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Nicolas Nassif wrote in “Al-Akhbar”:
On the anniversary of his father’s assassination, Prime Minister Saad Hariri reiterated what he had said at the Baabda palace. After the phrase “golden opportunity” to get out of the impasse, yesterday he used the “push a button” with the same performance. Both seem tempting for the president of the republic to accept what he is not expected to accept.
When in the Baabda Palace, after his meeting with President Michel Aoun, he insisted on his conditions for the formation of a government, and his adherence to a government of specialists of 18 ministers, rejecting the +1 third of any of the parties, including the President of the Republic, Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri did not look like him. This persistence – and some considered him stubborn – does not know his behavior, it is he who is used to keeping the doors open, accepting the status quo, giving in and even bowing to the storm.
Since his speech last Friday, and his significance is that he will only accept what he is proposing, and others must obey this time, blocking any dialogue outside of what he wants and what he rejects. This is not the case that has been known since his first government in 2009, when he gave the opposition a third + 1, and in the governments of 2016 and 2019 when he recognized what the President of the Republic and the Free Patriotic Movement insisted on. . Regarding what is happening now, without an escalation tone and with a respectful speech to the President of the Republic as the partner not the opponent – and that was what his words printed yesterday in the middle house – Hariri showed his patience and lack of urgency, affirming. that he will not give up his task, whatever the weight of pressure and the time factor. Therefore, the words of Beit al-Wasat did not add much to the words of the Baabda Palace, except elaborating and deepening the details of his negotiation with Aoun under the roof he drew, which is that he is the one who forms the Government. This is the essence of their use in the Baabda Palace the phrase “golden opportunity”, and in the middle house the phrase “push a button”, as if the president of the republic should not let them pass and recognize them. The president-designate is now playing the usual game, reversing what he was used to: Instead of bowing, he asks the president of the republic in the third third of his term to double down.
When he said on Friday at the Baabda Palace that there is a “golden opportunity” that requires that it not be wasted, blaming the stakeholders, that is, the head of state, the responsibility, he whispered about what he had foreseen from the phrase day. After his return from Paris, after a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, surrounded by confusion and ambiguity from all sides, formal, media and political, as well as sentimental, if it is necessary to take into account the warmth of the long relationship between the Elysee and the Hariri family, who are pampered by their stairs and inside and with the owner of the house.
The phrase “golden opportunity” is not the daughter of the impromptu moment of the designated president after meeting with Aoun, but represents, according to what is happening within the walls of the middle house, the juice of his latest movement, beginning with the United Arab Emirates and ends in Paris. Certainly, except to visit Turkey, which is restricted to one man’s business.
As narrated from behind these walls, when he began this tour – and she had other personal interests as well – he sought an Arab and international position to support his efforts to form a new government, his intention to gain the support of the United Arab Emirates. and Egypt at first, in order to drive a wedge in its severed relationship with Saudi Arabia, and then France and its parallel role with Washington.
At the end of the tour, he concluded the following data:
1 – He obtained a promise from the United Arab Emirates and Egypt to support him as head of the Lebanese government, and provide aid to Lebanon in the next stage, provided that he achieves a government according to the specifications he established: a miniature of 18 specialized ministers , without supporters, especially those who represent, from near or far, Hezbollah and the National Al-Hurr Movement: The president of the republic who is considered not to have a strong Hezbollah ally does not have a quorum that allows him to disrupt the government or impose his resignation. The Emiratis and Egyptians did not mind a government of specialists that does not enrage the main parties and blocs, but their ministers do not emanate from it. He also asked them to normalize their broken relationship with Saudi Arabia. Hariri, even in light of the estrangement that has erupted with her in recent years, cannot enter the brigades without Riyadh’s approval. Any new Saudi shift towards him has been known to follow the formation of this government and not precede it. It is his clear signal, sent to the Emiratis and Egyptians, that he is waiting for the President-designate to address his relationship with the President of the Republic and Hezbollah in the next stage.
2- The president-designate took this promise to the French president at the dinner on February 10, informing him of his dependence on him and the support of the Emiratis and Egyptians for his plan. Macron’s comment was that he advised his guest to return to Beirut and meet with the President of the Republic, and to confirm his specifications for the new government in the sense that it expresses what the French initiative calls for, especially the appointment of specialists who are not related to parties. and blocks. He left an acceptable margin to be able to tell the president of the republic what he can and cannot do. The visitor acknowledged the advice and met with Aoun in the hours after he returned from Paris, insisting on the draft he had previously presented to him on December 23, and the president rejected it. He reaffirmed the participation of the president of six ministers, including the Armenian, which prevents him from obtaining the +1 third, in addition to limiting the number of ministers to 18. What Hariri told the president of the Republic that carries the approval of the proprietary initiative , the French president, on the specifications he presented alone. It was natural for Aoun to respond by rejecting the draft, which had originally been rejected since December 23.
3 – In the context of the promise that has become the intersection between the Emirates, Egypt and France, obtaining US support for the mission entrusted to Hariri under those conditions: a government in which “Hezbollah” does not exist and there is no quorum real for Aoun, added to the condition that the Americans insist on not affecting its formation, if it falls, it will affect the negotiations between the United States and Iran, and will not be one of its components. What the Americans intended is that the formation of such a government did not mean an Iranian concession that would be included in the negotiating letters between Washington and Tehran. What the Americans said is that their negotiations with the Iranians have a timetable that does not enter Lebanon in its early stages, does not require that it be an advanced clause in it, nor that it be imposed on them at the present time.
The “golden opportunity”, according to the president who appoints him, is not the same for the president of the republic, who approaches the formation of the government in a completely different way. Therefore, it was natural that the fifteenth meeting that would lead them again would fail, unless something broke their will, in a complementary break of what happened between December 23 and February 12.
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