Amr Moussa: Current Developments in Lebanon Tied to Rafik Hariri’s Assassination

Three years after former Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa published the first part of his biography, his second book entitled, “The Years of the Arab League”, will soon be released by Dar El-Shorouk.

The 574-page book consists of 19 chapters in which Moussa reveals the secrets of his 10-year tenure at the Arab League (2001-2011), which was marked with major events in the Arab world.

Starting Saturday, Asharq Al-Awsat will publish seven episodes of Moussa’s memoirs. The first part focuses on the political crisis in Lebanon, which began with the call by Hezbollah and its Maronite ally – the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) – for the resignation of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s government, leading to the Doha Agreement in 2008.

Moussa recounts: “On February 14, 2005, I was in my office at the Arab League preparing to travel to Aden to attend the first meeting of the Economic and Social Council of the Arab League outside its headquarters, which was to be inaugurated by Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. I was watching Al-Jazeera, which suddenly announced a huge explosion in Beirut, in which Prime Minister Rafik Hariri might have been targeted. I surfed satellite stations until I saw on Al-Arabiya channel the news of Rafik Hariri’s death along with 21 other people.

I asked my office director to arrange my travel to Lebanon immediately, and I called the Yemeni Foreign Minister, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, and told him that I would not be able to attend because of what happened, and that I would go to Lebanon.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh contacted me shortly after, stressing the need for me to come to Yemen; but I apologized, saying that the assassination of Rafik Hariri was an Arab calamity and a very dangerous development.

On the same day, I traveled to Beirut. At Hariri’s palace, I found his two sons Saadeddine and Bahaa. I offered them condolences, and the place was teeming with mourners. I was the first official to arrive from abroad and I stayed in the palace until late at night. The first Arab foreign minister to land in Beirut was Dr. Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, who also did not attend the Aden meeting!

The funeral took place on the second day. Given the deteriorating security situation in Beirut at this time, my dear friend, Speaker Nabih Berri, placed me under the protection of the Parliament’s security guards. It was clear that some leaders of the Sunni community, some Maronite parties and others were blaming Syria for the assassination.

Some of them pointed at Hezbollah, but basically, all accusations were directed at Damascus. I found that the best thing that the secretary-general of the Arab League could do was to travel to Syria and talk to President Bashar al-Assad.

On the third day, I requested to visit Syria. I went under a very tight protection by the Lebanese government until I reached the Syrian border, where the Syrian guards escorted me directly to the presidential palace. President Bashar received me and we had a very frank conversation.

I told him: Mr. President, I came from Lebanon where feelings are raging after what happened. The death of Rafik Hariri will not pass easily, and the Syrian presence [in Lebanon] has now become under deep scrutiny… Demands are growing for the withdrawal of the Syrian forces…

He told me: I am the first Syrian president to withdraw forces from Lebanon. There were more than 60,000 Syrian soldiers when I came to power. I reduced the number to 35,000, and I am ready to withdraw additional troops… I have no objection to removing all the forces. I asked him: Can I, Mr. President, announce that you have decided to withdraw the Syrian army from Lebanon? He said: Yes, you can announce that, because I told you that I will withdraw the army.

I went out and announced the news, saying that it will be carried out within a specific time frame. My meeting with the president was attended by Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Sharaa, with whom I had lunch. Whenever the withdrawal was raised, Sharaa changed the subject, as if he wanted to ignore the topic. He was not comfortable with the announcement by Syrian journalists that the president had decided to start the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon.

I left Syria by land to Beirut and returned by plane to Cairo. There, I turned on the radio in the car and heard the BBC: “Syrian officials have denied what the secretary-general of the League of Arab States had said about President Bashar al-Assad’s decision to withdraw his troops from Lebanon.”

I got angry, and immediately called Al-Sharaa. He asked me: What do you want us to do?

I told him to confirm my statement as secretary-general of the League after my encounter with the president, and avoid us getting into a war of statements because I will of course insist on what I mentioned following the meeting.

