By Valérie LEROUX, Katy Lee (AFP)  – From global warming to Iran’s nuclear deal, France’s Emmanuel Macron has already intervened in a series of diplomatic quagmires — and now finds himself pursuing an active role in Lebanon’s crisis. He and his ministers have held a flurry of talks with players shaping the turmoil, with Macron […]

This article represents opinion of the author Samia Nakhoul, Laila Bassam, Tom Perry – Reuters – BEIRUT (Reuters) – From the moment Saad al-Hariri’s plane touched down in Saudi Arabia on Friday Nov. 3, he was in for a surprise. There was no line-up of Saudi princes or ministry officials, as would typically greet a […]

Saad Hariri has pledged he will return to Lebanon from Saudi Arabia “very soon,” in his first television interview since his shock resignation as prime minister eight days ago.In an interview from Riyadh with his party’s Future TV on Sunday, Hariri brushed aside rumours that he was under de facto house arrest in Saudi Arabia. […]

by AFP – Saad Hariri has pledged he will return to Lebanon from Saudi Arabia “very soon,” in his first television interview since his shock resignation as prime minister eight days ago.In an interview from Riyadh with his party’s Future TV on Sunday, Hariri brushed aside rumours that he was under de facto house arrest […]

by Simon Henderson, Foreign Policy  Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman appears to be shredding our understanding about how Saudi Arabia is ruled. Seeking to consolidate his power, he threw caution and consensus-building — the traditional techniques of Saudi leadership — out the window months ago, proceeding instead with almost reckless speed and an apparent disregard […]

by Ellen Francis  BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon’s president called on Saudi Arabia on Saturday to clarify why Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri could not return home, a week after he stunned his country by resigning while in the kingdom. A senior Lebanese official said President Michel Aoun had told foreign ambassadors Hariri had been “kidnapped” […]

  By Tamara Qiblawi, Angela Dewan and Schams Elwazer, CNN – Beirut (CNN)Lebanon’s government believes Saudi Arabia is restricting the movement and communications of its Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a high-level ministerial source told CNN on Friday. The source said Hariri “isn’t expressing himself freely” with the Lebanese government and that his own political bloc […]

by economist.com – Article represents only the opinion of the author   The way the prince is going about enacting change is worrying. One reason is that his ambition too often turns to rashness. He led an Arab coalition into an unwinnable war in Yemen against the Houthis, a Shia militia, creating a humanitarian disaster. He […]

By ZEINA KARAM and BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — Saudi Arabia on Thursday ordered its citizens out of Lebanon in its first concrete action against the Mediterranean country, while officials in Beirut demanded the immediate return of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who abruptly announced his resignation last week in a television appearance from the kingdom, where he has been holed up since. The developments were the latest twist in the saga of Hariri, whose fate increasingly resembled a bizarre mystery-thriller that has gripped his nation and sent tensions soaring with Saudi Arabia. With the Lebanese government in limbo, officials in Beirut said they haven’t heard from Hariri since he departed for Saudi Arabia last week. Hariri’s own Future Movement party called Thursday for his immediate return home for the “dignity of the nation. Beyond a phone call on Saturday informing President Michael Aoun of his resignation, Hariri has not made contact with Lebanese officials. Aoun has said he would not accept the resignation until Hariri returns to the country and explains the circumstances of his decision to step down. Late Wednesday night, Hariri’s private plane took off from Riyadh and flew back to Beirut — and Lebanese breathlessly awaited his arrival, only to discover he wasn’t on board.

“How can they hold a prime minister?” asked a Hariri supporter in Beirut who gave only his first name, Abed, saying he feared retaliation for his comments. He said he was at a loss to know what to think, adding that if it turns out that the Saudis were indeed holding Hariri under house arrest “then they have humiliated the whole country by doing this.” On Thursday, Hariri’s Future Movement party delivered its sharpest rebuke yet over Hariri’s absence, demanding that he be returned home immediately — the clearest sign so far that it believes he is being held by the Saudis against his will. “The return of the Lebanese prime minister, the national leader, Saad Hariri, and the head of the Future Movement, is necessary to restore dignity and respect to Lebanon at home and abroad,” former premier Fouad Saniora said in the statement read on TV. The Riyadh government, meanwhile, after days of leveling threats against Beirut, ordered all Saudis living in or visiting Lebanon to depart “immediately,” and warned against travel to the country. Saudi Arabia sees Hezbollah as a proxy of Iran amid a spiraling rivalry between the two regional Sunni and Shiite heavyweights. Saudi Minister for Gulf Affairs Thamer al-Sabhan warned earlier this month that his government would deal with Lebanon as a hostile state as long as the militant group Hezbollah was in the Lebanese government. The Lebanese unity government that Hariri formed a year ago includes Hezbollah members — the result of an implicit Saudi-Iranian understanding to sideline Lebanon from the other proxy wars in the region. That understanding came to an abrupt end with Hariri’s resignation, throwing the country back into the forefront of the Sunni-Shiite regional conflicts.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who is currently visiting the United Arab Emirates, declined to discuss Hariri’s resignation, saying only that he hopes Lebanon will have a new government soon. He was set to travel to Saudi Arabia later Thursday to discuss the situation in Lebanon and other issues. “We’ve had some contact but there’s no reason to say anything officially regarding this,” Macron said when asked if he had contact with Hariri. “So far, all I can say is we did not receive any requests” from Hariri for asylum, the French leader said.

