Baumann, Hannes

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Nicholas Blanford. Killing Mr. Lebanon: The Assassination of Rafik Hariri and Its Impact on the MiddleEast. I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited, 2006. 256 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-84511-202-8.Reviewed by Hannes Baumann (SOAS)Published on H-Levant (June, 2009)Commissioned by Amy A. ElouafiRafiq Hariri: A Journalist’s Account of the Billionaire-PoliticianThe investigation into the assassination of RafiqHariri, which started in February 2009, is set to reviveinterest in Lebanon’s former prime minister. A goodstarting point to read up on the billionaire-politicianis Nicholas Blanford’s Killing Mr. Lebanon. It is ajournalistic introduction to Lebanese politics from thecivil war (1975-1990) to 2006 intended for a generalaudience.In the first chapter, Blanford gives a minute-by-minute account of the morning of Hariri’s assassina-tion. In the second, he describes Hariri’s wartimediplomacy in the 1980s as an envoy of Saudi Arabia’sKing Fahd. Hariri used money to gain a seat at thetop table: “For Hariri, money was a tool in negoti-ation as much as a plumber uses a wrench to stopa leak or a sculptor uses a chisel to fashion a blockof wood” (p. 30). Hariri’s funds came from SaudiArabia, either directly from the king or from Hariri’spersonal wealth accumulated through his work as acontractor for the Saudi royals. Blanford gives somerevealing indications about Saudi’s Lebanon policy,Hariri’s role in executing or even shaping it, relationswith the Americans, and the rivalry with revolution-ary Iran and its Lebanese ally Hizbullah. However,Blanford never explores these issues and the reader isleft wondering what exactly it was that Saudi Arabiawas trying to achieve in Lebanon and why the Saudiroyals used a contractor as“their man”in the country.The third chapter describes Hariri’s role as primeminister from 1992 to 1998 and the corruption asso-ciated with reconstruction under Syrian domination.Blanford contrasts the “mafia-style racketeering” ofthe Syrian regime with the billionaire’s “bribery andcronyism,” which he considers to have been essen-tially harmless (pp. 60-64).Yet if Hariri used money“like a wrench,” then surely it is important to tracethe mechanisms by which money was created inthe postwar economy, Hariri’s role in this, and howthis shaped his politics. Hariri was in control ofthe institutional levers of the economy. He placed“smart technocratic Lebanese professionals” (p. 4)at the head of the Central Bank, the finance min-istry, and the Council of Development and Recon-struction (CDR). The government borrowed heavilyfrom domestic commercial banks, thus stabilizing thecurrency by drawing in Lebanese-pound deposits.[1]However, very little of this money went into recon-struction; instead the policy represented a massivetransfer of wealth to commercial banks and their de-positors, and bank lending to private business was“crowded out.” Blanford mentions this process inpassing (p. 48). Hariri’s role in the reconstruction ofBeirut’s city center–a scheme heavily driven by profitmaximization–is also somewhat glossed over. By es-chewing a detailed analysis of these two rent-creationmechanisms, Blanford misses a chance to examinehow the billionaire-politician continued to use money“like a wrench” in the postwar era. While Haririwas in charge of government finance and reconstruc-tion, former militia leaders, Syrian allies, and the pre-war political elite used “service ministries” (e.g., ed-ucation, health, or refugees) as patronage resources.Close Syrian allies controlled foreign affairs and se-curity agencies. Lebanon’s postwar institutions werethus divided up among different groups and Haririwas a central actor both in the carving up and inclaiming his share of the pie. Blanford’s contentionthat Hariri was merely a hapless victim of Syrianracketeering–which certainly did exist–should there-fore be treated with caution.Chapters 4 and 5 track the decline of Hariri’s in-fluence in Syria due to the rise of a young “Alawitefaction” (p. 55) around president-to-be Bashar al-1H-Net ReviewsAssad, which sidelined Hariri’s primarily Sunni allies,all from an older generation. This led to the elec-tion of pro-Syrian president Emile Lahoud as a coun-terweight to the prime minister in 1998. The even-tual “showdown” between the “Hariri camp” and the“Alawite faction” occurred in 2004, when the Syrianregime sought an unconstitutional extension of La-houd’s term against Hariri’s opposition. In Septem-ber 2004 the United Nations Security Council passedthe U.S.