All is not sweet in the land of milk and honey… Having dithered on government formation for five months, thereby squandering a chance to garner international support in the wake of successful democratic elections, Lebanese politicians continue to bicker over the wording of the cabinet’s “Ministerial Statement.”
In Lebanon’s eclectic system, ministerial statements amount to declarations of policy that shape the contours of a particular cabinet’s mandate. Section 24 of the previous cabinet’s ministerial statement recognized “… [the] right of Lebanon’s people, army and Resistance to liberate or recover the Shebaa Farms, the Kfar Shouba Hills and the Lebanese part of Ghajar, and defend Lebanon and its territorial waters in the face of any enemy and by all available and legitimate means.”
Two things stand out. First, the statement explicitly grants the “Resistance” – that is, Hizbullah – the authority to liberate or recover Israeli-occupied territories. Second, and more significantly, the statement embraces Hizbullah’s shifting narrative: the right to bear arms is not subject to Israel’s occupation of parts of Lebanon, but extends further. By allowing Hizbullah to assume the role of defending Lebanon, the ministerial statement effectively consecrates a non-state actor’s performance of a function best reserved for the state.
Of course, the Lebanese Armed Forces remains ill-equipped to ward off Israel or even Syria; in fact, the military is more of an internal police force at this point. With a weak national force, Hizbullah claims it must defend Lebanon against external aggression. Setting aside the thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars in damage that Hizbullah failed to shield Lebanon from in 2006, the fact is that the Lebanese state can only disarm or integrate Hizbullah once it has adopted and begun to implement a viable defense policy in tandem with comprehensive security sector reform.
Ultimately the Lebanese political elite must decide when – or whether – this process will start. On the one hand, confronting Hizbullah now may undermine efforts to place the disarmament back on the “National Dialogue” table. Further, challenging the party may again paralyze politics, sapping revenue and stalling reform in a country that has momentarily emerged from half-a-decade of war, institutional paralysis, and internal strife.
On the other hand, the National Dialogue process may be for naught. First, the Dialogue is an extra-constitutional and non-institutional means of resolving problems that could very well be resolved within the state framework. Second, the Dialogue has allowed Hizbullah to draw its opponents down an empty path, like the Pied Piper leading rats down to the Weser River.
With that in mind, it is worth noting that a Lebanese government with two Hizbullah ministers and a policy that legitimizes Hizbullah’s arms will provide the mother of all legal pretexts for a devastating Israeli response should Hizbullah embark on another adventure (the same holds true should Israel construct a cause for war).
By standing firm on the cabinet statement, the March 14 coalition (or what remains of it) could take the first step towards integrating Hizbullah’s arms. However, if the hapless coalition – knowing, as it knew in May 2008, the consequences of its actions – intends to bend over, then it would do better to relax and make it easy on all those involved.
The Silent