Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat stressed in a number of leaked U.S. Embassy cables from 2006 and 2009 published on 3/6/11, Lebanon's need for funds after the July 2006 war. A July 11, 2006, cable spoke of meeting between the MP and then U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffery Feltman during which he told him about his July 7 visit to Saudi Arabia which he said was aimed at convincing newly crowned Saudi King Abdullah to finance the March 14 camp.He told the monarch that the funding "was aimed at confronting the Shiite expansion in Lebanon and the region." "King Abdullah was not receptive to the suggestion " his predecessor was much more generous," noted Jumblat.
During a later cable, dated August 21, 2006, Jumblatt said that the Lebanese government should "act quickly to defeat Hizbullah's reconstruction efforts" after the July 2006 war. Jumblat calculated that the some 200 million dollars would be needed to rebuild the 15,000 residential units Israel destroyed during the war, saying: "This is a tiny figured compared to Hariri's capabilities!" "We currently don't need democracy, but money," the MP declared. A May 14, 2009, cable revealed that Jumblat and a number of March 14 officials "finally received Saudi funds." What happened to these funds remains a mystery.
A leaked U.S. Embassy cable published on 4/8/11 revealed that Defense Minister Elias Murr had initially rejected on 12/16/08 a Russian grant of 77 tanks and 50,000 of their ammunition, saying that the Lebanese had no need for them.
Murr changed his mind and told then U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michele Sison that he had no choice but to accept the offer because if he rejected it, he would have been labeled as a traitor who is following an American agenda. According to Sison's cable, Murr added that the Russian equipment could be used against Hezbollah, noting that it could also bolster the March 14 camp's chances of winning the 2009 parliamentary elections, according to the cable. "The MiG jets are the best way to combat and destroy Hezbollah", Murr stressed. The 12/18/08 cable revealed that Sison had opposed the MiG deal because they might be used against Israel were Israel to attack Lebanon. Murr later told Sisson Lebanon would not accept the MIGS before 2040. Sison reportedly quipped that Israel might not be around in 2040.
According to a WikiLeaks cable published on 4/8/11 then Prime minister Saad Hariri said during a meeting with U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Hale on 12/17/08 that the ownership of MiG jets by the army might complicate Israeli over flights but on the other hand the planes would further "weaken one of Hezbollah's excuses to hold onto its arms." Hariri told Hale: "Hezbollah is feeling threatened by the MiG deal and the party's al-Manar TV station dealt with it (the issue) negatively," he said, according to the cable. But then U.S. Ambassador Michele Sison contradicted Hariri in the cable that there was no negative reaction from the Shiite group on the MiG deal." Sison wrote: "A Hezbollah representative has stressed in an official statement his support to arm the Lebanese military to confront Israel." During his meeting with Hale, Hariri also stressed the importance of delivering MiG fighter jets to Lebanon to "fight terrorism in the Palestinian camps." Ambassador Sison reportedly found this idea of Hariri's a little bizarre.
A leaked U.S. Embassy cable published in Lebanon on 3/6/11 revealed that then Prime Minister Fouad Saniora had rejected a transfer of 500 and 300 million dollars to Lebanon aimed at rebuilding the country after the July 2006 war.The WikiLeaks cable spoke of a meeting between Saniora and then U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman on August 18, 2006, during which the former explained that he rejected the aid money from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait "because he didn't want the money to go to Speaker Nabih Berri's pocket given that the man is a thief." Regarding the war, the premier said that the Israeli attacks are only strengthening Hezbollah and not weakening it. Furthermore, he rejected accusations that the Lebanese government was ignoring United Nations Security Council resolution 1701, asking Feltman: "Doesn't your government understand that the deployment of the Lebanese army in the South is an historic achievement?"
A US Embassy cable published on 3/6/11 asserts than Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat voiced his concern over reports that the Mustaqbal (March 14th) movement was training 15,000 Sunni militias in Beirut and Tripoli. The MP stated that MP Saad Hariri's establishment of private security companies in Beirut and Tripoli is a sign that some individuals are providing him with bad advice, especially ISF chief Ashraf Rifi.
Q: Does this derail US-Israeli plans for Lebanon? Will there now be less foreign influence on Lebanese politics?
FL: Maybe slightly in the near term these revelations may curtail US-Israel plans a bit.
But we must remember that the US-Israel axis is committed to the destruction and eradication of the Lebanese Resistance and curtailing Iranian influence in the Levant and while perhaps a dozen of US-Israel projects, including igniting a Sunni-Shia civil war in Lebanon have failed to date, we are actually seeing an intensification of foreign influence in Lebanon. One imagines there are many more pressures beyond the banks, US aid and a possible santions regime following any Special Tribunal for Lebanon convctions which we could see in late 2011 or 2012.
Q: What's next for Lebanon?
FL: That is one tough question and I trust my motorbike mechanic or green grocers analysis more even though some of we foreigners here are daily asked this question by our Lebanese friends and neighbor as if we know something they don't.
However my 2 cents worth is that there will not be a civil war here. There will not be an Israeli invasion for at least the next year but more psych warfare in various forms that we have become used to here.
Domestically, I believe that Hezbollah will solidify its power in the new government and will have the opportunity to convince a majority of the Lebanese public that its domestic program can change their lives for the better. Hezbollah has the political power to enact broad domestic reforms that will affect nearly every Lebanese life for the better, regardless of Confession.
Hezbollah will face fierce opposition from some officials, even some allies, who may have been regularly pocketing a sizable chunk of Lebanon's GDP. Hezbollah has the political power to enact exactly the reforms being demanded around the region in the Arab Awakening we are all experiencing.
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