Excerpt from document summary
(C) Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea conveyed his
thoughts to the Charge on the political impasse shortly
before departing on his three-week trip to the U.S. He
believes Lebanon should boycott the March 29-30 Arab League
summit in Damascus if no president is elected.

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/03/2018
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PTER, SY, LE
SUBJECT: LEBANON: GEAGEA PROPOSES REVAMPING GOVERNMENT WITH
CHRISTIAN MINISTERS

Classified By: CDA Michele J. Sison for reasons
1.4 (b) and (d).

SUMMARY
-------

1. (C) Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea conveyed his
thoughts to the Charge on the political impasse shortly
before departing on his three-week trip to the U.S. He
believes Lebanon should boycott the March 29-30 Arab League
summit in Damascus if no president is elected. At a minimum,
the summit should be held outside of Syria. On the electoral
law -- one of the obstacles to reaching an agreement on the
Arab League initiative -- Geagea pressed for proportional
representation, explaining that such a system would benefit
the March 14 Christians and weaken both Hizballah strongholds
and Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun's bloc.

2. (C) Proposing that March 14 enlarge its reach, Geagea said
he wanted to join forces with non-Hizballah Shia, and in
particular, Ahmad Assad, leader of Lebanon Intimaa
("Belonging"), an anti-Hizballah "third way Shia" political
movement. Geagea is still proposing to elect a president
with a half plus one majority, but, acknowledging the
proposal's lack of support, he advocated revamping Prime
Minister Fouad Siniora's government by replacing current
ministers in key positions with Christians. End summary.

3. (C) The Charge, accompanied by PolOff, met with Lebanese
Forces leader Samir Geagea on March 4, days before he departs
on a three-week trip to the U.S. Geagea advisors Elie Khoury
and Joseph Nehme attended the meeting.

BOYCOTT THE ARAB LEAGUE SUMMIT
------------------------------

4. (C) Geagea opposed what he believes is Saudi Arabia's
current position on attendance at the March 29-30 Arab League
summit in Damascus: Saudi Arabia will attend if Syria
invites Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government. Instead,
Geagea wants Lebanon and Saudi Arabia to condition attendance
on the election of a president in Lebanon, a position he
believes Druze leader Walid Jumblatt (with whom, we note,
Geagea is often at odds) would support. At a minimum, Geagea
wants the summit to be held outside of Syria, as an
extraordinary summit, so that it is not under Syrian
leadership. Geagea believes that Siniora would accept the
invitation if extended. However, he questions whether Syria
would invite only Siniora, who is Sunni, suspecting that
Damascus would include Shia Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri,
in order to avoid giving the impression that Syria recognizes
the Siniora government.

MARCH 14 REJECTS MOUSSA'S LATEST IDEA
-------------------------------------

5. (C) Geagea reported that it was not clear whether Arab
League Secretary General Amr Moussa would return to Beirut
this week. He explained that Moussa's latest proposal to
majority leader Saad Hariri was to elect a president, then
form a national unity government in which the prime minister
is not from March 14, an idea which March 14 promptly
rejected.

PRESSING FOR PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
----------------------------------------

6. (C) Revisiting Moussa's most recent attempt at
negotiations, Geagea said electoral reform remains an
obstacle, even within March 14. Geagea is calling for
proportional representation, a system he argues would
advantage March 14 Christians and break Hizballah
strongholds. Moreover, he added, proportional representation
would divide Free Patriotic Movement Michel Aoun's opposition
bloc by at least 50 percent. Another advantage could be the
election of March 14 Shia MPs, he posited. However, he
acknowledged, some of Saad Hariri's MPs may lose and Jumblatt
would need convincing, and requested that the U.S. urge them
to support proportional representation. (Note: Berri told
Charge in their February 25 meeting that he favored
proportional representation, although he advocated one large
electoral district, whereas Geagea favors small districts.

End note.)

ALLYING WITH NON-HIZBALLAH SHIA
-------------------------------

7. (C) Charge, having just met earlier in the day with Ahmad
Assad (septel), leader of Lebanon Intimaa ("Belonging"), an
anti-Hizballah political movement, inquired about Geagea's
relationship with him. Geagea responded that he has good
relations with Assad (who also supports proportional
representation, he noted) and that he was interested in
bringing him into the March 14 alliance. Claiming that Assad
is best positioned to lead a large Shia coalition, Geagea
sees potential in Assad but remarked that he needed funding.
He cautioned that Saad is opposed to Assad, in part because
the Saudis (Saad's allies) do not want to be at loggerheads
with Hizballah. Therefore, Geagea concluded, any U.S.
support for Assad should be kept quiet. According to Geagea,
when Assad ran for parliament as an independent, he received
15-20 percent of the votes cast in his district. (Note: we
are skeptical; our information is that he received far fewer.
End note.)

8. (C) Other potential Shia include Labor Minister Trad
Hamadeh's family and independent journalist Okab Saqr. That
was the extent of the possibilities, claimed Geagea. Geagea
said the U.S. aid to southern Lebanon was not successful at
shifting residents' allegiance away from Hizballah, and
therefore U.S. aid should go to Assad, in the south, as well
as to Christians in the north.

REVAMP THE GOVERNMENT WITH
CHRISTIAN MINISTERS
--------------------------

9. (C) Looking at the political impasse today, Geagea sees
three scenarios: 1) Status quo continues; 2) March 14 elect
a president with a half plus one majority; or 3) Revamp the
cabinet by placing Christians into key ministerial posts.
Geagea, still supporting the half plus one option, recognizes
that it is a risky move that lacks the necessary support at
this time. He suggested revamping the cabinet and putting
three representative Christians into important ministerial
posts such as Interior, Education, and Economy. As some of
these slots are currently filled by technocrats, Geagea
argued that since Lebanon is not really doing much as a
government these days, it does not need technical skills, but
rather symbolically important Christian representation. "Now
it is seen as a Hariri government; we want it to be seen as a
March 14 government," Geagea explained.

USS COLE: THE U.S. IS IN A BIND
-------------------------------

10. (C) "You put yourself in big trouble," warned Geagea
referring to the presence of the USS Cole off Lebanon's
coast. He reasoned that if someone were to try something,
the U.S. will look bad if it does not react. Conversely, he
said, if the U.S. reacts, he is reminded of 1983. The U.S.
cannot sit idle, nor can it retreat at this point. He
suggested the U.S. could be more supportive if it imposed a
travel embargo on Syria, preventing all airlines from flying
in and out of Syria. Geagea opined that the Europeans would
be more amenable to an embargo after Imad Mugniyeh's
assassination, which provided the smoking gun to the world
that Syria harbors terrorists.

11. (S/NF) Geagea also provided the Charge with unconfirmed
intelligence describing an Iranian delivery to Syria of 15
submarines. Information was passed to DAO.

COMMENT
-------

12. (C) We were surprised to hear about what appears to be
Geagea's relatively developed relationship with Assad and to
spot a copy of "The Shia Revival" by Vali Nasr on his desk.
Geagea and Berri's shared preference for proportional
representation is also interesting. End comment.

SISON