Toufic Sultan: Kamal Jumblatt Was not Impressed by Assad or his Likes

A meeting between Assad and Jumblatt, attended by Toufic Sultan (left) and Abdullah al-Ahmar (Toufic Sultan File).
A meeting between Assad and Jumblatt, attended by Toufic Sultan (left) and Abdullah al-Ahmar (Toufic Sultan File).
TT

Toufic Sultan: Kamal Jumblatt Was not Impressed by Assad or his Likes

A meeting between Assad and Jumblatt, attended by Toufic Sultan (left) and Abdullah al-Ahmar (Toufic Sultan File).
A meeting between Assad and Jumblatt, attended by Toufic Sultan (left) and Abdullah al-Ahmar (Toufic Sultan File).

After the 1973 war, former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad realized that reclaiming the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights through military means was impossible. His frustration grew when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat took a different approach, negotiating to regain the Sinai Peninsula. As a leader from a minority sect, Assad feared a similar path would leave his successor inheriting an Israeli flag in Damascus. With limited options, he turned to Lebanon, a country he had never forgotten was once part of Greater Syria.

Lebanon became Assad’s strategic battleground, defensive shield, and political bargaining chip. His regime never tolerated any attempt to “steal Lebanon” from its grasp, whether the perceived threat came from Kamal Jumblatt, Bachir Gemayel, René Moawad, or Rafik Hariri. Jumblatt’s defiance was particularly intolerable—he was a close ally of Yasser Arafat and resisted Assad’s efforts to dominate Palestinian decision-making.

Toufic Sultan, a key political figure and close associate of Kamal Jumblatt, witnessed these events firsthand. As Jumblatt’s deputy in both the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and the Lebanese National Movement (a coalition supporting Palestinian and leftist causes), Sultan recalls:

“I attended multiple meetings between President Assad, Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam, and Kamal Jumblatt. Jumblatt, always polite yet direct, spoke candidly. In 1976, he established a structured relationship with Assad, who insisted that meetings occur regularly. He frequently told Hikmat Shihabi (Syrian Army Chief of Staff) that these discussions should be ongoing—and they were.”

Jumblatt Refused to Praise Assad

During one visit to Damascus, Jumblatt met with Baath Party leaders, including Abdullah al-Ahmar and Palestinian official Zuheir Mohsen. The meeting, like many in Syria, was likely monitored. At one point, a Syrian Baathist asked Jumblatt why he wouldn’t align with them. Jumblatt dismissed the idea, saying, “Because I don’t form alliances with parties that take orders from external powers.”

Later that day, at a lunch hosted by Assad at the Rawda Palace, a joint statement was released. Sultan recalls:

“I saw Jumblatt take out a pen and start crossing out lines. He had completely removed a passage praising Assad’s so-called ‘Corrective Movement.’ He turned to me and said, ‘We never said this. Why should we?’ He did this in front of Assad, who then instructed his aides to remove the phrase.

On the way back to Beirut, Jumblatt had the car radio tuned in to check if Syrian media had inserted any false statements. I asked him, ‘Would it have hurt to flatter Assad with a couple of words, given our daily dealings with him?’ He firmly replied, ‘I don’t flatter anyone.’

That was the moment I realized I could no longer sustain this relationship. He had erased just two words of praise, but that was enough to collapse everything.”

Jumblatt’s Final Meeting with Assad

Tensions escalated as Jumblatt refused to accept Syrian military intervention in Lebanon. Sultan recalls:

“Hikmat Shihabi called me, urging me to bring Jumblatt to Damascus, even if just to talk about philosophy or agriculture—anything to maintain dialogue. But Jumblatt was firm: it was either full agreement or total opposition. He personally oversaw the placement of mines in Bhamdoun to resist Syrian troops. Even President Anwar Sadat advised him to step back, but he refused.”

Jumblatt repeatedly warned Assad:

“If you enter Lebanon militarily, you’ll give Israel an excuse to intervene. Our conflicts with other Lebanese factions can be settled—win, lose, or compromise—but with Israel, there is no such option.”

Assad ignored the warning. Eleven years later, during a meeting with Lebanese warlord-turned-politician Elie Hobeika, Assad lamented, “Pierre Gemayel lied to me.” A Lebanese minister pointed at Hobeika and said, “He’s Gemayel’s disciple.” Hobeika quickly responded, “I had nothing to do with it.”

The Assassination of Kamal Jumblatt

Sultan did not accompany Jumblatt to his last meeting with Assad, despite his insistence. Yasser Arafat urged Jumblatt to go, but Sultan knew there was no hope of reconciliation. When Jumblatt was delayed in returning, Sultan called Hikmat Shihabi, who responded, “How can it be? The atmosphere was terrible.”

