"His old dog lay loyally -or listlessly- at his feet the whole time. He said that Nasrallah and Hezbollah are fascist organizations and drew tired comparisons to 1930s Germany. His position towards the opposition was uncompromising, though I personally wouldn't be surprised to see him back as a Hezbollah ally in a few years if the US does not continue its strategy of confrontation in the Middle East. He was very pessimistic overall, though it was not clear if this was due to the broader strategic situation or the very humiliating defeat he had recently been handed by Hezbollah. We met for two hours with Siniora, who seemed to be genuinely excited to see us but unfortunately proved to be very boring, lacking charisma or a sense of interactivity and choosing to lecture us about Lebanese history despite our protestations that we were familiar with it. He confirmed his technocrat image. In contrast to other March 14th figures he seemed quite optimistic and full of energy. He admitted that he personally had been against the two decisions that precipitated the crisis of the last few weeks, confirming reports that it had been Jumblatt behind them. Of all the orange juice served to us by the various figures we met, his was of the lowest quality. We later met Saad Hariri at his Qoreitem palace, who, when I asked why he did not take the premiership, replied that he could do much more outside the government. He somewhat gauchely added, "Siniora is me!" When asked, he said that he did not believe the US would strike Iran, but that there would be a war perhaps 5 years hence, much bloodier than that which could be had now. Another question centered on his role in SecurePlus, a private security company that effectively constituted a militia, which was routed a few weeks ago."" (thanks Laleh)