LEBANON: WHY IS MARCH 14 READY TO CRY 'UNCLE' ON

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 BEIRUT 001877 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR NEA FRONT OFFICE AND NEA/ELA; NSC FOR ABRAMS/SINGH/YERGER E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/27/2027 TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER KDEM LE SY FR SUBJECT: LEBANON: WHY IS MARCH 14 READY TO CRY 'UNCLE' ON THE PRESIDENCY? REF: A. BEIRUT 1875 ¶B. BEIRUT 1865 ¶C. BEIRUT 1864 ¶D. BEIRUT 1863 ¶E. BEIRUT 1860 ¶F. BEIRUT 1854 BEIRUT 00001877 001.2 OF 004 Classified By: Jeffrey Feltman, Ambassador, per 1.4 (b) and (d). SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (S) After we have been preaching unity to our March 14 and GOL contacts over the past few days, the message is taking hold: there is a March 14 leadership meeting tonight, and we detect a convergence of views among the major March 14 players. Yet, perversely, the unity points in the direction of promoting LAF Commander Michel Sleiman as president. As noted in reftels, this once unthinkable idea is moving extremely quickly and may already be unstoppable, with envoys of other countries (France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.) enthusiastically applauding a Sleiman solution. March 14 leaders cite changed domestic, international, and security circumstances in explaining why, after insisting on March 14 positions for three-plus years despite assassinations and threats, they are now blinking. If we wish them to reconsider and hold firm in favor of a March 14 candidate, we need to get our international and regional partners to back someone like Nassib Lahoud instead of Sleiman. But, as this appears to us to be unlikely, we will work with our March 14 contacts to see what kind of assurances Sleiman can offer to make his presidency, if accepted by Hizballah and Aoun, the least damaging as possible to the March 14 core principles we share. We also need to prepare for the inevitable ugly press headlines claiming that Sleiman, if elected, demonstrates Syria proved victorious over March 14 and the United States in Lebanon. (We will cover in septel our ideas on trying to co-opt Sleiman, or at least neutralize him, through embracing and warning him simultaneously.) End summary. MARCH 14 UNITY TENDING TOWARD SLEIMAN -------------- ¶2. (S) As reftels note, March 14 leaders and PM Siniora are lining up behind a fast-moving plan to elect LAF Commander Michel Sleiman as Lebanon's next president. Some -- like Saad Hariri -- have convinced themselves they can beat Syria at its own game by adopting Sleiman as their own. Others -- like Walid Jumblatt -- have calculated that, of all the distasteful options available to them in the aftermath of the collapsed French initiative, Sleiman is the least bad. Jumblatt calculates that, if March 14 backs Sleiman, he won't leave them out in the cold if, as some believe, U.S.-Syrian relations are warming. We see the march toward a Sleiman presidency by March 14 as almost unstoppable at this point. Tonight (11/27),Hariri, Jumblatt, Fouad Siniora, Amine Gemayel, and Samir Geagea will meet to go over the assurances they seek from Sleiman in exchange for unified March 14 support for his presidency. We see Hariri on 11/28 for a detailed briefing. UNTIL NOW, MARCH 14 HAS NOT BLINKED DESPITE THREATS AND INTIMIDATION -------------- ¶3. (S) Yet none of our March 14 and GOL contacts is enthusiastic about the Sleiman option. All believe that a March 14 president -- preferably Nassib Lahoud -- is the only option that can guarantee commitment to a March 14 agenda. In our discussions with them, we have noted that March 14 has found itself at similar crossroads before, where one direction leads to a March 14 solution and the other direction leads to compromise. Until now, despite threats of catastrophe from the March 8-Aoun forces similar to what is being predicted now, March 14 has always turned firmly in the direction of the March 14 solution. Why, we ask, have the March 14 leaders abandoned the steadfastness that has served them so well in getting the Special Tribunal established, refusing the "blocking third" cabinet demand, preserving the Siniora cabinet, and so forth? Why now, after having withstood so much and even lost MPs to murder, would March 14 decide to compromise on the president that their thin BEIRUT 00001877 002.2 OF 004 parliamentary majority should have the right to elect? Why are March 14 leaders now blinking rather than, as they have before, calling the March 8-Aoun bluff? CHANGING LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES AND HEIGHTENED THREATS PROVOKE NEW CALCULATIONS -------------- ¶4. (S) Our March 14 contacts cite three main considerations in turning, this time, toward compromise rather than confrontation: -- Changed domestic developments: In fighting for the Special Tribunal or maintaining the cabinet despite the once-menacing sit-in protests, March 14 leaders calculated that Lebanese public opinion was largely on their side. We agree that it was. Even those Lebanese who wanted Siniora's cabinet ousted did not, except for the most radical Aounists, really want to enter the Grand Serail by force. No one could publicly oppose the tribunal and be considered credible. Yet going for a