begin quote from:
BEIRUT,
Lebanon — When the Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri made a sudden
trip abroad last week, it was taken at first to be a routine visit with
his …
BEIRUT, Lebanon — When the Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri made a sudden trip abroad last week, it was taken at first to be a routine visit with his political patron, Saudi Arabia. But the next day, he unexpectedly announced his resignation by video from Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
He has yet to return to Lebanon.
On
Friday, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement, part of his governing
coalition at home, charged that the Saudis were holding him against his
will, while the Saudis have said they were protecting him from an
unspecified assassination plot.
The Hariri case has become just one in a profusion of bewildering events — from the Saudi Arabia’s arrest of princes and wealthy businessmen last weekend to ordering its citizens out of Lebanon
on Thursday — that are escalating tensions in the Middle East and
fueling anxiety about whether the region is on the verge of military
conflict.
The
American secretary of state Rex W. Tillerson warned Friday “against any
party, within or outside Lebanon, using Lebanon as a venue for proxy
conflicts or in any manner contributing to instability in that country,”
a message apparently aimed at Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Even
before the events of the past week, analysts and officials in the
region had been increasingly anxious about what they see as a volatile
combination: an impulsive, youthful Saudi leader
escalating threats to roll back growing Iranian influence, an equally
impulsive Trump administration signaling broad agreement with Saudi
policies, and increasingly pointed warnings from Israel that it may eventually fight another war with Hezbollah.
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Now
analysts and diplomats are scrambling to figure out what the latest
developments mean, whether they are connected and whether, as some
analysts fear, they are part of a buildup to a regional war.
Mr. Hariri, until he announced his resignation on Saturday, had shown no signs of planning to do so.
Hours later, on Saturday evening, a missile fired from Yemen came close to Riyadh before being shot down. Saudi Arabia later blamed Iran and Hezbollah for the missile, suggesting that they had aided the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen to fire it.
Before the world had a chance to absorb this news, the ambitious and aggressive Saudi Arabian crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the arrest of hundreds of Saudis
— including 11 princes, government ministers and some of the kingdom’s
most prominent businessmen — in what was either a crackdown on
corruption, as Saudi officials put it, or a purge, as outside analysts
have suggested.
It
then emerged that the week before, Jared Kushner, President Trump’s
son-in-law and adviser, who has been sent on missions both to Israel and
Saudi Arabia, had visited Riyadh on a previously undisclosed trip and
met until the early morning hours with the crown prince. The White House
has not announced what they discussed but officials privately said that
they were meeting about the administration’s efforts to forge an
Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
On
Monday, Saudi officials said they considered the missile from Yemen an
act of war by Iran and Lebanon, and on Thursday the kingdom rattled
Lebanon by ordering its citizens to evacuate.
No one expects Saudi Arabia, which is mired in a war in Yemen,
to start another war itself. But Israel, which fought a war with
Hezbollah in 2006, has expressed increasing concern about Hezbollah’s
growing arsenal on its northern border.
On
Friday, Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said that Saudi Arabia
had asked Israel to attack Lebanon, after essentially kidnapping Mr.
Hariri.
“I’m not talking here about analysis, but information,” he said. “The Saudis asked Israel to attack Lebanon.”
He
provided no evidence of his claim, but Western and regional analysts
have also said that, given all the confusing and unexpected events and
unpredictable players, they could not entirely rule out such a scenario.
Israeli
officials, however, have been publicly predicting another war with
Hezbollah while also vowing to do all they can to postpone it.
“There
are now those in the region who would like Israel to go to war with
Hezbollah and fight a Saudi war to the last Israeli,” said Ofer
Zalzberg, a Jerusalem-based analyst for International Crisis Group.
“There is no interest in that here.”
Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long considered Iran to be Israel’s
foremost enemy, a potential nuclear threat as well as a strategic
adversary seeking to convert postwar Syria into a staging ground for
attacks against Israel or into a corridor to transfer missiles and other
weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
So
Saudi Arabia’s stepped-up efforts to oppose Iranian influence in
Lebanon drew measured applause in Jerusalem. But many Israelis fear that
the aggressive actions by the Saudi crown prince could drag Israel into
a war that it does not want.
