Lebanon Will Get Worse Before it Gets Better

There is a spurt of great optimism on both sides of the political spectrum in the United States, and even Israel, that the Lebanese government, now that it has installed Joseph Aoun as its president, will finally leverage Israel’s devastating victory over Hizballah to assert Lebanon’s sovereignty.

In this optimistic view, the Lebanese government will uphold the November ceasefire between Hizballah and Israel. It will do so by executing both U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, a 2006 measure under which Hizballah was to be removed from south of the Litani River, and U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, a 2005 measure under which all armed factions are to be disarmed and the monopoly of power be returned to the Lebanese government. Moreover, for the first time in five decades, powerful regional forces seem held at bay; the PLO is weakened and Iran and Hizballah are laid waste. Lebanon is back in Lebanese hands. And indeed, the optimists assert, the speech Aoun gave upon assuming office contained language that lends substance to this promise: “The era of Hizballah is over; We will disarm all of them.”

Mark me down as highly skeptical of that view. And not only because of the jadedness and curmudgeonly essence that can come with an analyst’s age and experience, but because of the underlying reality. Lebanon likely is far from out of the woods, far from adequately executing its obligations under the ceasefire plan, and certainly far from emerging as a calm state at peace with Israel.

The problem is because Lebanon’s instability arises not from the external array of forces, but from the foundations of the Lebanese state, which are then leveraged by external forces.

The quote that never was:

Let’s start, first, with the most obvious. President Aoun was reported to have said that line about how “The era of Hizballah is over; We will disarm all of them.” He was even praised for it by President Trump’s incoming national security adviser. The problem is he did not say that, not in the text of the speech or as it was delivered in Arabic. He actually said:

“My mandate begins today, and I pledge to serve all Lebanese, wherever they are, as the first servant of the country, upholding the national pact and practicing the full powers of the presidency as an impartial mediator between institutions … Interference in the judiciary is forbidden, and there will be no immunity for criminals or corrupt individuals. There is no place for mafias, drug trafficking, or money laundering in Lebanon.”

He raised this in the context of the judiciary, not the military. Regarding the disbanding of the Hizballah militia as a military force, he was careful in his words and suggested it would be subsumed into the state rather than outright eliminated. Such an integration of Hizballah into the Lebanese Armed Forces is one of Israel’s greatest fears, because it could put Israel into a war not with a militia but with a sovereign country on its own border. Aoun said:

“The Lebanese state – I repeat the Lebanese state – will get rid of the Israeli occupation … My era will include the discussion of our defensive strategy to enable the Lebanese state to get rid of the Israeli occupation and to retaliate against its aggression.”

The structure that cannot reform:

Words in the Middle East mean only so much. Some might therefore dismiss as inconsequential this episode of “the quote that never was.” Yet it reflects something significant and far deeper. The Lebanese state — the “National Pact” to which Aoun refers — cannot develop into what the optimists hope it will, because its structure is not aligned with the only form of Lebanon that potentially justifies its existence as an independent state, let alone one at peace with Israel.

Understanding why requires dipping into the history of Lebanon. There’s a popular misconception that Lebanon exists only as a result of a colonial gift to a Christian community by the French at the end of World War I. Actually, Lebanon has an older and more defined reason to exist than almost any other state in the region but Israel, Iran, Turkey, and Egypt. The colonial definition of Lebanon established at the end of World War I unwittingly and out of the best intentions to the Lebanese Christians undermined that essence.

Read more HERE.