Weymouth: What did you ask the White House for, and what did you get? Hariri: The main thing we discussed is that Antoine Ghanem was the sixth member of Parliament to be assassinated in Lebanon. If this continues, there will be no more majority in the Parliament from the March 14 Movement.
What’s the majority now? Now we’re 68 [out of 128 members of Parliament]. Can you imagine being a member of Parliament and sitting and waiting for them to kill you?
It is not a coincidence that the parliamentarians who were killed are from the same political background—parties allied with us that are anti-Syrian.
What do you hope Washington will do? We all know that the Syrian regime is doing this. Action must be taken against Syria, like isolation, to make the Syrians understand that killing members of [Lebanon’s] Parliament will have consequences for them.
There are some voices here, even the Baker-Hamilton commission, that say the U.S. should engage with Syria on Iraq. Then why don’t you engage with Al Qaeda? How can you accept a regime [that] is killing members of Parliament in Lebanon and has opened its border with Iraq and is sending hundreds of extremists and Al Qaeda followers there to kill Iraqis and American soldiers—a regime that hosts terrorist organizations? The message that is being sent today to our part of the world is you can do all that and get away with it.
Some people in your party are saying that compromise with the Lebanese opposition is impossible because you’d really be striking a deal with Syria and Iran. Are they correct? That’s why we need to be very careful in the negotiations [with opposition leader Nabih Berri]. I cannot tell you what I am going to get in this dialogue, but as a young politician I need to show that in the interest of Lebanon, we need to have dialogue.
If you call on the West to isolate Damascus, why would you enter into a dialogue with their lackeys? Because at the end of the day those people are Lebanese, and the closer they come to us, the further they will be from the Syrian regime.
Have you decided that it is your duty to take your father’s position? I am the majority leader in the Parliament. So I have to assume my responsibilities.
Does that mean that you are going to [try to become prime minister]? It means I will assume my responsibility as a majority leader. First and most important is [to hold] the presidential election. After that, everything is going to be easier to resolve. If you are asking me if I want to be prime minister or not, I am not saying that I don’t want to be and I am not saying that I want to be.
Why can’t you say you want to be the prime minister? [Prime Minister] Fuad Siniora has done a great, and still is doing a great job. I am a person that likes to wait.
Aren’t you afraid of suffering the same fate as your father? I think what is going to happen will happen. We have taken many precautions, and my security is doing everything possible to protect me. In the end, it’s in God’s hands.
Your country is very dangerous. It’s dangerous but very beautiful. It’s worth fighting for; it’s worth dying for.
What happens if the election ends up in a deadlock? Are you worried that it could lead to civil unrest? It’s very simple. You have those of us who want democracy and those who don’t. At the end of the day the Syrian regime is undermining the democracy in Lebanon. They are doing the same thing in Iraq: destabilizing the Iraqi democracy with the Iranians.
Do you believe Syria is an independent actor? No, I don’t think so.
Are they acting at the command of Iran? At the end of the day, can you imagine if you have vibrant democracies in Lebanon and Iraq? What would that do to the Syrian regime? If you had no interference in the Palestinian areas and they could let their democracy grow, do you think the Syrian regime would like that? They would fold the next day.
Are you still in favor of disarming Hizbullah? I am a realistic person. There should be dialogue. One important thing is to build our armed forces. We need to strengthen our state and build it like any other state.
Both parties in America are fed up with the Iraq War. The polls are overwhelmingly in support of getting our troops out of Iraq. I believe if there is an early withdrawal from Iraq without achieving a certain stability, there will be greater instability in the region. You have to remember that the Iraqi government wants the United States government to stay.
What would be the repercussions of a U.S. withdrawal for the area? Iraq has suffered a lot, and it needs stability. Let’s say there was a mistake done in the beginning. You don’t fix a mistake by another mistake.