-French sponsored resolution 1559, demand-ing presidential elections without foreign (i.e., Syrian)interference but also the disarmament of Hizbullahand the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.Blanford maintains that Hariri opposed the lattertwo clauses but the Syrian regime accused Hariri ofusing his international connections–particularly withFrench President Jacques Chirac–to pressure Syria.Blanford writes that Hariri sought reconciliation withthe Syrian regime through secret late-night meet-ings with Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasral-lah. Moreover, Hariri refused to openly align himselfwith Lebanon’s anti-Syrian opposition. According toBlanford, Hariri’s assassination is tragic because hisefforts at reconciliation went unheeded.Chapters 6 and 7 deal with Hariri’s assassina-tion in February 2005 and its aftermath. Blanfordholds Syria’s “Alawite faction” and Lebanon’s secu-rity agencies responsible. U.S. neoconservatives usedthe international investigation into the assassinationto pressure Syria but Blanford does not discuss thepotentially problematic nature of this type of politi-cized international justice. Hariri’s son Saad as-sumed political leadership of the Sunni communityand joined the predominantly Christian and Druzeanti-Syrian coalition in organizing large-scale demon-strations. The biggest protest happened on March14, 2005, earning the coalition the name “March14.” They confronted “March 8,” led by the Shi-ite Hizbullah, which relied on an alliance with Syriato continue its armed struggle against Israel. Blan-ford laments the rising sectarianism among the twocamps, yet he does not fully explore Rafiq Hariri’sown role in sectarian politics: “Although he wasthe undisputed leader of Lebanon’s Sunnis, his tal-ent, charm and muscle resonated across the confes-sional divide, making him a national figure capableof transcending Lebanon’s sectarian hurdles to steerthe country independently from the clutches of Syria”(p. 210). This characterization does little justiceto the complexities of sectarian leadership. Blanforddoes not examine how the Saudi billionaire becamethe “undisputed leader” of his community, what rolehis charities played, or how Hariri sidelined the es-tablished Sunni elite who resented “this immenselywealthy Saudi-backed newcomer” (p. 46). By con-sidering these questions, Blanford could have exam-ined the role that Lebanese political leaders play inreproducing sectarian and clientelist discourses andpractices. Blanford mentions the growing sectariantension between Sunnis and Shiites and accusationsagainst Saad Hariri of pandering to sectarian preju-dice in the parliamentary elections of 2005 (pp. 172-173), but fails to follow up on these accusations. Fi-nally, an epilogue describes the author’s experience ofthe Israeli-Lebanese war of 2006, and concludes thatHariri could have helped contain the war had he beenalive.Blanford relies almost exclusively on interviewsconducted after Hariri’s assassination. His choice ofinterviewees is strongly tilted towards former allies,advisors, and prote´ge´s of Rafiq Hariri such as JohnnyAbdo, Nohad Mashnouq, Fouad Siniora, and Abdel-Halim Khaddam. Many of these individuals are nowclose to Hariri’s son. Almost all the interviews wereconducted in the midst of the political struggle be-tween members of March 14 and March 8. Blan-ford does not pause to reflect what effect this mayhave had on the narratives of his interlocutors. Ac-tually, some of the most interesting insights of thebook come from those interviewees who were not anintegral part of the“Hariri camp.” Blanford describesmembers of March 14 in highly positive terms: NaylaMouawad is “an energetic and attractive woman” (p.143), Saad Hariri is “tall and well-built” (p. 168),the late Gibran Tueni had “dark 1930s-matinee-idollooks” (p. 182). In contrast, Hariri’s opponents aredescribed as physically unattractive and socially in-ept: Michel Aoun is a “short, egotistical army gen-eral” (p. 170) while Omar Karami is “colorless” (p.41). Emile Lahoud’s surprisingly positive image hasbeen created by a public relations campaign (p. 68).These characterizations stand in the way of dispas-sionate analysis.Blanford should be applauded for digging up a lotof interesting material about Hariri. He constructsthe most coherent account of Hariri’s life in the En-glish language thus far, which is no mean feat. How-ever, Blanford fails to evaluate his sources properlyand he leaves many questions unasked. The book canbe useful for researchers interested in the billionaire-politician or in Lebanese politics since the 1980s butthey will have to evaluate the interview material that2H-Net ReviewsBlanford presents with a more dispassionate eye.Note[1]. For an account of Hariri prote´ge´s heading gov-ernment agencies, see Guilain Denoeux and RobertSpringborg, “Hariri’s Lebanon: Singapore of the Mid-dle East or Sanaa of the Levant?” Middle East Pol-icy 2 (1998): 162. The following account of postwargovernment finance policy is based on Toufik K. Gas-pard, A Political Economy of Lebanon, 1948 - 2002(Leiden: Brill, 2004), 210-221; and Samir Makdisi,The Lessons of Lebanon: The Economics of War andDevelopment (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 90-159.If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the list discussion logs at:http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl.Citation: Hannes Baumann. Review of Blanford, Nicholas, Killing Mr. Lebanon: The Assassination ofRafik Hariri and Its Impact on the Middle East. H-Levant, H-Net Reviews. June, 2009.URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=24380This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.3

Review of N. Blanford, 'Killing Mr. Lebanon: The Assassination of Rafik Hariri and Its Impact on the Middle East'

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