Daniel
Shapiro, a former United States ambassador to Israel, said that Israel
and Saudi Arabia were pursuing similar goals at sharply different speeds
and levels of proficiency.
“I’m
not sure they’re aligned tactically,” he said in an interview. Prince
Mohammed, he added, “seems very impatient to actually spark the
confrontation.”
There
are no signs of war preparations in Israel. The country is not
mobilizing troops on its northern border or calling up reservists, and
Mr. Netanyahu has given no indication that he sees a conflict as
imminent.
Moreover,
Israel’s war planners predict that the next war with Hezbollah may be
catastrophic, particularly if it lasts more than a few days. Hezbollah
now has more than 120,000 rockets and missiles, Israel estimates, enough
to overwhelm Israeli missile defenses.
Many
of them are long-range and accurate enough to bring down Tel Aviv
high-rises, sink offshore gas platforms, knock out Ben-Gurion Airport or
level landmark buildings across Israel.
Nor
is Hezbollah necessarily hankering for battle with Israel, according to
analysts who study the militant group closely. It is still fighting in
Syria, where it has been backing the government of President Bashar
al-Assad, and it is being drained by medical costs for wounded fighters
and survivor benefits for the families of those killed, said Giora
Eiland, a retired Israeli major general and former head of the country’s
National Security Council.
“Hezbollah
as an organization is in a very deep economic crisis today,” Mr. Eiland
said. “But at the same time, the weaker they are, the more dependent
they are on Iranian assistance — so they might have to comply with
Iran’s instructions.”
But
there have long been fears that now that the Syrian war — in which
Hezbollah played a decisive role, gaining new influence, power and
weapons — is almost over, Hezbollah’s enemies might seek to cut it down
to size.
Mr.
Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, implied Friday that its fight in Syria
was nearly finished. If Saudi Arabia’s goal was to force Hezbollah to
leave Syria, he said: “No problem. Our goal there has been achieved.
It’s almost over anyway.”
World leaders have sought to tamp down tensions.
President Emmanuel Macron of France left Saudi Arabia on Friday after a brief, last-minute meeting with the crown prince.
During
the unexpected two-hour visit on Thursday, Mr. Macron “reiterated the
importance France attaches to Lebanon’s stability, security, sovereignty
and integrity,” his office said. He also discussed “the situation in
Lebanon following the resignation of Prime Minister Hariri,” his office
said, but provided no further details.
A
group of countries and organizations interested in Lebanon’s stability
met Friday with the Lebanese president, Michel Aoun, and issued a
statement expressing “concern regarding the situation and prevailing
uncertainty in Lebanon” and calling for Lebanon to be “shielded from
tensions in the region.”
The
members of the group, the International Support Group for Lebanon —
including the United Nations, Britain, China, France, Germany, Italy,
Russia and the United States, as well as the European Union and the Arab
League — are not all on the same side of the issues at stake so the
statement seemed to reflect broad international concern.
At
a news conference in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, before the
meeting, Mr. Macron said he did not share Saudi Arabia’s “very harsh
opinions” of Iran.
Analysts
say a new war in the region is unlikely but some have warned that the
increased tensions could provoke an economic crisis or even start a war
accidentally. Miscalculations have started wars before, as in the 2006
war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Experts caution that Israel is often only a mistake or two from being drawn into combat.
“It’s
a dangerous situation now,” said Amos Harel, the military reporter for
Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper. “It only takes one provocation, another
reaction, and it can get all of a sudden completely out of control. And
when you add the Saudis, who evidently want to attack Iran and are
looking for action, it gets even more complicated.”
Correction: November 10, 2017
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated where President Emmanuel Macron of France met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. They met in Riyadh, not in Abu Dhabi.
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated where President Emmanuel Macron of France met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. They met in Riyadh, not in Abu Dhabi.
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