Mini-Hariri: Profiled. "But there is also the $2.5 billion of the nation’s debt the Hariri bank holds (debt Rafik helped run up as prime minister). And there are billions more in development projects, including an $18 billion downtown Beirut rebuilding effort...“When Pierre died,” he says, studying the hand for a moment, then looking up with a smirk, “I punched a door.”...Saad is an awkward public speaker. He comes off as stiff, artless, flat. During a visit to the White House following his father’s death and at a round of meetings with important Lebanese Americans around Washington, he struck many as in over his head...My sister, Hind, could have been Paris Hilton....The family says it collectively agreed that Saad should be the one to assume his father’s mantle. But according to Western officials and people in Saad’s party, the Saudis did the pushing....Saad has been willing to play that sectarian card in a way his allies consider risky. He has been accused of funding Al Qaeda-inspired Sunni jihadists in Lebanon. A close adviser told me that doing so was a necessary evil."
"“I really think that Saad has grown into the job very credibly,” says Jeffrey Feltman, the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, who cautions against simplistic criticism of Saad. “I think he’s done better than most people thrust into that position could have done. There’s a lot of things to criticize. He has had to learn on the job. And I think he has.”" (thanks Victor)