The Syrian side consented and the president started reducing the forces until their complete withdrawal.

Motives of the assassination
In my interpretation of the motives for Hariri’s assassination, I say: He was a leader capable of exercising power, as he was of a special prestige, whether among the Lebanese Sunnis or among the political, economic and societal circles in Lebanon in general. The presence of a man of Hariri’s stature at the top of the Sunni community cannot be ignored in the face of Hezbollah.

The removal of Hariri from the scene was based on long-term regional calculations, and an important part of what we see in Lebanon today is connected to it.

Between March and June 2006, the Lebanese National Dialogue Conference, with the participation of leaders and influential figures, reached consensus on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and diplomatic relations between Lebanon and Syria, the demarcation of the borders and the possession of weapons outside the Palestinian camps. A serious discussion took place over Hezbollah’s arms, but without being completed.

The national dialogue made us believe that things were heading towards a quiet Lebanese summer, especially on the southern borders with Israel. But on June 12, 2006, a force affiliated with Hezbollah attacked an Israeli military post on the border, resulting in the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others. Israel responded by launching an extensive attack.

The Arab views varied over the escalating steps that Hezbollah had taken against Israel. Egypt and Saudi Arabia considered this an adventure by the party. Here, I must say that managing Arab politics, especially when it comes to a crisis that has far-reaching roots, is always linked to global policies and contradictory interests of major countries, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict.

From this standpoint, the Arab League’s stance was formulated at that time without prejudice to the organization’s firm position regarding one of the origins of the problem, namely the Israeli occupation and its practices that can neither be accepted nor tolerated.

War of statements
Immediately after the outbreak of the aggression, Kuwait, in coordination with me, called for an urgent meeting of the Arab foreign ministers at the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo, which took place on July 15, 2006.

The second closed session of the meeting witnessed severe arguments between Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, and his Syrian counterpart Walid Al-Muallem.

Al-Muallem addressed the participants, saying: “I want to share with you some of my crazy dreams, I say crazy because they don’t match the current Arab or international situations... I dreamed that our meeting would begin with a minute of silence for the souls of the martyrs of Gaza and Lebanon, and that the secretary-general will call for our meeting in Gaza… In all frankness and sincerity... we will not adopt any word that comes out of here that is beneficial to Israel in its aggression against Lebanon, whether in the name of rationality or in the name of emotion…”

Prince Saud asked to respond to Al-Muallem, saying: “I did not know that the policy of brother Walid was driven by dreams… Why is it permitted to use the Lebanese borders to attack Israel and not to use the Golan? Did Israel attack because we issued a statement? Israel attacked because of what Hezbollah had done in the region. What kind of a dream is it when a person believes that rationality and logic were a fatal mistake? These are demonic dreams.”

I observed in silence what was happening, hoping to find an opportunity to interject. At the same time, it was difficult to change the convictions of a large group of Arab League members that Hezbollah’s actions were not motivated by resisting Israeli occupation, but rather part of a political game led by Iran and its regional role that opposes Arabs and their interests.

Arab foreign ministers meeting
During the last week of July 2006, I felt that we needed to block the American-French draft resolution in the Security Council, because it would be unjust to Lebanon.

Hence, I called for a meeting of the Arab foreign ministers at the Grand Serail in Beirut, to be held on August 7. Following speeches in solidarity with Lebanon, the meeting turned into a bitter and long debate between Al-Muallem, who insisted on saluting Hezbollah in the decision of the Arab League Council, and Siniora, who responded by saying: “Arab foreign ministers came here to support a unified Lebanese position.”

The Council reached a set of decisions, including the assignment of the UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Qatari Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar to present the Arab viewpoint on the situation in Lebanon.

The meetings in New York ended with the Security Council issuing Resolution 1701 on August 11, 2006. Through a legal reading of the resolution, I say that it is largely biased towards Israel, but it can be considered as better than the previous draft resolutions that were rejected by both Hezbollah and the Lebanese government. According to Hassan Nasrallah, this decision was the least harmful of all the other draft-resolutions.

