Hariri’s resignation was destabilizing in part because the Lebanese political system requires different religious groups to share power: Lebanon’s prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim, the president must be a Maronite Christian, and the parliamentary speaker must be a Shia Muslim. Saudi Arabia, as the regional Sunni leader, usually backs the prime minister — as it seems to with Hariri. [...]
Had Hariri not returned, there would likely have been a political tug-of-war between Saudi Arabia and Iran to fill the power vacuum. And if Iran had to focus on a protracted political crisis in Lebanon, it would’ve had less time to focus on the wars in Yemen and Syria, Saab noted, which meant Iran might not have been able to fight Saudi Arabia’s proxies as aggressively. [...]
Despite the accusations, an actual Hezbollah-Saudi war was unlikely. “Casting Lebanon as a Hezbollah-dominated pariah state does make waging a war simpler, so I think it’s safe to say the chance of such a war has increased,” Faysal Itani, a Middle East expert at the Atlantic Council, told me. “But I don’t think it has increased dramatically, because no one seems willing to fight this war.” [...]
The growing tensions in the region helped explain why French President Emmanuel Macron traveled to Saudi Arabia on November 10 in an unscheduled two-hour visit to discuss the tensions between Beirut and Riyadh. France and Lebanon have a historically close relationship, as France was the ruling colonial power in Lebanon from the end of the Ottoman Empire until Lebanon’s independence in 1944. It’s unclear if Macron’s visit had any effect, though.
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