LEBANON: FORMER PM MIKATI CLAIMS LAF COMMANDER

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 BEIRUT 001485 SIPDIS C O R R E C T E D C O P Y - PARA NUMBERING SIPDIS NSC FOR ABRAMS/SINGH/GAVITO/YERGER E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/26/2027 TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER KDEM LE SY SUBJECT: LEBANON: FORMER PM MIKATI CLAIMS LAF COMMANDER SLEIMAN REMAINS SYRIA'S PRESIDENTIAL CHOICE REF: BEIRUT 1458 BEIRUT 00001485 001.2 OF 004 Classified By: Jeffrey Feltman, Ambassador, per 1.4 (b) and (d). SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (S) In a one-on-one meeting with the Ambassador on 9/25, former Prime Minister Najib Mikati -- once and perhaps still close to Syria's Asad family -- stated his belief that LAF Commander General Michel Sleiman remains Syria's top choice for the presidency. Because of Hizballah's need to coddle Michel Aoun and Aoun's delusional fantasies, however, sidelining Aoun to promote Sleiman as the compromise will be harder than Nabih Berri and others think. Thus, Mikati warned that we should not rule out, en route to the Sleiman presidency, a "competing presidents" scenario (vice "two government" scenario): March 14 would elect Nassib Lahoud, March 8 would elect Michel Aoun, chaos would break out, and then Sleiman would emerge only later as the compromise savior to reverse a deteriorating security situation. Sleiman himself may not be completely in the loop. ¶2. (S) While arguing that Nassib Lahoud would be the best president, Mikati, sharing colorful anecdotes about Syrian maneuvers, thought that MP Robert Ghanem remained a fall-back possibility. Separately, Ghanem dismissed rumored links to Syria. Demonstrating an uncharacteristic fanciful flight from reality, Mikati also shared a wild tale, credited to a French academic, about Syrian-Saudi connections to Fatah al-Islam, with the Syrians initially cooperating with Prince Bandar bin Sultan on creating Sunni militias. While we would be inclined to drop this from our cable as mere Ramadan story-telling, Mikati pr.QQQRa QT\WQQge{Q!iman remains Syria's first cxlQJQh7+PqQQpresidency. Second, there is Hizballah's need to preserve Michel Aoun for the post-election period, when Hizballah will rely on Aoun to ensure that the cabinet formation includes an Aoun-Hizballah "blocking third" to prevent any serious questioning of Hizballah's arms. Hizballah cannot easily side with Sleiman and continue to maintain Aoun's loyalty. Third, there are Aoun's own delusional fantasies. As Aoun is convinced that it is his right to become president, "nothing" will persuade him to stand aside to allow Sleiman to emerge as a compromise, as Hizballah and Nabih Berri hope. Aoun's block-headed stubbornness alone might therefore derail Syria's hopes that Sleiman would emerge as the consensus candidate in the weeks ahead. ¶5. (S) Without any consensus candidate, then March 14 will proceed to elect Nassib Lahoud by absolute majority, and without the two-thirds quorum March 8 insists is required. March 8 will respond by seizing key installations and BEIRUT 00001485 002.2 OF 004 electing its own president, who under this scenario will be Michel Aoun. Lebanon will not face a "two government" scenario but rather a "two presidents" scenario. The security situation will quickly deteriorate. At that point, it becomes much easier for Sleiman to emerge as the "compromise savior." Both presidents will be forced to resign, in a deal that favors Sleiman as the unifying figure. So if the Syrians cannot get Sleiman as president through Berri's compromise initiative before Emile Lahoud's term expires on November 24, then they will get him afterwards by provoking chaos through the "two presidents" approach. Immediately after Sleiman's elevation, the security situation will improve, with the improvements then helping to undermine the March 14 forces, who were unable to keep Lebanon safe. When March 14 fortunes look worst, then Syria's allies will force through early parliamentary elections to reverse once and for all the March 14 majority. ROBERT GHANEM AS POSSIBLE FALL-BACK -------------- ¶6. (S) The Ambassador asked whether Sleiman was