Slowly but surely, a new equation is making its way through Lebanon’s political landscape. It is one that was neither unexpected nor is necessarily bad, but in the context of the eternally unyielding Lebanese political system, it may well bring about a fundamentally new stage in the country’s uneasy sectarian contract.
The equation is this: As the state continues to falter in its efforts to disarm Hezbollah, since forcible disarmament is and must be off the table, a second approach will come to the fore, namely offering the Shiite community political concessions in exchange for surrendering its weapons. Taking such a path should not be alarming, since integrating Hezbollah and its community into the Lebanese constitutional order has long been welcomed by the party’s foes.
The term “political concessions” may be a misnomer. The framework for such concessions would have to be the Taif Accord of 1989, and Hezbollah officials as well as Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri have called for the full implementation of Taif. That’s hardly an unreasonable demand. It would mean, among other things, deconfessionalizing the political system and removing sectarian quotas from parliament and the state administration. The cynical assumption is that Hezbollah has endorsed the idea believing its implementation would be opposed by Lebanon’s Christians, who would have the most to lose from it, making any progress on disarming Hezbollah improbable. However, is this necessarily true?
More and more Christians appear to support the idea of a federation in Lebanon, so if that is achieved, their flexibility on applying Taif may increase. However, their understanding of federalism is often approximate. In speaking of federalism, many seem to be really thinking of a divorce from Lebanon’s Muslim majority, particularly from the Shiite community and Hezbollah, whose worldview they consider irreconcilable with Christian preferences for the country. Even assuming that such a generalization has value, what many federalists don’t acknowledge is that federalism will not resolve the disagreements many Christians have had in recent decades with their Muslim compatriots. Under a federal system, key state powers would remain under the purview of a central government, above all foreign affairs, defense, and foreign trade—the very issues that have most divided the Lebanese.
Yet Christians continue to regard federalism as a raft of salvation. While Taif does not mention federalism, it offers an opening that may come fairly close. One of the concessions made to Christians in Taif was the introduction of administrative decentralization. Because Christians were being asked to give up the significant powers of the presidency, they were offered in return greater latitude to manage their own administrative affairs. Yet this concession had a major shortcoming in that administrative decentralization without financial decentralization has no meaning. If the central government ultimately retains a financial whip hand over all national activities, administrative autonomy becomes an illusion. So, today, nothing short of both administrative and financial decentralization would have any chance of persuading Christians to embrace Taif’s full implementation.
That is why we may be nearing, if not implementation of a grand bargain on Hezbollah’s weapons, a delineation of the possible contours of such a bargain. But what are some of the things to look out for in light of this potential quid pro quo?
First, even if such a grand bargain looks good on paper, it is highly unlikely to work if the mechanism to implement it is a simultaneous process of disarming Hezbollah and negotiating constitutional changes that fulfill all dimensions of Taif. Hezbollah must surrender its weapons first, since any move toward constitutional reform cannot take place if one party and this party’s community are armed and the rest are not. That is why, if there is broad agreement to make Hezbollah’s weapons part of a broader constitutional reform package, prior disarmament should be a condition.
Second, a key factor in this grand bargain would be Iran’s agreement. There are those who believe the Iranians will never give up on Hezbollah’s weapons. That may well be true of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who sets the direction of Iran’s policies on such questions. However, is such an attitude immutable? The so-called Axis of Resistance has been severely crippled, with Hamas now incapable of using Gaza as a platform to attack Israel, Syria lost, and Hezbollah completely isolated in Lebanon and facing a decisive government decision to disarm the party. To try to revive a failed strategy, with all its attendant costs, makes no sense, and the Iranians could eventually begin thinking of a plan B. Anchoring the Shiite community’s strength in Lebanese constitutional provisions seems more beneficial than doing so in Hezbollah’s weaponry, which has only brought massive Israeli destruction while turning many Lebanese against the party.
Third, while a grand bargain may be welcome, the reality is that the sectarian-constitutional system has become so dysfunctional that there are no guarantees that what emerges from a political reset would be an improvement on the present. If anything, the chances are that it would be a poor stitch-up job that leaves the maladies of the system in place. It is inconceivable, for instance, that it would erode the paramount power of sectarian leaders. Which is one reason why many Christians would do better to think carefully of how they envisage a decentralized system. In today’s Lebanon, the multiplicity of sectarian leaders has imposed on each of them a frequent need to compromise, which can lead to improved outcomes. But having a decentralized system in which the power of sectarian leaders in areas they dominate is not offset by rivals could merely consolidate miniature sectarian despotisms.
Might it not make more sense to rework Taif entirely, with 35 years of hindsight into the accord’s flaws? That is not so say abandoning Taif, but using it as a basis for a revamped constitutional system once Hezbollah disarms. Whatever happens, the link between the party’s surrender of its weapons and a broader discussion of reforming the constitution appears inevitable. One will not happen without the other.
