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O 011022Z MAY 06
FM AMEMBASSY BEIRUT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3281
INFO RUEHEE/ARAB LEAGUE COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHMFISS/CDR USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIRUT 001338 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC FOR ABRAMS/DORAN/SINGH/WERNER 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/01/2026 
TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM LE SY
SUBJECT: MGLE01:  NATIONAL DIALOGUE DISCUSSES PRESIDENCY, 
LEAVES ISSUE OPEN 
 
 
Classified By: Jeffrey Feltman, Ambassador, per 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
¶1.  (C)  According to six participants in the 4/28 session of 
the National Dialogue, the issue of Lebanon's presidency was 
discussed at length but not resolved.  Rather than defer or 
close the topic in order to proceed to the next and final 
point -- Hizballah's arms -- on the Dialogue's agenda, the 
participants agreed to consider the presidency again on May 
16, the next session.  Amin Gemayel, Marwan Hamadeh, Walid 
Jumblatt, and Mohammed Safadi all expressed astonishment that 
March 14 leaders Saad Hariri and Samir Ja'ja' almost walked 
straight into a trap set for them by Michel Aoun and the 
pro-Syrians:  Nabih Berri proposed that a delegation from the 
National Dialogue approach President Emile Lahoud, insist 
that he resign, and then offer him the choice among eight 
potential successors.  While Hariri and Ja'ja' initially 
embraced the idea, Jumblatt, Safadi, and Gemayel derailed the 
idea.  They subsequently noted that Lahoud would certainly 
pick Aoun from the list, making Lahoud a hero on the 
Christian street.  If the March 14-dominated parliament 
refused to vote in Aoun, then the entire March 14 movement 
would be discredited.  If they voted in Aoun, then he would 
work to undermine them.  When Berri proposed that Maronite 
Patriarch Sfeir bless the list of candidates or even be given 
the choice of who succeeds Lahoud, Michel Aoun objected that 
the Patriach should be left out of the discussion.  End 
summary. 
 
4/28 NATIONAL DIALOGUE 
FOCUSES ON PRESIDENCY 
---------------------- 
 
¶2.  (C)  On Saturday, 4/29, the Ambassador met separately 
with former President Amin Gemayel, Minister of 
Telecommunications Marwan Hamadeh (allied with Druse leader 
Walid Jumblatt), and presidential aspirant Michel Aoun to 
discuss the previous evening's session of the National 
Dialogue.  (See septel for Aoun's comments on topics not 
related to the National Dialogue.)  The Ambassador also spoke 
by phone with Saad Hariri, Walid Jumblatt, and Mohammed 
Safadi.  All six participants said that the four-house 
session was dominated almost exclusively by a discussion of 
the presidency.  While there was some talk about Hizballah 
Secretary General Nasrallah's apparent second thoughts about 
 
SIPDIS 
border delineation in the Sheba'a Farms area (a decision from 
a previous Dialogue session), Berri papered over differences 
on that topic. 
 
BUT WITH NO DISCUSSION, 
TOPIC WILL COME UP AGAIN 5/16 
----------------------------- 
 
¶3.  (C)  While the presidency issue was not resolved in the 
Dialogue, nor was it closed:  Dialogue participants will 
discuss the presidency in the next session, scheduled for May 
¶16.  Hamadeh commented that, contrary to Nabih Berris' public 
statements that the Dialogue should move onto Hizballah's 
arms even if a stalemate on the presidency pervailed, the 
Speaker seemed to relish keeping Emile Lahoud somewhat off 
balance by keeping the topic opened.  The Ambassador noted 
that Berri might also be pandering to his Hizballah partners, 
in maintaining a focus on the presidency in order not to open 
up the questions of Hizballah's arms. 
 
DIALOGUE FOCUSES ON EIGHT NAMES 
------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (C)  According to the participants, after some 
preliminary comments, Nabih Berri started discussing names of 
presidential candidates, listing Aoun, MP Boutros Harb (also 
a Dialogue participant), and Nassib Lahoud as those in the 
lead.  Safadi objected to the omission of his northern 
Lebanon ally, Minister of Social Affairs Nayla Mouawad. 
Others added more names, to the point where eight names were 
circulating in the Dialogue:  Aoun, Harb, Lahoud, Mouawad, MP 
Robert Ghanem, self-declared candidate Chibli Mallatt, former 
Foreign Minister Jean Obeid, and Maronite League chief/happy 
gourmand Michel Edde.  When the names of LAF Commander Michel 
Suleiman and Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh also emerged, 
Berri rejected them and cut off the discussion of the names. 
Some of our contacts argued that Berri had eliminated 
Suleiman and Salameh on constitutional grounds, as both would 
be precluded from serving as president without a 
constitutional amendment.  But others, like Hamadeh, 
 
BEIRUT 00001338  002 OF 003 
 
 
described Berri as thinking it ludicrous to keep adding 
increasingly unrealistic names to the list. 
 
