Lebanon tango

The Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri, has said he is suspending the resignation that he announced two weeks ago from Saudi Arabia, easing a crisis that had deepened tensions around the Middle East.

[...]

The unusual nature of Hariri’s surprise resignation on 4 November prompted fears that he had been forced to leave office under the orders of his regional backers.

It came against a backdrop of a regional power tussle between Saudi Arabia and Iran and renewed Saudi condemnation of Hezbollah, Hariri’s partners in government.

[...]

Lebanon’s president, Michel Aoun, had argued that he would not accept Hariri’s resignation unless he presented it in person, saying that he was acting on the assumption that Hariri had been held in Riyadh against his will.

Hariri said he presented his resignation to Aoun at the presidential palace, but then responded to Aoun’s request to take more time for consultations, “hoping it will constitute a serious introduction for [national] dialogue”.

[...]

Top Lebanese officials accused Hariri’s patron, Saudi Arabia, of forcing his resignation and detaining him in the kingdom for days. The Lebanese rallied around Hariri, unanimously calling for his return from Saudi Arabia in what became an embarrassment to the kingdom.

Hariri’s announcement suggests that Saudi Arabia’s young crown prince realised he had overreached by firing Hariri, which constituted another failed move to try to counter Iran.

His resignation was followed by a steep escalation in Saudi statements against the Lebanese government, which includes Hezbollah.

  Guardian

This is the closest analysis I've seen of what's going on with Saudi Arabia to matching the interview Jeremy Scahill conducted with Rami Khouri, journalism professor at the American University of Beirut. The bottom line that I got out of it was that Saudi's bin Salman desperately needs a win (much like Trump) and hoped to cause a destabilization of Hezbollah by this latest move, and Khouri indicates that attempting to destabilize Hezbollah is a mistake, an endeavor bound to lose.

Not to mention: is bin Salman blind to the consequences for his own country of further destabilization of the Middle East?  Oh, wait.  We have our own "leader" who's blind to anything he might cause to happen that isn't directly related to his own personal gratification and petty grievances - someone who blunders about throwing wrenches and insults everywhere he goes.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

In coup news...

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s military said early Wednesday that it had taken custody of President Robert Mugabe, the world’s oldest head of state and one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders, in what increasingly appeared to be a military takeover in the southern African nation.

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The office of President Jacob Zuma of South Africa said in a statement that Mr. Zuma and Mr. Mugabe had spoken. Mr. Mugabe “indicated that he was confined to his home but said that he was fine,” the statement said.

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General Moyo — who was not widely known to the public but who was considered close to the commander of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces, Gen. Constantine Chiwenga — warned that “any provocation will be met with an appropriate response.”

  NYT

Lebanese President Michel Aoun has said that the country's prime minister, Saad al Hariri, is being detained in Saudi Arabia against his will - despite Mr Hariri's reassurances he will return home soon.

"Nothing justifies that Saad al Hariri has not returned to Lebanon in 12 days. We consider that he has been detained," President Aoun told reporters on Wednesday. The comments are his most direct criticism of Saudi Arabia in the crisis to date.

  UK Independent

With the tacit backing of his father, Saudi Arabia’s 32-year-old crown prince has established himself as the most powerful figure in the Arab world, rushing into confrontations on all sides at once.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the arrest of 11 princes in his royal family and nearly 200 members of the Saudi business elite, and has begun to take power from the kingdom’s conservative clerics. He has blockaded neighboring Qatar, accused Iran of acts of war and encouraged the resignation of Lebanon’s prime minister. And in Yemen, his armed forces are fighting an Iranian-aligned faction in an intractable war that created a humanitarian crisis.

The crown prince has moved so quickly that American officials and others worry that he is destabilizing the region.

  NYT

The region hasn't been stable in decades. What they worry about is whether he'll continue supporting the US as been Saudi custom, also for decades.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Saudi purge extends to Lebanon

When Saad Hariri’s jet touched down at Riyadh on the evening of 3 November, the first thing he saw was a group of Saudi policemen surrounding the plane. When they came aboard, they confiscated his mobile phone and those of his bodyguards. Thus was Lebanon’s prime minister silenced.

[...]

On Friday 3 November, he was in a cabinet meeting in Beirut. Then he received a call, asking him to see King Salman of Saudi Arabia. Hariri, who like his assassinated father Rafiq, holds Saudi as well as Lebanese citizenship, set off at once. You do not turn down a king, even if you saw him a few days’ earlier, as Hariri had. And especially when the kingdom owes Hariri’s “Oger” company as much as $9bn.

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Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman’s “Night of the Long Knives” did indeed begin at night, only hours after Hariri’s arrival in Riyadh. So what on earth is the crown prince up to?

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Mohamed bin Salman [...] is liquidating his enemies – the arrests, needless to say, are supposedly part of an “anti-corruption drive.”

Put bluntly, he is clawing down all his rivals and – so the Lebanese fear – trying to destroy the government in Beirut, force the Shia Hezbollah out of the cabinet and restart a civil war in Lebanon.

[...]

But more extraordinary matters were to come. Out of the blue and to the total shock of Lebanese ministers, Hariri, reading from a written text, announced on Saturday on the Arabia television channel – readers can guess which Gulf kingdom owns it – that he was resigning as prime minister of Lebanon.

[...]

He certainly did not anticipate what happened to him. Indeed, Hariri had scheduled meetings in Beirut on the following Monday – with the IMF, the World Bank and a series of discussions on water quality improvement; not exactly the action of a man who planned to resign his premiership. However, the words he read out – scripted for him – are entirely in line with the speeches of Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman and with the insane President of the United States who speaks of Iran with the same anger, as does the American Defence Secretary.

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There will be no complaints from Washington or London, whose desire to share in the divvying up of Saudi Aramco (another of the crown prince’s projects) will smother any thoughts of protest or warning.

  UK Independent

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.