The next morning, newspapers carried optimistic headlines about the meeting. When Sultan visited Jumblatt, he dismissed them: “None of it is true. We couldn’t reach an understanding.”

On March 16, 1977, Kamal Jumblatt was assassinated.

The Druze community was shaken. The Progressive Socialist Party and the Lebanese National Movement were thrown into uncertainty. Jumblatt had been not just a Druze leader but also a national and leftist figure.

Forty days later, his son Walid Jumblatt visited Hafez Assad, accompanied by some of his father’s closest aides, including Toufic Sultan. Years later, Walid would recall his mother’s advice:

“A Chinese proverb says, ‘Sit by the riverbank and wait for your enemy’s corpse to float by.’”

Decades later, news came of Bashar al-Assad’s flight from Syria and the arrest of General Ibrahim Huweija, accused of orchestrating Kamal Jumblatt’s assassination.

The Story of the Two Assads and Hariri

Hafez al-Assad controlled Lebanon through local proxies, ensuring no political leader could challenge Syrian influence. When Rafik Hariri became prime minister in 1992, Assad initially viewed him as just another politician. However, Hariri was different—he had vast financial resources and international connections that no Lebanese leader before him possessed.

When Hafez al-Assad died, his son Bashar inherited not only power but also the same anxiety about Hariri. He feared Hariri was gradually pulling Lebanon out of Syria’s orbit with international support. On February 14, 2005, Rafik Hariri was assassinated. Though suspicion immediately fell on the Syrian regime, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon later convicted members of Hezbollah in absentia.

Sultan recalls Hariri’s initial dealings with Hafez al-Assad:

“Hariri built a relationship with Assad, who invited him to Damascus. Hariri and his wife, Nazik, arrived from Paris with gifts. Assad hosted them for dinner and even prepared a place for them to stay overnight. However, Hariri surprised him by saying, ‘I will return tonight.’ Assad asked, ‘How?’ Hariri replied, ‘My plane is like a house; it has a bedroom.’”

Hariri had allies within the Syrian regime, including Abdel Halim Khaddam and Hikmat Shihabi. However, Bashar Assad’s inner circle—especially his sister Bushra—strongly opposed him.

“There was an anti-Hariri faction in Syria that had a significant influence on Lebanese politics. But Hariri always found ways to overcome obstacles. Even Rustum Ghazaleh, Syria’s intelligence chief in Lebanon, received financial incentives.”

Warnings of Assassination

Sultan recalls that Hariri was warned multiple times about threats to his life.

“On the Friday before his assassination, a prominent Lebanese figure told me, ‘Hariri and Walid Jumblatt are on a kill list.’ When I relayed this to Hariri, he dismissed it, saying he had guarantees. But as events proved, those guarantees were meaningless.”

Sultan also describes a tense encounter between Hariri and Bashar Assad:

“You, Walid [Jumblatt], and your man Chirac want to bring in a president? I will crush the country over your heads!”

Hariri believed that US assurances would protect him. His assassination proved otherwise.

Bashar Assad: “Weak and Lacking Judgment”

Sultan criticizes Bashar Assad’s leadership:

“It is well known that Bashar is politically weak. Had he been more strategic, he would have realized that UN Resolution 1559 was serious. Instead, he acted recklessly. Syria feared Hariri because he could unite Lebanon’s most powerful factions. They thought eliminating him would solve the problem within 48 hours. Instead, they ignited a crisis that changed Lebanon forever.”

Sultan expressed his regret that the Lebanese had squandered many opportunities, often choosing to concede to external forces rather than compromise with their fellow countrymen. He stated that had an understanding been reached between Kamal Jumblatt and Bashir Gemayel, the Lebanese could have spared themselves much suffering. They missed opportunities at other critical junctures as well.

Sultan voiced his hope that the state-building project would see a serious revival with the election of General Joseph Aoun as President and the formation of a government led by Nawaf Salam.

He speaks with the wisdom of those who have witnessed the weaknesses and sensitivities of Lebanon’s political structure. His words carry a sense of nostalgia for the days when Beirut was a key meeting point for Lebanese, Arabs, and the international community. As he approaches his nineties, Sultan still holds on to some hope that the Lebanese have learned from their experiences and will work together to build a state governed by the rule of law, where dialogue is driven by reason rather than power struggles.