half-plus-one presidential vote is different. March 14 leaders hesitate under the weight of editorial writers, jurists, and even man-on-the-street commentary that associate an absolute majority election (without an accompany two-thirds quorum) as violating the constitution. People who are fence-sitters or even mildly March 14 in orientation are opposed to taking what is seen as an anti-constitutional step, and March 14 is afraid of pushing fence-sitters into the opposing camp. For this reason, it is not clear that March 14 even has the votes for an absolute majority election. -- Changed international circumstances: Whatever the realities, our March 14 contacts believe that international solidarity behind their cause has shriveled when it comes to the presidency. Whereas almost everyone regionally and internationally (save Iran and Syria) backed the tribunal and the besieged Siniora cabinet, our contacts do not feel the same support for a March 14 president. Indeed, the French initiative, by drawing Damascus into the process and siding with those advocating a consensual president, ruled out a March 14 president. According to their local envoys, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Vatican and others also advocate a consensus president. Virtually no one except the United States in the international community has stood with the concept of the March 14 majority electing the president of its choice, and March 14 does not see that we've been able to assemble a coalition in favor of that approach that would force Parliament to open. Beyond the specific issue of the presidency, March 14 leaders are convinced -- however inaccurately -- that Syria's isolation has ended, thanks to Annapolis, the French initiative, and alleged Israeli flirtation with a Syria track. Jumblatt in particular sees Syria's alleged re-integration as ominous to Lebanon's cause. -- Heightened security concerns: Despite their history with repeated threats that never materialized into catastrophe, March 14 leaders have convinced themselves that, this time, the pro-Syrians and Aoun forces mean business when they say that they will oppose by force a March 14 president elected by absolute majority. We do not know how real these threats are in reality, but March 14 leaders like Jumblatt believe that the changed domestic and international/regional environments noted above make it likely that, this time, March 8-Aoun leaders mean what they say. There are no international or regional forces to push back against this intimidation or to react in the case of violence. We have no good answer to Jumblatt's question about what we would do if Syrian-provoked violence breaks out in the Chouf (as he is convinced would be the case) as a reaction to a March 14 president. ¶5. (S) Like March 14 leaders, we ourselves are at a crossroads and must make what is in diplomatic terms a split-second decision about which way we are going to turn. Do we catch up with our March 14 allies who have already started to turn toward the Michel Sleiman compromise presidency, and try by various means (including embracing Sleiman while also sending him our expectations) to make that presidency as acceptable as possible? Or do we work to convince March 14 to come back and try again to go in the BEIRUT 00001877 003.2 OF 004 direction of a March 14 president? Because of Aoun's populist histrionics and Hizballah's threats against the Siniora cabinet, March 14 leaders believe that they must make their own decision quickly and fill the presidential vacuum before the security environment deteriorates and their popularity eroded. MARCH 14'S QUESTION: HOW CAN WE GET NASSIB LAHOUD ELECTED? -------------- ¶6. (S) In the past few days, we have had success in prodding March 14 leaders to unify their ranks (and tonight's leadership meeting is largely at our insistence). Oddly, our push toward unity has actually moved Samir Geagea toward the Michel Sleiman presidency, rather than the others back toward a March 14 president. Yet we know that March 14 leaders would stay united behind the candidacies of Nassib Lahoud, Boutros Harb, and Michel Khoury (all from the Patriarch's list),as well as Charles Rizk. Everyone except the other candidates themselves believe fervently that Nassib Lahoud is the best choice. Remaining united, March 14 leaders tell us that they would be willing to add Nayla Mouawad and Amine Gemayel's names to any March 14 list of candidates. ¶7. (S) But they ask us how they can get parliament open to elect one of those candidates? How can they ensure that at least two-thirds of the parliament show up for what is widely accepted to be a two-thirds quorum for presidential elections? Even if some names are taken from the Patriarch's list, who is going to force Nabih Berri to open parliament and compel sufficient numbers of MPs to show up? PM Siniora, like others, pleaded with us to show him how Nassib Lahoud can be elected and, if elected, protected and strengthened. They do not see the answers as being inside Lebanon but rooted in the regional and international context (i.e., pressure on Syria, support from the Vatican, etc.). GOING FOR THE MARCH 14 CANDIDATE -------------- ¶8. (S) In our view, if we decide to get March 14 leaders to go with their first choice, a March 14 president, we need first