Saad Hariri

Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Kabbani had provided moral and political cover to Harirism throughout the past years and ever since his appointment. He thus followed the footsteps of his predecessors and supported the third presidency in the times of defiance established by Fouad al-Sanyoura during his term.

In this context, Mufti Kabbani exceeded all political and national considerations and engaged in confrontations with many references and sides within the Sunni sect, in his ongoing defense of Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri and his political movement with all its components, even those who recently attacked Sheikh Kabbani although they had previously sought his protection as it happened with the tea minister in the Marjeyoun barrack during the July war.

This fierce campaign came in response to his position since the formation of Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s government, considering that Harirism is based on the monopolization of the representation, on annulment and the consecration of political control.

As for the attack against the army, it reflects the militia logic that was revealed by the armed men of Harirism after they emerged in Akkar and before that in Sidon, Beirut and Tripoli on the day of Sheikh Saad’s anger against Mikati’s designation. But this rhetoric does not serve Al-Hariri because the wide base of the military institution in many areas will affect his political and electoral interests in regions such as Eklim al-Kharroub, Akkar and Center and Western Bekaa. In the context of its collapse, Harirism is turning toward the rhetoric of Jundullah and Fatah al-Islam, while the biggest share of this hysteria is the failure of the American promise in regard to an imminent development in Syria.

New Orient News (Lebanon)
Editor in chief: Wassim Raad
Orient tendencies No 45, September 5, 2011.