LEBANON: HARIRI UNVEILS "PLAN B": SLEIMAN FOR

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIRUT 001854 SIPDIS SIPDIS NSC FOR ABRAMS/SINGH/GAVITO/YERGER E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/24/2027 TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER PARM SY IS LE SUBJECT: LEBANON: HARIRI UNVEILS "PLAN B": SLEIMAN FOR PRESIDENT BEIRUT 00001854 001.2 OF 003 Classified By: Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman for Reasons: Section 1.4 (b) and (d). SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (S) Majority leader Saad Hariri, disgusted with the failed French initiative, resigned to the fact that March 14 is unable to elect one of its own candidates, and convinced the Syrians' real objective was a political void, now concludes that Syria has won. He does not believe PM Siniora's government can hold on for more than a few weeks, and that it is therefore time to unleash his "Plan B" -- electing Lebanese Armed Forces Commander Michel Sleiman as president. Hariri (please protect throughout) insists Sleiman is not a Syrian stooge, and that electing him would destroy Aoun and be a huge problem for Hizballah. Hariri believes he has half of March 14 (plus the Patriarch) on board with his plan, and is working on the other half. End summary. SYRIANS HAVE WONQiMCl as a notetaker, also attended the meeting. A bitter Hariri complained that the French had wanted a deal on the presidency at all costs, regardless of the consequences. In the Elysee's view, Saad said, anyone was better than no one. ¶3. (C) The Ambassador, stressing that the U.S. had worked with the French to convince them of the need to maintain March 14 unity, urged Hariri to look at what we had accomplished: President Lahoud had left Baabda Palace peacefully at midnight November 23 as scheduled without appointing a second government, there had been no military coup d'etat, and even Lahoud's letter to the army was irrelevant. Now we needed to work on getting a new president. ¶4. (C) Can we get a March 14 candidate to be president? No, Saad answered his own question. The Syrians do not feel intimidated or threatened, so March 14 cannot get its candidates elected. At the end of the day, if we can't get Nassib Lahoud as president, we're not in a safe place to achieve what we want, Hariri said; all the other candidates are equally bad. We have two choices: either accept Michel Edde or someone worse, or go with someone we think the Syrians want. Without a credible threat against Syria, the only way to proceed was to work slowly, but it would be an uphill battle. ¶5. (C) Hariri said he would not stop an Edde presidency if his March 14 allies and Washington supported him and Edde was able to "save the day." Edde, with whom he had met the day before, was an "intellectual," but he would not be able to resist the pressure from Hizballah, Aoun, and the Syrians. He would also be subject to their blackmail and forced to make compromises "here and there." Economically, he was a good choice, a businessman who would be strong against corruption. But politically he is very weak, Saad stressed, and I won't be prime minister if he is president because the pro-Syrians will "butcher" me. ¶6. (C) Hariri said he had told Parliament Speaker Berri the day before he would not stand alone to block Edde, but stressed the president should remain for six years. Berri reportedly said that neither Aoun nor Hizballah would support Edde, but that between March 14, Amal, and a few from Michel Murr's bloc, they could reach the two-thirds quorum. However, as I told the Patriarch, Saad said, I don't believe the opposition wants elections at all and would have found a reason to block Edde as well had I called their bluff. The Syrians wanted a void, and they have won, he concluded. TIME HAS COME FOR SLEIMAN -------------- ¶7. (C) Meanwhile, Hariri stressed, the Siniora government could not hold on for more than two or three weeks. Its credibility, already shaky in the eyes of the opposition, BEIRUT 00001854 002.2 OF 003 would decrease day by day. And even though 10 out of the 17 remaining ministers are Christians, people will see it as the Sunnis dominating the government at the expense of the Christians. Aoun will launch a media campaign to that effect, and, as we saw in the parliamentary by-elections in Metn, that can be a powerful weapon. ¶8. (S) For these reasons, Hariri -- please protect -- said the time was ripe to promote Michel Sleiman's candidacy. Acknowledging that this would require a constitutional amendment, and that Berri might refuse to open parliament to do so, Hariri said if nothing else, March 14 was calling the opposition's bluff. If they refused to pave the way for Sleiman, they really did not want elections. But if it is March 14 that accepts Sleiman, and the opposition opposes his candidacy, March 14 will have the army on its side, making it easier to proceed with a half plus one vote if it comes to that. FIRST STEP: CONVINCE MARCH 14 ALLIES -------------- ¶9. (S) Hariri, admitting that he personally preferred Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh to Sleiman, agreed that he first needed to get his March 14 allies on board, acknowledging that Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and Minister for Social Affairs Nayla Mouawad would be difficult. Geagea thinks in terms of "small" politics, he said, and will only vote in favor of someone, such as Boutros Harb, whom he does not consider a threat to himself. (Note. In a meeting immediately prior to the Hariri meeting, Mouawad presented her own "plan B," which consisted of March 14 proceeding with a half plus one vote, after convincing the Patriarch this was the only option left, on one of the candidates on the Patriarch's list. End