Israel says it is determined to destroy Iran’s nuclear program because its archenemy's furtive efforts to build an atomic weapon are a threat to its existence.

What’s not-so-secret is that for decades Israel has been believed to be the Middle East’s only nation with nuclear weapons, even though its leaders have refused to confirm or deny their existence, The Associated Press said.

Israel's ambiguity has enabled it to bolster its deterrence against Iran and other enemies, experts say, without triggering a regional nuclear arms race or inviting preemptive attacks.

Israel is one of just five countries that aren’t party to a global nuclear nonproliferation treaty. That relieves it of international pressure to disarm, or even to allow inspectors to scrutinize its facilities.

Critics in Iran and elsewhere have accused Western countries of hypocrisy for keeping strict tabs on Iran's nuclear program — which its leaders insist is only for peaceful purposes — while effectively giving Israel's suspected arsenal a free pass.

On Sunday, the US military struck three nuclear sites in Iran, inserting itself into Israel’s effort to destroy Iran’s program.

Here's a closer look at Israel's nuclear program:

A history of nuclear ambiguity Israel opened its Negev Nuclear Research Center in the remote desert city of Dimona in 1958, under the country's first leader, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. He believed the tiny fledgling country surrounded by hostile neighbors needed nuclear deterrence as an extra measure of security. Some historians say they were meant to be used only in case of emergency, as a last resort.

After it opened, Israel kept the work at Dimona hidden for a decade, telling United States’ officials it was a textile factory, according to a 2022 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an academic journal.

Relying on plutonium produced at Dimona, Israel has had the ability to fire nuclear warheads since the early 1970s, according to that article, co-authored by Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists, and Matt Korda, a researcher at the same organization.

Israel's policy of ambiguity suffered a major setback in 1986, when Dimona’s activities were exposed by a former technician at the site, Mordechai Vanunu. He provided photographs and descriptions of the reactor to The Sunday Times of London.

Vanunu served 18 years in prison for treason, and is not allowed to meet with foreigners or leave the country.

ISRAEL POSSESSES DOZENS OF NUCLEAR WARHEADS, EXPERTS SAY

Experts estimate Israel has between 80 and 200 nuclear warheads, although they say the lower end of that range is more likely.

Israel also has stockpiled as much as 1,110 kilograms (2,425 pounds) of plutonium, potentially enough to make 277 nuclear weapons, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a global security organization. It has six submarines believed to be capable of launching nuclear cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles believed to be capable of launching a nuclear warhead up to 6,500 kilometers (4,000 miles), the organization says.

Germany has supplied all of the submarines to Israel, which are docked in the northern city of Haifa, according to the article by Kristensen and Korda.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST POSE RISKS

In the Middle East, where conflicts abound, governments are often unstable, and regional alliances are often shifting, nuclear proliferation is particularly dangerous, said Or Rabinowitz, a scholar at Jerusalem's Hebrew University and a visiting associate professor at Stanford University.

“When nuclear armed states are at war, the world always takes notice because we don’t like it when nuclear arsenals ... are available for decision makers,” she said.

Rabinowitz says Israel's military leaders could consider deploying a nuclear weapon if they found themselves facing an extreme threat, such as a weapon of mass destruction being used against them.

Three countries other than Israel have refused to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: India, Pakistan and South Sudan. North Korea has withdrawn. Iran has signed the treaty, but it was censured last week, shortly before Israel launched its operation, by the UN's nuclear watchdog — a day before Israel attacked — for violating its obligations.

Israel's policy of ambiguity has helped it evade greater scrutiny, said Susie Snyder at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a group that works to promote adherence to the UN treaty.

Its policy has also shined a light on the failure of Western countries to rein in nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, she said.

They “prefer not to be reminded of their own complicity,” she said.

Amr Moussa: Current Developments in Lebanon Tied to Rafik Hariri’s Assassination

Asharq Al-Awsat releases excerpts of the former Arab League secretary-general’s new biography.