Does the United States Have Reliable Partners in Lebanon?

For Lebanon, political stalemate and dysfunction are the norm, and regular observers are therefore struck by a perpetual case of de ja vu.

Article 49 of the Lebanese Constitution mandates that Parliament – not the public - elects the country’s president. The vote is conducted through a secret ballot, and the candidate earning the votes of at least two-thirds of a qualified majority of parliamentarians wins.  Last week, the Lebanese Parliament failed for the twelfth time to successfully elect a President declining to elect either Sleiman Frangieh, a dyed-in-the-wool Assadist, and Hezbollah’s preferred candidate, or Jihad Azour, a former Finance Minister. Azour has no chance of winning the presidency despite possessing arguably broader Maronite legitimacy than Frangieh, the main criterion for being elected Lebanon’s president. He is merely being used by Hezbollah’s political opponents to block Frangieh’s election.

With this latest failure, the legislative body perpetuated a presidential vacancy that began on October 31, 2022. This delay recalls the similar two-year stalemate which eventually resulted in the election of the outgoing presidential incumbent, Michel Aoun.

Lebanon’s current constitution – revised after the 1975-1990 civil war – left the presidency with largely symbolic powers. Crucially, however, it invested the President with the sole authority to set in motion the process by which a prime minister is appointed. The prime minister, in turn, assembles a cabinet, thus completing the formation of Lebanon’s executive authority. Absent this symbolic gesture, Lebanon will continue to be led by a caretaker premier, Najib Mikati, who lacks the authority necessary to enact reforms.  Importantly, the caretaker authority is unable to enact and execute the laws and fundamental economic reforms which Lebanon so desperately needs.

But these are all technical details. As history has repeatedly shown – particularly since the 2005 Cedar Revolution ended Syrian hegemony and restored unfettered decision-making power to Lebanese political factions – even fully-staffed Lebanese governments have proven ineffective at steering the country in a positive direction.

For the United States, a recognition of this fact should be sobering as it pursues alliances with “effective partners” in Lebanon, even if no such partners are to be found.

Since 2006, the United States has been providing financial and armed assistance and training to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). The objective of this assistance, per the State Department, is to enable Lebanon to “strengthen [its] sovereignty, secure its borders, counter internal threats, and disrupt terrorist facilitation,” and counts “border security, maritime security…[countering] arms transfers, and counterterrorism,” among its “key areas of cooperation,” and “the presence of the terrorist group Hizballah,” as a critical challenge to both U.S. and Lebanese interests.

Seventeen years later, any objective assessment of these metrics reveals this policy to be a total failure. Particularly on the issue of prime concern to U.S. interests, i.e., Hezbollah. The group is not merely a Lebanese problem, but the spearhead of the regional expansionism of Washington’s key regional adversary, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Tehran would have been incapable of racking up recent regional accomplishments without Hezbollah.

LAF is subordinate to civilian control and, like all other Lebanese state institutions, cannot act without political and social consensus. Whether Washington cares to admit it or not, Hezbollah is – as both the group and Lebanese politicians repeatedly state – an integral part of Lebanon’s political and social fabric. To the extent that elections are an accurate reflection of popular support, Hezbollah won 356,122 votes and 15 direct seats in the May 2022 parliamentary elections, up from 343,220 and 13 seats in the 2018 election. That is a significant number in a country of approximately 4.7 million citizens.

Some dismiss this gain by echoing dubious claims that the pro-Hezbollah bloc is divided or that these votes don’t track with Lebanon’s demographic growth in the interim 2018-2022 period and are, therefore, somehow a loss for the Shiite group.  The fact remains, however, that in absolute numbers, Hezbollah won more votes than any other party in Lebanon, including the 203,397 votes that went to its main opponent, the Lebanese Forces party. Hezbollah remains part of the consensus and part of all levels of the country’s decision-making. This includes LAF’s decisions and actions, and it is impossible to imagine a scenario where Hezbollah adds its voice to the consensus required to enable the Lebanese Army to disarm, curtail, or hinder the group.

Successive Lebanese political figures have been held up as the West’s “next great hope” to bring stability to the country. Rafic Hariri, Fouad Siniora, Saad Hariri, Tammam Salam, and then Saad Hariri again, all failed to right the Lebanese ship or curb Hezbollah, irrespective of U.S. r support. One way or another, without exception, by force or political fiat, all bowed to Lebanon’s political realities and came to a modus vivendi with Hezbollah.

In fact, the commitment of these supposed saviors to changing Lebanon’s self-destructive status quo is dubious. For example, Lebanon’s long-standing Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh, traditionally counted as a U.S. partner, now has two international arrest warrants issued in his name – by France and Germany – for embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars from the central bank.

While some have tried to spin this as a positive development for Lebanon portending further anti-corruption measures, Salameh was but one of the foxes guarding the Lebanese henhouse. The others, including the country’s entire political apparatus spanning both pro- and anti-Hezbollah forces, remain as entrenched in power as ever. In this context, domestic and foreign moves against Salameh must be viewed as symbolic, an act of scapegoating one corrupt official to exonerate the rest. This theater of the absurd was on display when Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah called on the central bank governor to resign, and Gebran Bassil, one of Lebanon’s most notoriously corrupt politicians, was among the voices calling for Salameh’s arrest.

The apparent aggressive stance of Judge Tarek Bitar, who is investigating the August 2020 Beirut Port Blast, has led some to place their hopes in the Lebanese judiciary. But the political machinations which have hamstrung Bitar’s pursuit of justice despite his seemingly earnest best intentions should also put those hopes to rest. The victims have complained that they, and not Lebanon’s incompetent political echelon, have been the target of the broader judicial system. At this point, sadly, it should be accepted that the explosion’s victims will never receive justice. The case, much like the investigations into Lebanon’s countless political assassinations, languishes in perpetual limbo and demonstrates that an independent Lebanese judiciary is a mirage.

Finally, there is Lebanese civil society and “independents.” There is little that enchants a certain sector of Washington D.C.’s analyst-cum-activist and policymaker set than pro-democratic sloganeering in far-flung lands. These dreams seemed to materialize when, on October 17, 2019, hundreds of thousands of Lebanese took to the streets, seemingly demanding the overturning of Lebanon’s old political order. Naïve voices in Washington were elated and therefore failed to examine the composition or capabilities of the diffuse protest movement, let alone its agenda.  Excitement was renewed when these activists won an unprecedented number of seats in Lebanon’s 2022 parliamentary elections.

Here too, disappointment followed. Maximalist slogans may work in the streets, but once in the halls of power, the most celebrated of these “independent,” “opposition,” and “civil society” candidates folded in the face of reality and the byzantine nature of Lebanese politics. Elias Jarade, an “independent” hailed for an upset victory over a Hezbollah candidate, quickly moved to establish a modus vivendi with the group, stressing his prioritization of protecting the “resistance” and honoring its accomplishments and “martyrs” over implementing structural reforms to the Lebanese system. Marc Daou, another vaunted independent, proved as intransigent and maximalist as Hezbollah in last year’s maritime border negotiations between Lebanon and Israel.

There are voices in Lebanon, America, and elsewhere who insist that supporting Lebanon is a critical U.S. interest. Perhaps a functioning and sovereign Lebanon independent of foreign interference would be a crucial ally to Washington in the region. But that is not the Lebanon of today, which effectively amounts to a failed state or a collection of feudalistic fiefdoms de facto dominated by Iran’s extension Hezbollah. Nor has America’s Sisyphean quest of backing successive Lebanese Sirens for almost two decades rectified the situation. In fact, more likely, it has contributed to the perpetuation of Lebanon’s self-destructive dysfunction.