Wikileaks: Feltman & Khoja: "...Mikati was operating under the illusion that, if he performed well, the Hariris might bring him back ... They did not!"

S E C R E T BEIRUT 001724

SUBJECT: LEBANON: SAUDI AMBASSADOR OPPOSED TO "HALF PLUS

ONE" BUT SEEKS MARCH 14 PRESIDENT

3. (S) On 11/3, the Ambassador met with Saudi Ambassador Abdulaziz Khoja. Khoja, who since receiving threat information in summer has been mostly absent from Lebanon, said that the Saudis are convinced that the dangers are real. Khoja said that he found March 8 politician Wi'am Wihab's condemnations of him to be particularly alarming, since Wihab's slander is often followed by physical attacks. For that reason, Khoja expected that he would continue to spend most of his time in Saudi Arabia.... While he believes that hi personal friend Jean Obeid would have been a god consensus choice, Khoja said that he now recogizes that neither March 14 leaders nor the Maronies accept Obeid. "I don't know why," Khoja saidsadly; "Jean is good." The Ambassador did not coment....

8. (C) Mikati would know this and thus not push a pro-Syrian agenda, Khoja argued. Moreover, the Mikati  

family's considerable financial empire, worth billions,  

imposes a moderating influence on Mikati's political  

behavior, since the notoriously tight-fisted Mikati would be  unlikely to risk potential financial sanctions or property freezes. As a Sunni from Tripoli, Mikati would also be sensitive to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, for fear that merely lukewarm support would destroy his political prospects forever..... Mikati could destroy Hariri's power base in Tripoli permanently. Koja accepted the point, but he argued that Hariri needed to wake up to the fact that accepting the premiership now, in advance of legislative elections, was a trap. The Syrians and Hizballah would block and cripple any Hariri cabinet... Already, Khoja said, King Abdullah has counseled Hariri to wait until after legislative elections before becoming premier. While Hariri had no choice but to say, "yes, sir," he then went to Khoja to plead for help in convincing the king to change his mind. It will not be easy to persuade Hariri, Khoja conceded, who compared Saad as potential "kingmaker rather than king"...

11. (S) The Ambassador told Khoja he had a few concerns with the "N-and-N" proposal. First, while Mikati was extremely easy to work with during the spring 2005 transitional, technocratic cabinet phase, Mikati was then operating under the illusion that, if he performed well, the Hariris might bring him back as PM. They did not, and thus   

he might try to consolidate pro-Syrian positions now, in the   

belief that his political future rested only with that side.  

Second, there is the risk that the March 8 leaders will take only half of Khoja's idea -- Mikati as PM -- and try to negotiate another candidate for the president. Third, Mikati migh use the premiership to distort the electoral process in   

ways that reversed all of the pro-independence gains since   

2005. Khoja agreed that there were potential dangers, but he  maintained that sufficient checks and balances would constrain Mikati. March 14, by having the presidency, the parliamentary majority, and the cabinet majority, has the primary power, he said. 12. (S) Almost as an afterthought, Khoja then said that March 14 no longer can pull off a half-plus-one presidential elections in any case,...The Ambassador noted that March 14 actually has 68 MPs. Khoja expressed confidence that those 68 would vote as a bloc if the "two-thirds quorum" of all MPs was attained. But not all March 14 MPs will vote in the absence of any March 8-Aoun MPs and be seen as provoking a political and security crisis. Khoja used the example of MP Mohammed   

Safadi. Saudi Arabia theoretically could ask him to go to   

parliament, given Safadi's business ties with Prince Turki   

bin Nasser. But since King Abdullah is opposed to a   

half-plus-one election anyway, Saudi Arabia would not ask   

Safadi to participate.....

[COMMENT:15. (C) Given their razor-thin but surviving parliamentary majority, March 14 MPs should theoretically be able to elect a president, select a prime minister, and form a cabinet, all from March 14 ranks. That is obviously the scenario we would like to see. That is the outcome we continue to do all we   

can to help produce. But the sky-is-falling stories of potential chaos   and catastrophe have eroded both March 14 bloc discipline and international solidarity. We suspect Khoja is correct that March 14 would have trouble mustering 64 MPs..."]