Up until the past week, both the March 14 and March 8 camps – despite the occasional outburst – appeared to be trying in good faith (or trying to appear to be trying) to reach an understanding over the issue of the presidency. However, several recent statements from the leading opposition figures have shattered any emerging spirit of consensus-building. Hassan Nasrallah’s speech on Sunday and General Michel Aoun’s interviews, with al-Manar television on Monday and al-Jazeera last week, revealed a more intractable strategy by the March 8 forces. If the majority does not confront this new challenge aggressively, it risks losing all that it has gained for Lebanon over the past two years.
It seems as though the opposition is losing confidence in Nabih Berri to cajole the pro-government forces into accepting their demands. Instead, they are now trying to assure the election of a president sympathetic to Hezbollah through blunt intimidation and threats. By launching a new attack on the political program of the majority, and re-writing the rules that had previously governed mediation efforts, the March 8 leaders have severely weakened the prospects that mediation efforts will succeed.
The message is clear: Deal with us, or the crisis will only escalate. Aoun issued his strongest warning yet about the imminent formation of a second government, saying that one will “soon be established” if a president is elected with a simple majority. He went on to warn about the possibility of a “resistance movement against the government” if a compromise solution is not reached. It is unclear what exactly Aoun has in mind, but the echoes of the “resistance movement” against Israel are hard to miss.
Nasrallah drew the comparison between Lebanon’s democratically elected government and Israel more explicitly. He went so far as accusing some of them of “banking on a new Israeli war against the resistance and the opposition.” March 14 forces should not downplay the importance of Nasrallah’s remarks – he has essentially accused them of treason, and their official silence is deafening. Coupled with Aoun’s remarks, these twin speeches mark a dangerous and irresponsible turn in the opposition’s tactics. Hezbollah’s primary method of dealing with arch-foe Israel is not dialogue, after all, but violence. To take steps towards treating the Lebanese government in the same way is an ominous development.
Meanwhile, both Aoun and Nasrallah were also busy undercutting the grounds on which compromise can be reached. In his interview on Monday, Aoun came out against Bkirki nominating presidential candidates, a view reiterated to NOW Lebanon on Wednesday by his political relations officer Gebran Bassil. On Sunday, Nasrallah insisted that “all issues must be discussed in connection to each other,” meaning that the presidential election could not be considered separately from the formation of a new cabinet and the appointment of a new army commander. With the opposing factions finding it almost impossible to agree on the issue of the presidency by itself, the suggestion that all of Lebanon’s political crises can be patched up in the next 10 days borders on the absurd.
It is time for March 14 to fight back – not only by responding to and dismantling the outrageous charges leveled against it by Aoun and Nasrallah, but also by reasserting the principles which were responsible for its majority in the first place. The ideals of March 14 inspired over one million Lebanese to take to the streets, but today, that momentous day often seems far too distant from the political bloc it gave its name.
If March 14 is seen as giving in to the opposition’s bullying tactics, the intimidation and threats will only increase. It must reaffirm that there are certain issues, such as Lebanon’s sovereignty, that can never be compromised.
March 14 must remind the world – and the opposition – that it has some red lines of its own.