Few in post-war Lebanon had an impact like Rafic Hariri’s

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. Reuters

On Friday, Lebanon will commemorate the 20th anniversary of Rafic Hariri’s assassination. This provides an opportunity to examine the former prime minister’s legacy, but also reflect on the failings of the international investigation to uncover all his assassins.

When he came to power in 1992, Mr Hariri did so in large part through an understanding between Saudi Arabia and Syria. The Saudis had played a key role in negotiating the Taif Accord that served as the basis of the constitutional changes that redistributed power among the Lebanese sects and ended the civil war. Syria, in turn, was the de facto hegemonic power in Lebanon, after its army had ousted Michel Aoun and the military government he headed.

Mr Hariri’s task was to lead Lebanon’s economic recovery and physical reconstruction, given the confidence he enjoyed internationally, particularly among financial institutions. The Syrians maintained considerable sway over Lebanon’s political and security affairs, and imposed an exception to the disarmament of post-war militias: Hezbollah was allowed to retain its weapons and pursue its resistance against Israel’s occupation of south Lebanon.

The Syrian aim in doing this was mainly to retain a pressure point against Israel at a time when Damascus was engaged in negotiations with the Israelis over the Golan Heights, following the Madrid conference of 1990. Syria’s president at the time, Hafez Al Assad, sought not only to regain the occupied Golan, but also retain control over Lebanon.

Mr Hariri would struggle with this situation for years, which created an anomalous duality of a state trying to regain its sovereignty and an independent armed group that undermined this sovereignty. He also faced another major problem in having to direct reconstruction in a country in which the wartime militia leaders, Syrian allies all, still retained much power.

This compelled Mr Hariri to help put in place a system in which party leaders or members were given ministries, which they often ran as personal fiefdoms, while the prime minister concentrated rehabilitation and reconstruction decisions in his hands. This did not mean that the ministries were marginalised. Projects that were run through these ministries allowed for considerable corruption and the plunder of national resources.

The man who would secure the financing for such activities was Riad Salameh, the central bank governor. Salameh, who is now in prison, began a process of issuing high-interest domestic debt to attract capital to the country, which helped fund reconstruction, and imposed a fixed (and costly) peg on the local currency to the US dollar. When this system reached a crisis stage in 1998, Lebanon began issuing foreign debt to avoid a default.

One can praise Mr Hariri for leading a very thorny reconstruction process that would have overwhelmed most other prime ministers. However, he also oversaw the precarious foundations of Lebanon’s financial system that collapsed in 2019. Perhaps he had no other choice if his aim was to rebuild Lebanon, but his assassination also removed the one individual who might have been able to introduce corrective measures to avert the worst.

By 2004, Mr Hariri was chafing that the Syrians had extended the mandate of then Lebanese president Emile Lahoud, whom they had imposed in 1998 to contain Mr Hariri, among other reasons. Mr Hariri played a behind-the-scenes role in pushing for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, calling for a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon and a disarmament of all militias. There were also signs he was about to form lists against Syria’s candidates in the elections of 2005, secure a parliamentary majority, and put himself in a position to ask Syria to pull out its forces.

This was the background to Mr Hariri’s assassination. It underlined both the man’s ability to manoeuvre among contradictions and the considerable influence he wielded domestically and internationally, which ultimately made him a target. The positive upshot, however, was that he left behind a country that was significantly rebuilt after 15 years of war. This was something he could point to, even if his plans did provoke criticism from some quarters.

The last thing we will remember about Mr Hariri is that his killing led to the first UN tribunal to deal with terrorist crimes. However, the UN investigation that preceded the tribunal did very little investigating after 2005, apparently fearing the political consequences, in the end bringing an indictment that allowed many of those involved to remain free. What was supposed to be a judicial process to end impunity for political crimes was nothing of the sort as political assassinations continued.

It’s not easy to summarise Mr Hariri. In many regards, his time in office brought out the best and worst in Lebanon, while his death divided the country even more, when it should have united it. But as we survey post-war Lebanon, few men have moved the country forward as he did, while his death brought about a long interregnum of stalemate, violence and devastation in national affairs. That alone explains why his absence is regretted.