What to Know about the Tensions between Iran and the US before Their Third Round of Talks

The flags of US and Iran are displayed in Muscat, Oman, 25 April 2025. Iran and US will hold third round of nuclear talks on 26 April 2025, in Muscat. (EPA)
The flags of US and Iran are displayed in Muscat, Oman, 25 April 2025. Iran and US will hold third round of nuclear talks on 26 April 2025, in Muscat. (EPA)
TT

What to Know about the Tensions between Iran and the US before Their Third Round of Talks

The flags of US and Iran are displayed in Muscat, Oman, 25 April 2025. Iran and US will hold third round of nuclear talks on 26 April 2025, in Muscat. (EPA)
The flags of US and Iran are displayed in Muscat, Oman, 25 April 2025. Iran and US will hold third round of nuclear talks on 26 April 2025, in Muscat. (EPA)

Iran and the United States will hold talks Saturday in Oman, their third round of negotiations over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program.

The talks follow a first round held in Muscat, Oman, where the two sides spoke face to face. They then met again in Rome last weekend before this scheduled meeting again in Muscat.

Trump has imposed new sanctions on Iran as part of his “maximum pressure” campaign targeting the country. He has repeatedly suggested military action against Iran remained a possibility, while emphasizing he still believed a new deal could be reached by writing a letter to Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to jumpstart these talks.

Khamenei has warned Iran would respond to any attack with an attack of its own.

Here’s what to know about the letter, Iran’s nuclear program and the tensions that have stalked relations between Tehran and Washington since the 1979 revolution.

Why did Trump write the letter? Trump dispatched the letter to Khamenei on March 5, then gave a television interview the next day in which he acknowledged sending it. He said: “I’ve written them a letter saying, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing.’”

Since returning to the White House, the president has been pushing for talks while ratcheting up sanctions and suggesting a military strike by Israel or the US could target Iranian nuclear sites.

A previous letter from Trump during his first term drew an angry retort from the supreme leader.

But Trump’s letters to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his first term led to face-to-face meetings, though no deals to limit Pyongyang’s atomic bombs and a missile program capable of reaching the continental US.

How did the first round go? Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, hosted the first round of talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. The two men met face to face after indirect talks and immediately agreed to this second round in Rome.

Witkoff later made a television appearance in which he suggested 3.67% enrichment for Iran could be something the countries could agree on. But that’s exactly the terms set by the 2015 nuclear deal struck under US President Barack Obama, from which Trump unilaterally withdrew America.

Witkoff hours later issued a statement underlining something: “A deal with Iran will only be completed if it is a Trump deal.” Araghchi and Iranian officials have latched onto Witkoff’s comments in recent days as a sign that America was sending it mixed signals about the negotiations.

Yet the Rome talks ended up with the two sides agreeing to starting expert-level talks this Saturday. Analysts described that as a positive sign, though much likely remains to be agreed before reaching a tentative deal.

Why does Iran’s nuclear program worry the West? Iran has insisted for decades that its nuclear program is peaceful. However, its officials increasingly threaten to pursue a nuclear weapon. Iran now enriches uranium to near weapons-grade levels of 60%, the only country in the world without a nuclear weapons program to do so.

Under the original 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium up to 3.67% purity and to maintain a uranium stockpile of 300 kilograms (661 pounds). The last report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s program put its stockpile at 8,294.4 kilograms (18,286 pounds) as it enriches a fraction of it to 60% purity.

US intelligence agencies assess that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program, but has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”

Ali Larijani, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, has warned in a televised interview that his country has the capability to build nuclear weapons, but it is not pursuing it and has no problem with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspections. However, he said if the US or Israel were to attack Iran over the issue, the country would have no choice but to move toward nuclear weapon development.

“If you make a mistake regarding Iran’s nuclear issue, you will force Iran to take that path, because it must defend itself,” he said.

Why are relations so bad between Iran and the US? Iran was once one of the US’s top allies in the Middle East under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who purchased American military weapons and allowed CIA technicians to run secret listening posts monitoring the neighboring Soviet Union. The CIA had fomented a 1953 coup that cemented the shah’s rule.

But in January 1979, the shah, fatally ill with cancer, fled Iran as mass demonstrations swelled against his rule. The revolution followed, led by Khomeini, and created Iran’s theocratic government.

Later that year, university students overran the US Embassy in Tehran, seeking the shah’s extradition and sparking the 444-day hostage crisis that saw diplomatic relations between Iran and the US severed. The Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s saw the US back Saddam Hussein. The “Tanker War” during that conflict saw the US launch a one-day assault that crippled Iran at sea, while the US later shot down an Iranian commercial airliner that the American military said it mistook for a warplane.

Iran and the US have see-sawed between enmity and grudging diplomacy in the years since, with relations peaking when Tehran made the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. But Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, sparking tensions in the Middle East that persist today.