In Beirut, all eyes are focused on Riyadh’s stance toward the Syrian chemical weapons deal, reached between Washington and Moscow, in order to gauge how the next stage will affect Lebanon. Although Riyadh’s attitude does not have a direct impact on the settlement that was approved by US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Geneva, the country is still capable of influencing the Syrian arena indirectly by interfering in several places.

The Saudi stance could affect Iraq, where a surge of sectarian bombings continues at the same bloody pace, and may also have an impact on the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, led by Ahmad Jarba, who is affiliated with Riyadh. Lebanon is certainly another place where the impact of this stance may be felt; the political conflict between Riyadh’s allies and those of President Bashar al-Assad involves the whole composition of the Lebanese system, starting with the government, which has been paralyzed since March 22, up to the presidential elections, which must be held between March 25 and April 25, 2014, as stipulated in the Constitution.

Riyadh’s friends in Beirut – basically the Hariri bloc – admit that they have no accurate information on the deal over Syria, nor do they have any data stemming from the principal sources on the dimensions and components of the settlement. A prominent MP in Hariri’s parliamentary bloc disclosed to Al-Monitor that there is a total indifference on the part of Saudi Arabia about the current situation in Lebanon. The visits made by several delegations of his bloc to Saudi Arabia and repeated meetings with Saudi officials did not immediately help shift the Saudi withdrawal from the Lebanese file. Yet, other politicians affiliated with Hariri’s bloc have overcome this Saudi node and moved immediately to what they called “feeling reassured about the Western position in general and American in particular.” They believe that Washington will not come out of this Syrian confrontation a loser.

Whatever the current features of the settlement may be, they certainly include undeclared points guaranteeing Washington’s interests in the region, and therefore hold the interests of Washington's allies. Some of these politicians even assert that the mere conclusion of the deal between Russia and America on such a controversial issue, as well as the violent non-conventional armaments issue, means that the climate of international openness and global concordance should be necessarily reflected on all other files, and applied to similar issues. They believe that the Syrian chemical settlement should be necessarily expanded to include a nuclear settlement in Iran, followed by a settlement regarding Hezbollah’s arms in Lebanon. Whatever the deadlines of such an agenda may be, it should eventually be positively reflected on Lebanon, and should fulfill the demands of Riyadh’s allies in Beirut in terms of disarming the Shiite group and freeing Lebanon from Syrian-Iranian influence.