In 2017, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri abruptly announced his resignation while he was in Saudi Arabia on 4 November 2017. Shortly thereafter, the foreign relations between both countries and allied regional neighbors became increasingly strained. On 6 November, Saudi Arabia claimed Lebanon declared war between the two states, despite leaders of Lebanon stating otherwise. On 9 November, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates asked their citizens to leave Lebanon. The conflict is thought to be part of the larger Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict.
Lebanon's president and some Lebanese officials believe that Hariri's abrupt resignation was made under coercion by Saudis and have claimed that the Saudis had kept him hostage. Iran, Hezbollah and some analysts also believe that this was to create a pretext for war against Hezbollah. On 21 November, Hariri resigned in Beirut but he immediately suspended it, then he rescinded the resignation completely on 5 December.
Background
In 1989, Saudi Arabia along with the United States helped to mediate the end of the fifteen-year Lebanese Civil War through the Taif Agreement. The agreement left Hezbollah as Lebanon's only armed sectarian militia, due to its struggle against Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon. Following Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, calls grew for the disarmament of Hezbollah; however, the party resisted any such move. Following the assassination of Rafik Hariri—believed to have involved Hezbollah, after Hariri's call for Hezbollah's disarmament—Saudi Arabia called for the immediate withdrawal of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. Saudi Arabia has opposed Hezbollah's influence in Lebanon and its involvement in the Syrian Civil War, as the group is seen to be strongly aligned with Iran.
Resignation of Hariri
On 4 November 2017, in a televised statement from Saudi Arabia, Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri tendered his resignation from office, citing Iran's and Hezbollah's political over-extension in the Middle East region and fears of assassination. Hariri's resignation led to a drop in Lebanese bonds and warnings of a cut to its credit rating.
Iran vehemently rejected Saad Hariri's remarks and called his resignation part of a plot by the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia to heighten Middle Eastern tensions.
On 21 November, Hariri declared in Beirut that he had suspended his resignation. He stated that President Aoun had asked him to "put it on hold ahead of further consultations." He refused to talk about what happened in Saudi Arabia and claimed that events will remain undisclosed. On 5 December he withdrew his resignation in a speech in which he emphasized Lebanon's neutrality in all regional conflicts.
Kidnapping and hostage accusations
Upon Hariri's abrupt resignation from Saudi Arabia, Lebanese President Michel Aoun is reported as having told foreign ambassadors that Hariri has been kidnapped by Saudi Arabia. Pointing to his twelve-day stay in Saudi Arabia after his resignation, Aoun said that he considers Hariri to be detained by Saudi Arabia.
According to journalist Robert Fisk, Hariri could not have resigned on his own, as he had already scheduled visits with International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for the following Monday. Moreover, Hariri had also arrived in Saudi Arabia on 4 November wearing casual dress, because he expected to go camping in the desert with Mohammad bin Salman.
Robert Fisk adds that when Hariri's airplane landed in Riyadh's airport, he saw himself surrounded by police forces, who confiscated his cellphone and those of his bodyguards. According to an American official cited by the New Yorker, Hariri was then kept in Saudi custody for eleven hours, put in a chair with Saudi officials repeatedly slapping him. According to The New Yorker, a former American official stated that Hariri said that "Iran intended to continue asserting itself in the region", after meeting with Ali Akbar Velayati, a high-ranking advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader. Hariri also posed smiling for a photo with Velayati. According to The New Yorker report, when Bin Salman heard about the events, "he was enraged", and "[h]e felt like he had to do something".
A senior American official in the Middle-East is quoted as saying that the plot was "the dumbest thing I've ever seen." The entire fiasco was believed to be part of Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman's extreme measures to curb Iran's influence in the region.