Secretary of State Rex Tillerson showed a keen hand for Lebanese political intrigue on Thursday, as he visited Beirut for meetings with top officials.
While Tillerson’s meeting with the pro-American Prime Minister Saad Hariri went off without a hitch, other Lebanese politicians sought to show Tillerson that he was on their turf.
Most notable in this regard was President Michel Aoun who, as video shows, kept Tillerson waiting for around five minutes. Aoun, a Christian political leader and powerful political kingmaker, has aligned himself with the Hezbollah-wing of Lebanese politics. By keeping Tillerson waiting, Aoun wanted Tillerson to know that his power is limited to that which Aoun and Hezbollah afford him.
Yet Tillerson’s reaction was excellent; the secretary sat quietly, reading his notes and making cheeky smiles to the assembled officials. He knew what was going on and made it into a joke. That will annoy Aoun and Hezbollah and was the perfect way to dilute their gamesmanship. They fear an American that does not kneel to their throne.
Tillerson was similarly confident in his meeting with Parliament speaker, Nabih Berri. Leader of the Hezbollah partner party, the Amal movement, Berri is a uniquely Lebanese political creature: one-third terrorist enabler, one-third smooth politician and one-third feudal overlord. Immensely corrupt but equally influential, Berri is someone the U.S. must maintain communications with.
Regardless, the simple point here is that Tillerson mastered the Beirut waltz on Thursday.
For reasons of counter-terrorism and regional stability it is crucial that the U.S. help Prime Minister Hariri and show that the U.S. is attentive to what Hezbollah and its external benefactors, Iran and Syria, are doing in Lebanon. Coming to Beirut and holding confident meetings with pretty obvious U.S. adversaries accomplishes that end in a way that no phone call or invitation to Washington could.
In significant part, that’s because a visit to Beirut signals physical commitment and a not-so-insignificant degree of risk taking. Indeed, Tillerson’s Diplomatic Security Service protection agents were almost certainly opposed to the trip in consideration of his vulnerability to a terrorist attack.
Most importantly, however, this visit shows that the Trump administration’s gets Lebanon’s importance. It gets that the U.S. won’t get all it wants in Lebanon but will not accept Iranian hegemony there either. And as much as Tillerson was left waiting in his chair, all those assembled know that the secretary of state represents only the kinder elements of American power. Behind the curtain, the Trump administration wields other tools. Those who kept Tillerson waiting would ultimately prefer to deal with him than face America’s sharper edges.