really the only so-called compromise candidate the Syrians were prepared to accept. MP Robert Ghanem is a possibility, Mikati said. Mindful of Elias Murr's claims of Syrian plans to preserve Ghanem as a potential fall-back (reftel),the Ambassador asked about Ghanem's links to Syria. After a pause and the caveat that "this is just for you," Mikati gave colorful details into reftel's story about Syrian intelligence officer Rustom Ghazaleh instructing MP Ily Skaff to find the right moment to shift support from Michel Aoun to Ghanem. Emile Hanoush, the Zahleh area restauranteer-hotelier who carried the message from Ghazaleh to Skaff (and whose name, we were delighted to learn, means "snake" in Egyptian Arabic),is also Mikati's art broker, trading in 19th-century Orientalist paintings. Hanoush rushed from Ghazaleh's office to Mikati's home first to seek advice. Hanoush, whom Mikati claimed is subject to Syrian blackmail due to predatory homosexual practices, was not eager to be the intermediary. Mikati advised him to drop part of Ghazaleh's orders -- that Skaff should broker a reconciliation between Ghanem and pro-Syrian politicians like Faisal Daoud and Elie Ferzli ("they are history") -- but to pass the message about shifting support from Aoun to Ghanem. Mikati said that Ghanem is probably not even aware of Ghazaleh's interventions on his behalf, which the Ambassador noted would be a convenient way of giving Ghanem deniability. GHANEM CLAIMS INDEPENDENCE FROM SYRIA -------------- ¶7. (S) Separately, the Ambassador met Ghanem earlier on 9/25 for a frank one-on-one conversation about his ability to chart a path independent of Syrian wishes, given the traditional heavy-handed Syrian domination of the Biqa' Valley constituency that is Ghanem's base. The Ambassador noted that, as the lawyer to Syrian businessman Osman Aidi, Ghanem is easily vulnerable to criticism as a Syrian candidate in disguise. Ghanem gave a spirited defense of his independence from Syria, pointing to his signature on Special Tribunal petitions and his decision to run with Saad Hariri's parliamentary list in 2005. Asked what he would do as president when U.S. officials began demanding some kind of action on Hizballah's arms smuggling if Hizballah and its allies ended up supporting his presidential bid, Ghanem said that he would insist upon implementation of UNSCR 1701. Ghanem rejected the notion that he would abandon March 14 values or UNSCR 1701 requirements or that he had any kind of deal with Syria. MIKATI'S CANDIDATE: NASSIB LAHOUD (BUT IT REQUIRES A REGIONAL DEAL) -------------- ¶8. (S) Asked whom he thought would be the best president, Mikati said (as he has before),"Nassib Lahoud." But because of the Syrian conviction that Nassib would be a "Saudi" president (because of his sister-in-law's previous marriage to King Abdullah),Syria will work hard to block Nassib. The only possible way for Nassib to emerge as the winner would be for some kind of regional deal. Mikati accused the U.S. of "stupidity," in believing that Lebanon's presidential race will be determined locally. Whatever the U.S. public position about the Lebanese MPs having the right to decide, BEIRUT 00001485 003.2 OF 004 in fact Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are already talking with their local partners about whom to support. The U.S., by staying out on principle, is allowing other outsiders to exercise greater influence. This vacuum where the U.S. role should be is allowing Syria and Iran more, not less, influence. (Meeting with the Ambassador a few hours earlier, Nassib himself made the same point: the U.S. is ceding ground to others to decide Lebanon's presidency, he argued, even though Lebanon's presidency in his mind should be of strategic importance to the USG.) FRENCH ACADEMIC SUPPOSEDLY UNCOVERS SYRIAN-SAUDI CONNECTIONS TO FATAH AL-ISLAM -------------- ¶9. (S) Changing the subject, Mikati noted that he had been meeting recently with a French academic named "Gil Capel" (NFI),whom he claimed was a mentor to Bernard Rougier, author of "Everyday Jihad," about the rise of Palestinian fundamentalists among Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Mikati