Hizbullah is holding the Lebanese state hostage, to the detriment of all, writes Hussain Abdul-Hussain* Hizbullah claims the solution to Lebanon's political stalemate is "simple": that the government share more than one third of cabinet seats with the party. But this does not appear the root of Lebanon's current standoff. After the 2005 elections, the Lebanese parliament was set to elect its speaker, a Shia by constitutional designation. Speaking on behalf of the Shias, Hizbullah insisted it name the speaker and other non-Shia parliamentary blocs elect him. As such, Hizbullah's ally, Nabih Berri, was re- elected for his fourth term as speaker. In July 2006, Hizbullah captured a couple of Israeli soldiers and killed a few others across the southern border. Hizbullah claimed it "had information" that Israel planned to strike Lebanon. As such, the July War was, so to speak, Hizbullah's pre-emptive strike against Israel. As unethical as the concept of pre-emptive war could be for many people, what was more worrying for the Lebanese state at the time was that Hizbullah decided to wage the war without consulting the government or at least informing it beforehand. Since the conclusion of the war, Hizbullah has been conducting negotiations, through a third party, for a prisoner exchange with Israel. Of course Hizbullah expects the Lebanese government to learn news of any such swap -- in case it happens -- the same way Lebanese citizens will learn of it, probably through the media. And along the lines of military "resistance", which Hizbullah has redefined to include pre- emptive wars, Hizbullah maintains an underground infrastructure that it shares with no one. In Lebanon, Hizbullah has designed its own "security zones". The Lebanese government, which it claims it wants to see "strong and sovereign", has no access to these zones. And when Hizbullah started funnelling funds into the hands of the displaced Lebanese, it left out non-Shias or those whose hit properties were outside of the geographic dominance of Hizbullah. Despite this monopoly over many elements of power, Hizbullah still has the nerve to claim it has been left out and demands power sharing in the cabinet. The cited examples of Hizbullah's power show that the Lebanese state is practically weaker than Hizbullah. They also show that the root cause of Lebanon's political crisis lies elsewhere. Until after the end of the July 2006 war, Hizbullah's ministers had participated in all cabinet meetings and approved all decisions since the cabinet was formed in the summer of 2005. The single item that made Hizbullah's ministers resign was the cabinet's approval of the UN draft of bylaws for the international tribunal for the trial of the assassins of former prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri. This cabinet decision alone made Hizbullah protest erroneously disparity in Lebanon's power sharing. While many might argue that since then, the Hariri UN tribunal has been approved in the Security Council under Chapter VII of its charter (which allows for the use of force in the implementation of Security Council decisions), and that there is nothing much Lebanon can do to stop it, the opposite is true. According to the tribunal's charter, the Lebanese government is expected to fund 49 per cent of the cost of the tribunal. This funding is to be paid over a three-year instalment depending on the amount of time its proceedings take. The government has also provided the UN with a list of a dozen Lebanese magistrates, four of which have been selected to participate in the tribunal's proceedings. Should Hizbullah get more than one third of cabinet seats, it would win veto power over any future cabinet decision by simply making its ministers resign, resulting in a cabinet collapse. This means that if the current cabinet has paid the fees needed for the first year of the proceedings of the UN tribunal, the cabinet -- with Hizbullah onboard -- might be unable to do so for the second and probably third years. Since its inception in 1982, and until the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon in 2005, Hizbullah had not had any ministers in any one of Lebanon's successive cabinets. Instead, Hizbullah maintained a relatively small parliamentary bloc and focussed its attention on fighting the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon. That was when Hizbullah commanded unprecedented popularity in Lebanon and the Arab world. But after the Syrian withdrawal in 2005 and the collapse of Syria's cronies in Lebanon, Hizbullah had to step in to rescue Syria's waning influence, and perhaps to sabotage any Lebanese official approval of the UN tribunal. As such, Hizbullah became embroiled in tit-for- tat Lebanese politics. Not only has Hizbullah's popularity sharply decreased among non-Shias in Lebanon and across the Arab world, but Hizbullah proved to be unfit for this kind of politics. Hizbullah often invented its own political and constitutional logic and stuck to it. While the party's militia might have displayed some successes in its wars with Israel in the past, Lebanon's politics proved to be much different, and Hizbullah clearly failed. With its failure, Hizbullah had to revert to tactics that it knows best: bullying. Hizbullah possesses the most organised paramilitary group in the region. It can send hundreds of thousands of protesters to the streets in short notice. Its propaganda machine can seriously smear the reputation of opponents. To save the Syrian regime and its allies in Lebanon, Hizbullah used its best assets, its militia and propaganda apparatus. But again, Lebanese politics proved different than fighting Israel. Hizbullah's hundreds of thousands in the streets were met by hundreds of thousands of Hizbullah's opponents. Hizbullah's propaganda was countered by anti-Hizbullah protest. The more Hizbullah used Shia Islam as a rallying cause for its supporters, the more it pushed away non-Shias and made them join groups of their sect against Hizbullah. Hizbullah has proven inadequate for Lebanon's politics. It uses false political pretexts to cover up for another agenda that it -- or maybe its regional allies -- would impose on Lebanon. As it stands, and as Hizbullah demands that it gets a bigger share in government under false pretexts, it is actually Hizbullah who should yield a portion of its powers to the state. * The writer is a Lebanese journalist based in Washington, DC.
