WallyJumblat
...
Druze politician, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, who's been on every side in Leb at least four times. He'll sell you his friends for a dollar, but family comes higher because of shipping and handling...has has called on Saudi Arabia to enter dialogue with Iran and said that the Kingdom's modernisation plans could not work while Riyadh was engaged in a war in Yemen.
Lebanon was thrust back onto the front line of a regional power tussle this month between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The two regional powers back competing factions in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, the last of which has become a central arena of the proxy battle.
"A settlement at minimum with the Islamic Republic (of Iran) gives us in Lebanon more strength and determination to cooperate to enforce the policy of disassociation," Jumblatt wrote in a post on Twitter on Saturday.
"Disassociation" is widely understood in Lebanon to mean its policy of staying out of regional conflicts, which Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri has been stressing since his resignation, in reference to Hezbollah, whose regional military role is a source of deep concern in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi policy of confronting Iran more aggressively around the region has been spearheaded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is also attempting to push through difficult and extensive internal reforms.
Saudi Arabia has played a role in Lebanon in the past, helping to broker the end of its civil war in 1990 and invested in the reconstruction afterwards.
But the extent of its role in the November 4 resignation announcement by Hariri has been widely debated in Lebanon and led some Lebanese to fear that Riyadh sought to destabilise their country.
Addressing Mohammed bin Salman, Jumblatt said: "The challenges are tremendous and the modernisation of the Kingdom is an Islamic and Arabic necessity, but this mission cannot be successful while the Yemen war continues."
The Druze are a minority religious sect present in Syria, Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon.