BEIRUT--Saudi and Syrian leaders plan a dramatic joint effort to calm a storm in Lebanon over putative charges by a U.N.-backed tribunal that Hezbollah members helped assassinate Lebanese statesman Rafik al-Hariri in 2005.
An unprecedented visit to Beirut by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Friday will send a strong signal meant to contain tensions between the Shi'ite Hezbollah group and factions supporting Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, son of the slain Sunni Muslim former premier.
The Syrian-Saudi initiative also seals a striking turn-around from five years ago when Riyadh joined the United States and France in an international outcry over Hariri's killing that forced Assad to withdraw Syrian troops from Lebanon. Syria may now have Saudi blessing to play a bigger role in Lebanon, where it has already revived much of its sway thanks in part to the military-political clout of its Hezbollah friends.
Yet the Syrians and Saudis, whose rapprochement helped restore stability in Lebanon after Hezbollah gunmen briefly took over Beirut in May 2008, face a delicate task in defusing a row over the tribunal that has thrust the country into uncertainty. Lebanon is heading straight for "government paralysis and crisis", according to Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Endowment's Middle East Programme in Beirut. "This is part of something very serious and very dangerous."
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in hiding since the 2006 war to guard against assassination by Israel, announced this month that Hariri had told him the tribunal intended to indict "rogue" Hezbollah members for his father's killing, not Syrian officials who were originally the prime suspects. Syria and Hezbollah both deny any hand in Hariri's death or in the subsequent killings of anti-Syrian figures in Lebanon.
Nasrallah, whose group is a vital partner in Lebanon's unity government, has set out to pre-empt any indictments of his men by discrediting the tribunal as an "Israeli project" and urging the authorities to reject any action it takes against Hebozllah. That places Hariri in a tight potential dilemma: defy the tribunal or defend it and risk the wrath of Hezbollah, the strongest political and military organisation in Lebanon.
Nasrallah and his allies could easily bring down the unity government. Without their consent no new one could be formed. Lebanon could drift into a prolonged political standoff.
So far the tribunal, based in The Hague, has issued no indictments and its spokeswoman, Fatima Issawi, told Reuters on Thursday it would be "quite unhelpful" to add to speculation about when the prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, might file any.
The scale of any political turmoil in Lebanon may hang on the strength of the indictments the tribunal could bring against any suspects in the hugely complex Hariri case.
The court's own future might be in question if Lebanon, at Hezbollah's behest, withdrew its cooperation and its funding. Hariri has sought to dampen tension, but his supporters say there can be no question of capitulating to Nasrallah's demands.
"He is free to say what he believes, but it doesn't mean the others should agree with him," said Nohad al-Machnouk, a member of Hariri's parliamentary bloc, voicing confidence that Syria and Saudi Arabia together would ensure stability in Lebanon.
Hariri, a close Saudi ally who at first blamed Syria for his father's death, has reconciled with Assad, forging apparently amicable ties with him in four trips to Damascus since December. As prime minister, he had little choice but to drop his earlier calls for Hezbollah's disarmament and to seek better ties with Syria as it emerged from isolation by the West.
Carnegie's Salem said it was good that regional powers such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, whose emir is also due in Beirut on Friday, were rushing to head off any crisis. "The missing player regionally is Iran, the main backer of Hezbollah," he said. "It's possible that Syria might be asked to talk to Iran and Hezbollah to help manage the situation."