By General Monzer El Ayoubi
Translation: Pierre A. Sarkis
Hours separated the visits by foreign or Arab ambassadors to the three presidencies (the President, the Prime Minister, and the Speaker of Parliament), in a week extremely busy with striking pivotal developments, with or without coordination, but in a joint unity of objectives and demands, expressed in persuading the different Lebanese parties to form a new government as soon as possible, with a dire warning of a breakdown in stability and security, in the light of tremendous and unprecedented social dysfunction.
The first one to open up the rounds of meetings was Saudi Ambassador, Walid Al Bukhari, who visited Lebanese President Michel Aoun upon a summons from the latter, and last Wednesday evening, US Ambassador Dorothy Shea paid a visit to Beit AL Wasat (PM Government office in Beirut) where she met with Prime Minister-designate, Saad Hariri, followed on Thursday morning by a visit to the Presidential Palace in Baabda where she met with President Aoun, and on Friday, she visited Speaker of Parliament at his residency in Ain Al Tineh. French Ambassador Anne Grillo took the road to the Baabda Palace through the Southern suburb of Beirut after meeting with MP Mohamed Ra’ad, (President of Hizbollah’s Parliamentary Bloc), who had just returned from an official visit to Moscow, and she continued her tour by meeting the Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri. Friday morning, Prime Minister-Designate Saad Hariri received Russian Ambassador to Lebanon, Alexander Radakov, while British Charge d’affaires, Martin Langden, spoke by telephone with MP Gebran Bassil, the President of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM).
Consequently, the intersection in terms of form for the unity of these separate paths of concern, took place at Yarze, at the residence of Walid Al Bukhari, the Saudi Arabian Ambassador, where he met with the US and French Ambassadors, after his visit to the Presidential Palace in Baabda. In terms of content, the common vision was clearly displayed through the verbatim and written statements following the meetings, as well as the full silence, whose positive tone did not lack the warnings and reprimand to waive the conditions and counter-conditions, which both presidents concerned with forming the government are holding onto. The meetings also expressed deep concern that “Lebanese political leaders are dancing on the brink of the abyss” while calling on all parties to shoulder their responsibilities, forewarning them of the impending catastrophe that Lebanon’s friends will not be able to prevent.
In a related context, one cannot consider this four-way diplomatic movement a Western produced oxygen to revive the collapsing state, but it is like summoning a priest to a dying patient’s bed for fear of his passing, and since “life is in the hand of the beholder” to hear his last confession and read the prayers of forgiveness before meeting his creator. There is no doubt that the next parliamentary elections held in a year and a half will be pivotal for the Second Centennial. The Diplomatic Four strongly emphasized the need to hold the elections its scheduled date, because of the opportunity that such merit will provide for the country, in order to move into another dimension with a moderate climate, which will allow the reproduction of a compatible authority from the womb of the afflicted people and the will of its youth.
The 17 October Revolution, 2019, and its subsequent political, socio-economic and health calamities, brought down the usual biological cloning of governments which included the synthesis of stem cells derived from its predecessors. This comes amid extremely sensitive and delicate circumstances regionally and internationally, and imposes the birth of a legitimate government with legitimate parents and a natural delivery. This is what concerned countries about the small nation are working on, while the political class and their allies the oligarchs’ lack of perception prevents this from happening, and the winds of anxiety from this supposed and long-awaited change has formed a continuous state of disorder, caused by the obsessive-compulsive fear of the politicians impending departure, either through the stick of the financial forensic audit, or the sword of sanctions levied through the two US laws of Caesar and Magnitsky.
On the other hand, the external diplomatic mobility on the internal scene seeks to create at least openly, an atmosphere promoting the detachment of Lebanon from events in the already exhausted region, while strongly engaging in the preparation for possible compromises considered necessary by the Biden Administration, to safeguard the strategic interests of the triad “US, Russia, France” in a qualitative, physio-proportionate specific weight of the three regional powers “Iran, Turkey, Israel”. The Arab Countries with their hybrid systems and the behavior of their dynamic rulers who control the broader geographical range, from Ma’reb in Yemen to Beirut, may enjoy the truce for reconstruction which needs several years and billions of dollars, in tandem with the submission to normalization of relations with Israel, similar to a surrender, with the pawn possession guarantee of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
There is no doubt that the reason for this exceptional and remarkable diplomatic mobility, is the dissipation of hopes and efforts to bring to an end the continuous political dispute, now in its fifth month since the mandate given to Saad Hariri to form a rescue government, which exacerbated the financial collapse and further complicated the domestic situation. A modest added value, “if not a weak capability” for the activities of the four ambassadors came after a statement issued by the Arab League last Tuesday, breaking its chronic silence and calling on Lebanese politicians to “work quickly to end the political obstruction” with the willingness of the League to help overcome the crisis. The opposing axis considered what transpired an interference in Lebanese affairs, as Hussein Emir Abd Al Lahyan, Assistant for International Affairs to the President of the Iranian Parliament stated, that the US, France and Saudi Arabia are taking advantage of the lack of a strong government, to further fuel division and weaken the resistance (Hizbollah), which is the B-side for normalizing relations with the Zionist Entity, stressing Iran’s “strong support for Lebanon’s security, stability and economy”. From this perspective, it appears that the regional settlement has entered the gravitational acceleration for there was no need to set the engines on, which in order to prevent a collision, necessitates improving the landing site and the volume of negotiations, through raising the level of conditions and demands.
In concluding, one can say that there is no end in sight to the deepening political crisis, which is characterized by unprecedented and irresponsible indifference by politicians and officials, as the only pillar still standing is the Military Institution (the Lebanese Army). Consequently, the current crisis and deadlock is tearing apart the safety net represented by “the government of mission, specialists, independents, techno-politicians, etc…) It makes no difference if such a government is able to cope with living and economic conditions in harmony with the IMF, and can prevent the country from slipping into total chaos, synonymous with a much talked-about imminent civil war, triggering a new significant re-drawing of the regional map and the geopolitical influence of its countries.
Beirut, 27/03/2021
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*Scholar in Security and Strategic Affairs.
