Saudi mediation reaches dead-end in Lebanon

In mid-January Saudi Arabia announced that its effort, in co-ordination with Syria, to mediate an agreement in Lebanon would end for the time being. The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, quoted King Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz al-Saud as saying that he had "lifted his hands from the issue", and a Saudi-owned satellite station, al-Arabiya, said that the decision had been made because the situation was "too dangerous". The recent crisis in Lebanon came about over differences between the country's political parties over whether to co-operate with the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), charged with investigating those responsible for the killing of the former prime minister, Rafiq Hariri. The Lebanese Shia party and guerrilla group, Hizbullah, which had demanded that the government should withdraw its co-operation, had already left the coalition, and days later the Lebanese government led by Saad Hariri, Rafiq's son, collapsed.

Ever since the Saudi-Syrian rapprochement, which began in the summer of 2010, there has been a joint effort to mitigate the domestic Lebanese fallout from the tribunal's expected fingering of Hizbullah, a Syrian and Iranian ally, for the assassination. Although details regarding the two sides' initiative have been lacking, and some have also questioned their commitment to this effort, the Saudi-Syrian rapprochement has been largely based on a desire to reduce the fallout from the STL, and, at the least, to delay the publishing of its findings. Hizbullah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, argued, as did the Syrian and Lebanese pro-Syrian press, that King Abdullah could not pursue his efforts after Saad Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, had visited Washington and was apparently told to adhere to the STL and to back its findings.

Whatever the case, Saudi Arabia "took away its hand" as the STL was nearing completion of its indictments, and therefore previous efforts to delay it had patently proven fruitless. It also coincided with the withdrawal of Hizbullah from the Hariri government, which suggested that time was more or less up on Saudi Arabia's diplomatic engagement in relation to the STL. It can be argued that Saudi efforts had always been limited by the health problems of the king and Prince Saud al-Faisal. However, the foreign minister was anxious to clarify a few days after his initial comments that this did not mean that Saudi Arabia was ending its mediation efforts in Lebanon generally. In reality, Saudi Arabia will be anxious to avoid Lebanon falling entirely within Iran's sphere of influence, although its ability to act as a "neutral" arbiter seem limited-Prince Saud al-Faisal referred to ongoing Saudi efforts in support of the Lebanese "majority", in effect code for the alliance of (non-Shia) forces represented by the outgoing Hariri government. Diplomatic efforts are now largely in the hands of Qatar, which is continuing mediation together with Turkey.