note.) However, some of Aoun's supporters, like MPs Michel Murr and possibly Ily Skaff, were likely to go along. ¶10. (S) Hariri said Harb would not like this plan, but claimed Druse leader Walid Jumblatt was on board. (Over dinner with the Ambassador the previous day, Jumblatt admitted that, since he saw no way to get Nassib Lahoud or any other March 14 candidate elected short of unrelenting international pressure on Damascus, he was indeed prepared to support Sleiman.) Surprisingly, he claimed PM Siniora himself would accept Sleiman as president (which Siniora himself confirmed in a telephone call with the Ambassador later that day). The Patriarch (whom Hariri had seen the day before),feeling let down, was ready to accept any candidate. A BOIL ON HIZBALLAH'S FACE -------------- ¶11. (S) This scenario, Hariri argued, would finish Aoun for good because the Christians would rally around Sleiman. It would also be "the biggest boil on Hizballah's face." (Note. In a subsequent conversation with the Ambassador, UN 1701 envoy Geir Pedersen said his usual Hizballah contact (Wafiq Safa) told him Hizballah absolutely refuses Sleiman as president because Aoun refuses him. The same holds true for Michel Edde. Hizballah reportedly would agree to Pierre Daccache, the name Aoun planned to propose if March 14 had accepted his last minute initiative. End note.) SLEIMAN: MAN OF INTEGRITY -------------- ¶12. (S) Hariri acknowledged that supporting Sleiman risked falling into a Syrian trap. However, evidence suggested otherwise. He is not a Syrian stooge, Saad insisted; he tells me when he talks to Syrian President Asad, and, under Asad's instructions, does not talk to Syrian intelligence chief Assaf Shawkat. Sleiman was one of the first to note that Asad would use Turkey's fight against the PKK as a pretext for aggression on its border with Lebanon. ¶13. (S) Hariri said he had never worried about a coup d'etat because Sleiman was the "first of the first" to reject becoming prime minister in the event Lahoud appointed a second government. He had maintained order on January 25, when Hizballah demonstrators threatened to lead the country into violence. BEIRUT 00001854 003.2 OF 003 ¶14. (S) Furthermore, at Nahr al-Barid he followed the instructions of the Siniora cabinet, crossing Hizballah's red line against the army entering a Palestinian camp conducting a laudable battle against Fatah al-Islam that demonstrated his anti-terrorism credentials. Admitting that Sleiman had not done the "best job" against Hizballah's arms, Hariri explained that this was because he didn't have the resources to do the job. Hizballah's 30,000 missiles were not on Sleiman's watch he said, nor was not to blame for the increased arms smuggling from Syria over the last year. Syria has lots of ways to smuggle arms, Saad continued, which the army is powerless to control, citing examples of Hizballah shipments prior to the July 2006 war and the army's inability to stop the arms that went via Surete General in the Biqa' Valley. Khoury added that, according to Sleiman, most of the smuggling was occurring at legal crosspoints, which Surete Generale controlled. ¶15. (S) The problem, Saad explained, is that, even though Sleiman would do anything he could for the army, he had no ability to change military intelligence. The army was under Syrian influence ten years, he said, and someone needed to change the mentality. If Sleiman became president, Saad, as prime minister, would ensure that LAF G-2 Intelligence Director Georges Khoury did not become LAF Commander. ¶16. (S) Finally, Saad said, Sleiman is a man of "integrity," reminding us that Sleiman had come to him offering his resignation when former PM Rafiq Hariri was killed. ¶17. (S) In his conversations with Hariri, Hizballah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah had discussed the candidacies of Michel Edde and Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh, but never mentioned Sleiman, Saad continued. Sleiman is the only candidate who can stand up to Hizballah, Khoury added. LOOKING AHEAD TO CABINET FORMATION -------------- ¶18. (C) Hariri did not believe Hizballah or Aoun would join the next cabinet, though Amal probably would. He envisioned to fill the top four cabinet slots as follows: MP Yassine Jaber (Shia) for Minister of Foreign Affairs, his advisor Ghattas Khoury (Maronite) for Minister of Defense, current Minister of Defense Elias Murr (Greek Orthodox) for Minister of the Interior, and an unnamed (Sunni) nominal Minister of Finance, though Hariri himself would retain control over the latter. As my father told me, he explained, he who controls the money is the boss. COMMENT -------------- ¶19. (S) We find it quite odd that we appear to be arriving at the destination we have long suspected was the Syrians' preferred outcome, Michel Sleiman as president, yet it is March 14 that seems to be driving us there rather than March ¶8. It is difficult to believe that the mere departure of Emile Lahoud only hours before is the explanation behind this sudden shift in attitude, and yet we see no other. We are also suspicious of any candidate that Hizballah and Aoun claim to oppose, after they have rejected candidates at the last minute (i.e., Robert Ghanem) that they claimed to support. As told to the Ambassador on 11/23, Walid Jumblatt's argument in favor of Sleiman is the following: if you (meaning the international community) can threaten Syria to accept a March 14 candidate and then allow him to survive and function, then we (March 14) go for Nassib Lahoud. That's the best option. But if not, then a Michel Sleiman presidency created by March 14, with Sleiman then beholden to March 14, is far better than either a Michel Sleiman presidency created by March 8 or the vacuum. FELTMAN