MIDDLE EAST: During his frequent trips to Paris, Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister who was assassinated in Beirut yesterday, held court in the mornings in the mansion he purchased on the heights overlooking the Eiffel Tower. The house had been built by Gustave Eiffel for himself.
It was there that I saw Hariri for the last time, six weeks ago, and there that his widow Nazek yesterday received the condolences of Hariri's close friend, President Jacques Chirac.
When I saw him on January 5th, Hariri insisted it was an off-the-record chat. I was not to mention in print that I had spoken to him.
"I trust you, Lara," he said. "Don't betray me."
He seemed seized by a kind of exuberance at the Syrians' increasingly difficult predicament in Lebanon. Since the attacks of September 11th, 2001, Damascus has come under pressure from Washington, which accuses it of terrorism.
Some Lebanese believe that Hariri was behind the Franco-American sponsored UN Security Council Resolution 1559 of September 2004, which demands an end to Syria's tutelage over Lebanon.
Rafik Hariri was a cautious politician. He left it to the rash Druze leader Walid Jumblatt to make anti-Syrian declarations. After resigning as prime minister last October, he began moving his Mustaqbal (Future) movement towards the anti-Syrian opposition.
"The opposition have about one-third of the seats in parliament," Hariri calculated aloud. "Even if we only win 46 per cent of the seats [ in legislative elections due this spring], I am sure that at least 4 per cent will come over to our side, and we will have a majority. The Syrians will not be able to fake the results; the international media will be watching too closely."
Hariri never said publicly that he would join the opposition. "Beyond a doubt, I will be in the opposition," he told me privately. "I am playing it the Lebanese way. I have two deputies attending the Democratic Front meetings," he said, referring to a grouping of Maronite Catholics and Druze Muslims. "My radio and TV stations are giving them a lot of coverage. The ground is shifting. Syrian power is crumbling."
That week in January, Hariri told me, the Syrians were making overtures to him. "I want to give them one last chance," he said. "The Americans have told the Syrians that if there is violence in Lebanon, they will be held responsible. The US ambassador to Lebanon says they must leave quietly, in an orderly fashion. It's a dream, but it will come true.
"Syria is acting more and more like an occupying power, because they feel threatened," Hariri continued. "They are strengthening their grip on our country. [ The Syrian President] Bashar [ al-Assad] is far less skilled than his father [ Hafez] was. A year ago, President Bashar said: 'I alone have the right to choose the president of Lebanon. No one else has the right to do it, neither the Lebanese nor the Syrians'."
In retrospect, the October 1st, 2004, attempt on the life of Marwan Hamade, a Druze politician who had just resigned as minister of the economy, was a rehearsal for Hariri's assassination.
Was it the Syrians who blew up Hamade's car? I asked Hariri. "At the very least, they let it happen," he said. "At the most, they ordered it."
Although Damascus' reappointment of Gen Émile Lahoud as president of Lebanon led Hariri to resign, he secretly rejoiced in Bashar al-Assad's poor judgment.
"The Lebanese lobby in Washington are growing stronger; they have the ear of Bush. The French and Americans dreamed of doing something like [ UNSC resolution] 1559. Bashar gave them a cause and a reason. This is the first time in the 30 years since Syria came to Lebanon that the international community decided they have to leave. The French and the Americans warned the Syrians not to reappoint Lahoud. I figured, if they want to commit suicide, let them."
Iyad Allawi, the US-backed interim prime minister of Iraq, is half-Lebanese. His mother is from the Osseiran family, an aristocratic Shia Lebanese clan. Hariri knew Allawi well. The US is leaning on Syria because it believes Damascus is contributing to the chaos in Iraq. Israel is also "very important for the Americans", Hariri said.
"Lebanon fits perfectly into both of Bush's projects for the Middle East," Hariri explained: "the war on terrorism and democratisation. Bush thinks that to fight terrorism you must democratise. Instead of encouraging democracy, the stupid Syrians are reversing it. Bush feels these people are working against his big project. He wants to give Lebanon as an example. It will work.
"The Syrians are under tremendous pressure ... Bush figures that Syria is a weak country, and he intends to take care of it once the Palestinian question is settled. The Americans are threatening new sanctions against Syria. If the Europeans follow, it will be a disaster for Damascus."
The 14,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon "are not the problem," Hariri told me. "The problem are the intelligence services, the Mokhabarat."
Hariri asked me to put down my pen when he told me how the Syrian Gen Rostom Ghazale, the head of military intelligence in Lebanon and the de facto ruler of the country, once insulted him on the telephone. Hariri hung up. Thereafter, Ghazale was polite to him, but continued to bully other Lebanese politicians.