claimed that, in the process of research with fundamentalist Islamic clerics in the Tripoli area, Capel uncovered "sensational" links between the Saudis and Syrians regarding Fatah al-Islam. According to Capel as related by Mikati, Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan had teamed up with the Syrians to create Sunni militias to fight Iraqi Shia; Prince Turki bin Faisal's discovery of Bandar's underground work promoting Sunni militias lead to Turki's resignation as Ambassador to Washington, Capel argues (despite the odd chronology this would imply). Eventually, the Bandar-Syrian connection extended to Lebanon. To establish Fatah al-Islam, Bandar provided funding, and Syria provided facilities -- open borders, weaponry, and facilities formerly belonging to Fatah al-Intifada. Bandar wanted military forces capable of standing up to Hizballah; Syria just wanted to foster trouble. After the initial start-up, Syria broke operational ties, to preserve deniability. Bandar and Saudi Arabia did not break with Fatah al-Islam until the May 20 massacre of Sunni LAF soldiers. ¶10. (S) The Ambassador expressed deep skepticism at Mikati's tale and wondered whether Capel wasn't vulnerable to conspiracy theories and being fed some politically motivated line. Mikati (usually fairly well grounded in reality) insisted that Capel's evidence is very strong. In any case, Mikati said, Capel plans to publish his findings. This will become a huge scandal, engulfing Prince Bandar, the Saudis, and by association, the Hariris in the creation of Fatah al-Islam. Even if you don't believe it, Mikati warned, others will. "You should be prepared for this." COMMENT -------------- ¶11. (S) Mikati is smart, rich, fairly well regarded here (given his better-than-expected transitional premiership in 2005),and ambitious. In fact, over the course of this meandering conversation, he showed us the contract he is signing with a well-regarded U.S. public relations firm (for a sizable sum that suggests he is less stingy than rumored) to raise his profile in the United States. Thus, Washington readers, we expect you will have your own opportunities to judge Mikati for yourselves in the near future. ¶12. (S) So we tend to look at everything Mikati says in the context of his hope to be prime minister again. Promoting Nassib Lahoud as president, for example, might make him a more plausible successor to Fouad Siniora, since presumably a regional deal would try to balance the "Saudi" presidency of Nassib Lahoud with a different profile as PM. Even his conviction (despite his usual rational analysis) that his new French academic friend is onto something with the far-fetched theory of the Prince Bandar-Syrian creation of Fatah al-Islam would serve his PM interests, if such a revelation would damage the Hariris in the process. After Fouad Siniora and Saad Hariri, Mikati is, after all, the highest profile Sunni in Lebanon, with his presumed ongoing (if publicly repressed) links with Syria simultaneously helping and hurting him. ¶13. (S) As for his comments on LAF Commander Sleiman, they are broadly consistent with what we are picking up from others. Indeed, the strategy of the pro-Syrians like Nabih Berri make the most sense when viewed in the context of Sleiman being the pro-Syrians' first choice. The possibility BEIRUT 00001485 004.2 OF 004 of the pro-Syrians creating a Sleiman presidency by allowing a two-president scenario to emerge first is a new but entirely plausible twist in what is surely a constantly evolving strategy that could move in a number of different directions depending on developments. As for the recent comments on Robert Ghanem, we realize that we are vulnerable to Lebanese conspiracy theories ourselves when we start to question the motivations for revealing to us the alleged support for Ghanem by Syrian intelligence official Rustom Ghazaleh: does Mikati really think we wouldn't share such key information about a presidential hopeful? Or is Mikati (perhaps like the Murrs before him, reftel) trying to destroy the reputation of a decent (if gray and uninspiring) MP in order to eliminate competition from Sleiman, the real heir apparent? FELTMAN