Hariri unexpectedly resigned during a trip to Saudi Arabia. In a televised statement, Hariri said he believed his life was in danger and condemned Iranian interference in the affairs of Lebanon and the greater Middle East. The resignation happened at almost the same time that Saudi Arabia was detaining dozens of princes and former officials in what appears to be a power play by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Given that Hariri’s statement sounded like the sort of thing the Saudis might draft, Iran’s allies in Lebanon were quick to accuse the kingdom of forcing him to resign. Anonymous U.S. officials told Reuters that Crown Prince Mohammed and other Saudi officials had “encouraged” Hariri to step down.
Since then, there have been increasing indications that Hariri himself has been detained. Lebanon’s president is demanding that he return home to explain the circumstances around his resignation. Lebanese officials say they believe he is being kept under a form of house arrest. The Saudis have denied that his movements are being restricted, but he himself has not, nor has he spoken to journalists or his political allies back in Lebanon. His private plane returned to Beirut on Wednesday—without him on it. [...]
It would be, to put it mildly, deeply unusual for one country to essentially detain the head of government of a foreign country. The most comparable possible recent analogue I can think of involves Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was flown out of Haiti by the U.S. military after resigning amid increasing unrest in 2004. Aristide claimed later that he had been forced to leave by the U.S., though the Bush administration denied it.
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