With the formation of the cabinet, it is safely assumed that any illusions of revolutionary change, or salvation, through constitutional means—cabinet formation, parliamentary elections, or presidential elections—have faded.
In fact, Lebanon is living in a state of non-governance, or virtual governance. This is a concept that needs to be clearly defined and explained. In Lebanon, the government is practically non-existent. Therefore, descriptions such as transitory state or failed state do not even apply.
In Lebanon, Iran is an occupying force exercising their power through Hezbollah and supported by a corrupt political class. Some of these politicians belong to Hezbollah, others are subjected to them forcefully or out of cowardice, but most comply out of the desire to maintain some of the little power and authority they have.
In Lebanon, the government institutions and the constitutions are completely absent, and in their current form they constitute one of the tools for tyranny. There is no possibility of salvation through “changing from within” by sharing a table with the enemy and his subordinates in the parliament, the cabinet, or government committees.
The direction Lebanon is headed towards, as is the case in many countries, is decided by the balance of powers. The primary factor dictating the balance of power is the military/security component. This component supersedes the political, popular, economic, financial, and cultural elements. This military component is manifested internally and externally.
Internally, Hezbollah is the most powerful at a military and security level. They control the political class and the majority of the critical components of the government either directly or indirectly through their allies. This is especially true at the level of the three constitutional institutions, as the president of the republic is their long-term ally who controls the majority of the parliament and the cabinet.
Externally, it has become clear that the Vienna negotiations will result in a return to the nuclear agreement in its original form, while maintaining the clauses for both ballistic missiles and expansion within the region when it comes to Iran. The sanctions will then be lifted, and cash will flow back into the Islamic Republic, and its economy will recover. This will reinvigorate the Quds legion and the resistance axis, whom Hezbollah is a core component of. In fact, the Secretary General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah has become the unofficial successor of Qassem Soleimani.
Following the cabinet formation, the political scene in Lebanon has become overcome with a viral urgency of holding the parliamentary elections on time. After all, the west always calls for proper elections that give rise to a representative political class that will serve as an alternative to the current one. On the other hand, their true intentions are to placate Hezbollah and the current political authorities who are under their control, as they look forward to normalizing relations with Iran and form new deals with it.
This is why going with western politicies at this point will cause people to end up as those who did so in the 90’s as these same western countries delivered the country straight into the Syrian occupation. Those are the people who became part of the Lebanese-Syrian authority on the basis of practicality, and later they turned into martyrs, such as Rafiq Hariri, or a living martyr such as Walid Jomblatt who continued his political life swinging between opposing and conforming to Hezbollah out of fear and greed. The compromising policies of March 14 leaders paved the way to switching from a Syrian to an Iranian occupation. They also paved the way for Lebanon to hit the rock bottom condition it is in now.
The moral of the story here is the monopoly of violence and why it being in the hands of the government is non-negotiable. In addition, the liberation of Lebanon will never truly be complete under leadership that is literally prepared to revolt against itself for more power and money. Therefore, we must make sure they do not breach the ranks of the revolutionaries, and they should be dealt with according to what they really are… a terrible threat.
