January 15, 2025
By Nasser Kandil
• Before the Taif Agreement, electing a president was enough to set the wheels of governance in motion. The president wielded executive authority: appointing ministers, selecting a prime minister from among them, and dismissing and forming governments at will. Post-Taif, however, electing a president became merely the starting point, with naming a prime minister as another step. Yet, genuine progress now depends on successfully forming a government.
• President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam share more than personal records of distinguished achievements in their respective fields. They are both lauded for their integrity, wisdom, patriotism, commitment to national unity, and rejection of sectarianism. Yet, they also share the burden of having assumed office under an international-regional arrangement that facilitated their rise to power but was grounded in local forces that bear little resemblance to their values. These forces view their leadership merely as a means to retaliate against the resistance, which the occupation failed to subdue.
• The immediate priorities on the agenda for the president and the newly designated government are implementing Resolution 1701 and advancing reconstruction efforts. Success hinges on gaining the trust of two key groups. The first consists of international and regional actors: the former to secure Israeli compliance and the latter to finance reconstruction efforts. The second is the resistance, whose trust in the government is crucial for fulfilling its obligations under Resolution 1701, particularly in ensuring UNIFIL’s operations in the south – a region where loyalty to the resistance runs deep and opposition to it is strongly resented. Political and social stability, prerequisites for recovery and reform, depend on fostering mutual confidence between the resistance and the government. Stability depends on reassuring the community most affected by war – the core base of the resistance. Both the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister-designate understand the need to reassure this environment that it is not being targeted for its unwavering attachment to the resistance – an attachment as inseparable as flesh and nail.
• This base hears the triumphant tone of those celebrating the election of the president and the designation of the prime minister – voices that turn what should be a moment of national pride into a macabre dance on the graves of resistance martyrs, framing it as a victory over the resistance. While U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledges that the most achievable goal is merely pushing Hezbollah from the border, these celebrants boldly speak of disarming and dismantling the resistance entirely.
The resistance, however, has expressed openness to discussing the role and future of its arms in a framework proposed in the inaugural address, which included a commitment to a national security strategy. The speech also asserted that the state’s monopoly on arms is contingent on fulfilling its duty to prevent aggression and liberate occupied land. Achieving this vision remains a distant prospect, requiring an interim phase of coexistence. During this phase, the resistance would withdraw from south of the Litani, while the Lebanese army assumes responsibility for overseeing the withdrawal of occupation forces and enforcing exclusive control over arms in the region. This would coincide with the commencement of reconstruction and investment in strengthening the military, with discussions on the future of the resistance’s arms deferred until after the next parliamentary elections, over a year away. Such discussions must be conducted in good faith as part of a national dialogue, not as a vindictive campaign against the resistance or a boastful celebration of the occupation’s strength – especially when the occupation itself has acknowledged its failure in defeating the resistance.
• The success of the presidency and government hinges on a political discourse that speaks candidly to both domestic and international audiences. It must echo what Antony Blinken has already acknowledged: that the current focus is limited to pushing Hezbollah south of the Litani River in exchange for the full withdrawal of occupation forces to the armistice line. This is the essence of Resolution 1701. The future of the resistance’s arms cannot be resolved through force but only through dialogue among Lebanese on how best to safeguard their country.
