Rafik Hariri was Lebanon’s bulldozer. A buccaneer. A bruiser. Built like a heavyweight boxer, he looked more butcher than billionaire. His father was a dirt-poor, Sunni Muslim tenant farmer, who worked land near the south Lebanese port of Sidon.
The French architects of the Maronite Catholic-led Grand Liban had reluctantly granted Lebanon its independence in 1943, a year before Rafik Hariri was born.
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