This article does not represent khazen.org opinion.

by Danielle Pletka – This article first appeared on the American Enterprise Institute site. – By now, the news out of Saudi Arabia has had time to sink in. To review the bidding for those whose eyes are not often drawn to dateline Riyadh: Over the weekend, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) launched a new anti-corruption commission, arrested 11 (and probably more) senior government officials and super-rich Saudis, including Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (think Twitter, Citi, Uber), and axed the head of the Saudi Arabian National Guard, and others who may have represented a threat to the young would-be king’s “reform” campaign and bid for absolute power. To make sure private planes would not facilitate an escape, Riyadh’s private airport was shut down. In the same time frame, MBS summoned Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who arrived in Riyadh and promptly resigned his post as Prime Minister in Beirut. From Riyadh.

Oh, and there was a Yemeni rocket attack on Riyadh aimed for the international airport. And a Saudi helicopter carrying Prince Mansour bin Muqrin, son of a former crown prince and deputy governor of Asir province, crashed near the Yemeni border, killing all on board. A busy weekend indeed, and the Middle East and its watchers worldwide, always prone to wild gossip and conspiracy theories, gossiped wildly. Wait, I forgot to add: Jared Kushner was in Saudi Arabia last week and met with MBS. (Nudge nudge wink wink.) So what does it all mean? The honest answer from anyone but MBS should be, er, not sure. But we can speculate. Let’s dispense with the simple parts first.

• The helicopter crash was probably a coincidence and bad luck for those on board.

• The missile attack was also likely a coincidence of timing, though it should be seen as a sign that Iran, which arms the Houthi rebels now leading Yemen, is willing to expand the conflict and arm its proxies with increasingly potent weapons.

Why did Hariri resign?

• Let’s first answer the question, “Why was Hariri prime minister in the first place?” Lebanon went for two years without a government as Hezbollah refused to allow anyone not under their thumb to form a government.

Finally, Sunni political parties acquiesced in the appointment of the perennially-for-rent Michel Aoun for the reserved-for-Christians role of Lebanese president. And suddenly, Saad Hariri, son of the late Rafiq, also PM and assassinated by Syria for working with Hezbollah, was up for PM. Why? Sifting fact and fiction, the most plausible answer is that Hariri-fils was running out of cash. His company employees hadn’t been paid in almost a year. His own personal employees same. Saudi Arabia, which had bankrolled him once, was out of the game, having officially given up on Lebanon as a loss leader. So Hariri made peace with Hezbollah (i.e., with Iran) and was made PM. Being PM is key to having one’s hands on lots of money, and perhaps, for Hariri, it was the only way to replenish his coffers. This, at least, is the prevailing theory.

• But Hezbollah has the whip hand in Lebanon (and now in Syria, thanks to a supine White House and Russian-Iranian determination). So Hariri ended up doing a lot of business with Hezbollah.

That he didn’t like it he made perfectly clear, but needs must. And Saudi, which early in 2016 seemed to simply think washing its hands of Lebanon was enough, appears to have changed its mind. On this one, I agree with MBS. Lebanon is the key to the legitimization of Hezbollah. If you’re going to take a pass, you are giving Iran carte blanche in the Levant.

• Back to Hariri: He was in Saudi last week, returned to Beirut, and promptly received a delegation from Iran including Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to the Supreme Leader. “Terrorists and extremist and Takfiri movements are backed by the US, the Zionists and some regional countries that do not want stability, security, independence and unity among regional countries,” Velayati helpfully explained.

MBS, not being a twit, read “some regional countries” as Saudi Arabia, and decided the time had come to end Hariri’s charade. A plane was sent to Beirut to pick up Hariri, who was told to resign, and did. Is this how it happened? Feels like it, but then again, I wasn’t in the room. And neither MBS nor Hariri have called me to explain.

• Now Lebanon has no prime minister, but at least the mask is off, and Hezbollah no longer owns a legitimate government for itself.

What is MBS up to? Three alternate theories and One Big Thing:

• He is cracking down on genuine corruption in Saudi Arabia. OK, but for a guy who did this, getting religion on massive corruption and louche overspending feels a little, I dunno, fake.

• He wants the money. MBS could rake in hundreds of millions by expropriating corrupt assets. The reforms MBS has in mind will be costly, and Saudi Arabia is not as rich as many believe. In addition, the message has been sent: Do business with ME and no one else. That means more money.

• He is preparing to take over the crown when his father abdicates (and by abdicate, I mean the end to the quasi-“Weekend at Bernie’s” setup now extant in Riyadh) and wants to lay the groundwork for massive reforms and Saudi modernization.

That MBS is a modernizer should not be disputed. But his efforts heretofore — ending subsidies, intervening in Yemen, getting into a major fight with his neighbor Qatar — don’t suggest he is either terribly determined or a brilliant executor. Still, MBS is very clearly focused on ensuring his pathway to the throne is unimpeded. And over the last two years, he has done one thing very effectively: remove rivals.  Think of this as the Xi Jinping anti-corruption model.

• The One Big Thing: Everything is about Iran and the coming battle. That means anyone who has other ideas about how Saudi Arabia should position itself in the region (e.g. former crown prince Mohammad bin Nayef), anyone who does not want Saudi Arabia to leap into the 21st century (clerics, conservatives, etc), and anyone who believes accommodations should be made with Iran is out the door.

The anti-corruption campaign, ensuing purges, forced Hariri resignation, et cetera all fit into that overarching narrative.

Finally, here’s the problem:

MBS is 32. He has a lot of ideas, and while many of them are good, many of them are less good. He is also naïve, young, and being encouraged — make no mistake here — by the Trump administration. Iran is a dangerous force in the region, and it is in our and our allies’ interests to see that force rolled back. But I’m not certain that placing Saudi Arabia at the tip of the spear is the right or the most likely to succeed strategy.  And failure will come at a very, very high price. Something to consider.