinced that the USG had emboldened Saad Hariri to give
Lahoud an ultimatum to leave office by March 14. Basile was
worried that a violent confrontation could result from a mass
march to the presidential palace. He warned that Saad had no
cause to be elated at the February 14 rally in commemoration
of his father's death. The crowd, which Basile estimated at
over 300,000, was overwhelmingly Sunni and Druze, with no
significant Christian participation. Many Sunni
participants, Basile claimed, were paid protesters like those
who participated in the February 5 cartoon demonstrations.
Saad Hariri should not take on the Christian issue of the
presidency with a Muslim-dominated street following.


4. (C) To show how seriously Aoun took cross-confessional
dialogue, Basile brought up the talks between Hizballah and
Aoun. Still apparently stinging from USG reproach over the
FPM's contacts with Hizballah, Basile energetically defended
the FPM memorandum of understanding with the terrorist
organization, insisting that they had won major,
heretofore-inconceivable concessions from Hassan Nasrallah.
When poloff asked if Basile would be presenting the
Hizballah-Aoun document at the coming dialogue, he softened
his strident tone and said he would not avoid discussion of
the agreement in the dialogue, but such a discussion would
"not be necessary."


5. (C) Comment: Basile returned repeatedly to Aoun's
meeting with the Ambassador concerning the Aoun-Hizballah
memorandum. Basile insisted that the USG has Aoun all wrong

BEIRUT 00000545 002 OF 002


and that he would win Hizballah's confidence and then their
weapons. Basile seems convinced that the disapproval of the
USG is a significant barrier to Aoun's quest for the
presidency. Basile did not wish to discuss Aoun's meetings
with the Patriarch, but based on Basile's comments about
Sfeir, we assume that Aoun's meeting with the Patriarch ended
without any endorsment for Aoun as Lebanon's next President.
End comment.
FELTMAN