AOUN REJECTS PROPOSAL 
TO ASK PATRIARCH SFEIR 
---------------------- 
 
¶5.  (C)  Berri then proposed that the Dialogue take the eight 
names to Maronite Patriarch Sfeir for blessing, and to see 
whether Sfeir might shortcircuit the Dialogue's work and 
select a candidate.  After all, Berri noted, he would stand 
behind the Patriarch's choice.  Aoun "practically leaped up 
from his chair," Jumblatt laughed, "howling, 'No! No! No!'" 
Aoun told the Ambassador that the Patriarch had been very 
clear that it is inappropriate for him to choose a name, and 
thus Berri's proposal was "unacceptable."  Gemayel and Safadi 
assumed that Aoun's immediate rejection stemmed from Aoun's 
knowledge that the Patriarch would never select him.  (We 
believe that Sfeir would have refused to select a name in any 
case, given Sfeir's knowledge that he would unite all other 
would-be presidents against him.) 
 
ASKING LAHOUD TO RESIGN -- 
AND CHOOSE HIS SUCCESSOR 
-------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (C)  Since the Patriarch can't choose, Berri suggested 
that, therefore, the National Dialogue should select a small 
committee to meet President Emile Lahoud.  Representing all 
of the Dialogue participants, the committee would tell Lahoud 
he must resign.  But to induce him to do so, the committee 
would also give Lahoud the list of eight presidential 
candidates, asking Lahoud to choose one to be his successor. 
Reportedly, there was good-natured joking among all the 
participants about who would be tasked with telling Lahoud to 
resign, with the elderly Ghassan Tueni and Michel Murr 
volunteering.  Aoun joked that neither would come back from 
Baabda Palace alive.  The Dialogue participants also laughed 
that it would be called the "'Fel' committee," after the 
Lebanese Arabic slang for "to go," used by those wishing to 
kick Lahoud out.  To that, Hizballah Secretary General 
Nasrallah added that it could be the "'Feltman' committee" 
instead, noting the USG desire to see Lahoud. 
 
¶7.  (C)  Returning to the business at hand, Berri pitched his 
idea.  Aoun, Nasrallah, and Murr immediately agreed.  Then 
Hariri and Ja'ja' said that they were in favor of it. 
"Blinded by his ambition," in Gemayel's words, even Boutros 
Harb concurred, despite any sober analysis indicating that 
Lahoud would never select Harb.  Then Jumblatt, Safadi, and 
Gemayel went on the counterattack.  How, they asked, could 
March 14 participants, who consider Lahoud to be occupying 
the presidency unconstitutionally, agree to give Lahoud the 
choice of his successor?  The three of them convinced the 
March 14 participants, including Ja'ja, Harb, and Hariri, to 
back the idea that the committee would go to Baabda to demand 
Lahoud's resignation only, leaving the parliament to discuss 
the succession.  Aoun, Nasrallah, and Berri rejected this 
approach, leading to the suspension of the talks until May 16. 
 
ASTONISHMENT THAT MARCH 14 WAS 
ON VERGE OF FALLING INTO A TRAP 
------------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (C)  Jumblatt, Safadi, Hamadeh, and Gemayel all expressed 
astonishment and consternation that their March 14 
colleagues, expecially Hariri and Ja'ja', would be so naive 
as to walk into a trap that Nabih Berri had cleverly set for 
them.  After all, they explained, given that list of eight, 
Emile Lahoud would choose Aoun.  In doing so, Lahoud's luster 
on the Christian street would be restored immediately.  He 
would become a hero to Aoun's supporters.  Then, the March 
14-dominated parliament would be handed a cruel choice:  do 
they follow the terms of the deal and elect Aoun, knowing 
that Aoun wants to destroy them through early parliamentary 
elections and other actions?  Or do they back out of the 
deal, and thus be accused of treachery by placing someone 
else in the presidency rather than Aoun?  Jumblatt argued 
that Berri doesn't want Aoun as president but came up with 
the perfect scenario by which Aoun wouldn't be president but 
March 14 would be nevertheless destroyed, clearing the way 
for a pro-Syrian figure like Jean Obeid.  Hariri, speaking by 
phone, denied his colleagues' assertions that he was about to 
head into a trap, but he could not explain his reasons for 
initially backing Berri's proposals.  ("See me in person," he 
urged, which we will.) 
 
 
BEIRUT 00001338  003 OF 003 
 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶9.  (C)  Prior to this session of the Dialogue, all sorts of 
(often contradictory) rumors were circulating:  that Aoun 
would intentionally blow up this Dialogue with a venemous 
attack on the March 14 coalition, that Berri would close off 
discussion of the presidency almost immediately, that the 
entire Dialogue would be permanently suspended.  None of that 
happened.  After weeks of carefully avoiding any mention of 
names of candidates, the Dialogue has now in its peculiar ad 
hoc fashion blessed an initial list of potential successors 
to Emile Lahoud -- that's progress of sorts, even if none of 
the names were exactly s ecret before.  But the Dialogue is 
no closer to resolving how a successor might replace Lahoud 
in the near future.  And as we will cover septel, Michel Aoun 
is determined to undermine adn discredit the March 14 
coalition by almost any means possible, suggesting to us that 
the 5/16 session of the Dialogue will come no closer to 
ending this frustrating Lebanese deadlock.  This National 
Dialogue session also revealed the cracks within the March 14 
coalition, with Ja'ja' -- for the first time we can think of 
-- being accused of the same naivete that many people have 
stated is a problem with Saad Hariri.  End comment. 
FELTMAN