and foremost to demonstrate that the same regional and international solidarity (excepting Syria and Iran) is with them now that backed them throughout the past three years. Instead of hearing from Paris, Cairo, Riyadh, and the Vatican that they should find a consensus acceptable to Hizballah, Aoun, and Nabih Berri, March 14 leaders should hear a strong, unified, voice that the international community and regional parties support the parliamentary majority's right to elect a president of its choosing -- and that the pressure on Syria and its allies until parliament opens and MPs show up will be heavy and unrelenting. ¶9. (S) Whereas they interpret the failed French initiative as evidence that Syria's allies pay no price for intransigence (and do not even get blamed publicly for the presidential vacuum except by us),March 14 leaders, to be convinced that they should turn back toward a March 14 presidency, need to see that Syria's allies are feeling the heat. Unfortunately, unless we can build an international coalition quickly in favor of March 14, it may be too late -- our diplomatic colleagues all report that their capitals want compromise and consensus. MICHEL SLEIMAN: MAKING IT WORK -------------- ¶10. (S) We have found ourselves led to a strange intersection: on March 8's map, one direction leads to "consenus," and the other to Sleiman (whom March 8 leaders say is not consensus since Aoun rejects him). On March 14's map, one direction leads to half-plus-one majority election, and the other to Sleiman. While we hate this particular crossroads (and dislike the bypasses to Michel Edde or vacuum even more),we do not believe that Michel Sleiman is a fully-owned subsidiary of Syria, Inc., in the style of Emile Lahoud. His actions have been mixed over the past three years -- some good, some bad. Yet his commitment to the March 14 core principles that we have been pushing for more than three years is untested at best. Certainly the BEIRUT 00001877 004.2 OF 004 headlines locally, regionally, and internationally would see a Sleiman presidency as a success for the pro-Syrians and a defeat for us and for March 14. Given the Lebanese proclivity to pass the responsibilities onto others, we should also brace ourselves for the inevitable guilt trips that we were not sufficiently supportive to get a March 14 president elected. "Once again, you let us down," will, we predict, be a common refrain of our March 14 friends; "you gave us no choice." While this is a simplistic interpretation, perceptions matter. ¶11. (S) If Sleiman (or someone similar) ends up in Baabda Palace, March 14's future as a viable, unified, determined political bloc able to achieve its goals will depend on defining a Sleiman presidency on its terms. That is the motivation behind tonight's March 14 leadership meeting: to define what it is that March 14 will request of Sleiman in return for backing him for the presidency. We are not particularly concerned with what March 14 requests, for we believe that we would concur with what will no doubt be on the table regarding UNSCRs, security positions in the new cabinet, etc. Of greater concern is how March 14 will be able to keep Sleiman at his word once he is elected. ¶12. (S) We are also concerned that March 14 find ways to get Sleiman to agree in advance on the basic cabinet composition. Michel Aoun and Hizballah have both hinted that the next cabinet should be assembled proportionally according to parliamentary representation -- meaning 55 percent of the portfolios with March 14 and 45 percent with March 8-Aoun. Had this been the case with the current cabinet, Siniora would have been forced to resign a year ago. Such a proportional split would mean a 24-member cabinet divided 13-11, giving Hizballah and Aoun sufficient clout to block everything (by threatening to topple the cabinet at will). The combination of an uncertain, fence-sitting president and an enormous share of the cabinet turned over to March 8-Aoun would be deadly for the March 14 agenda and have severe repercussions on March 14's 2009 legislative electoral prospects. ¶13. (S) If we can do one thing for March 14 in the case of a Sleiman presidency, we would recommend that we start to assemble international and regional backing now for a cabinet that is firmly in March 14 hands. In our view, the March 8-Aoun share in the cabinet should be less than one third: if it's one-third, March 8-Aoun forces can block major decisions. If it's more than one third, March 8-Aoun can threaten to collapse the cabinet at will. Neither of these scenarios would be worrisome if the president were Nassib Lahoud and firmly in the March 14 camp, for the president could work with PM to sign a decree forming a new, improved cabinet. But if the untested Sleiman is president, one would not want to give Hizballah and Aoun the ability to topple the cabinet at will, when the president's signatory power on forming a new cabinet cannot be overridden or ignored. Unfortunately, we can already hear our diplomatic colleagues, happy with the idea of a "consensus" president, accepting the concept that a "national unity" cabinet with a large share to Hizballah, Berri and Aoun is a reasonable enough approach for difficult Lebanon. March 8-Aoun forces are showing that scare tactics work. FELTMAN