Saad Hariri — “Lebanon: A Vision for the Future” (Chatham House, on-the-record address & Q&A), 13 December 2018

[…] I always say to people, you know, this is a regional issue, this is not a Lebanese issue. This is an Iranian issue and if we want to deal with the issue, let's sit down on a table and let's stop these wars and let's talk about how we resolve these issues in the region. If we want to make peace with Israel, we have a resolution that came out from the Arab League, but Netanyahu doesn't want this […].

[…] the corruption issue is a real serious issue in Lebanon. […] when we went to the CEDRE Conference, to have the committee that, on all these projects, the countries that will donate or will give the credit for Lebanon, will be on each project. We want to make sure that the process of the bids are extremely transparent. The World Bank is going to be working with us very closely on each of those bids.

[…] And when I was in Saudi Arabia, I've answered this many times, you know, there had to be a wake-up call to the Lebanese because we were, you know, shooting ourselves in the foot. […] We cannot tell the Gulf to come to Lebanon and, at the same time, there are political parties cursing the hell out of the Gulf. […] I myself, should not make statements about Iran […] and, at the same time, expect Iran not to answer. We need to disassociate ourselves. We need to move away from the regional, you know, conflicts. Lebanon is too small to pay a price in these big conflicts. The big countries can afford it. We cannot, simple.