Haykal's response to Senator Graham: everything is relative

Americans are known for being "direct," especially in the questions they ask their interlocutors, expecting an automatic, Manichaean answer: yes/no, black/white.

Kash Patel, FBI director, during his Senate hearing, was relentlessly pressed by Senator Eric Swalwell with the same question: "Did you inform the Attorney General about the mention of Donald Trump's name in the Epstein file, yes or no?", a question to which Patel did not give the expected categorical answer.

While the answer to this question is simple, as it concerns a fact, the one posed by Senator Lindsey Graham, in Washington, to the army's commander-in-chief, General Rodolphe Haykal, is, however, much more complex, as it concerns an opinion, or even a political stance.

"Do you consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization?" is the quintessential question to which the army commander certainly could not answer with a simple affirmation or negation. His reply "No, in the Lebanese context" is not skillful, but it is not false either.

He could have said that, as long as the Lebanese government has not officially banned this organization, he is not in a position to comment on the matter, being himself a military officer executing instructions given to him by the political power.

However, and at the risk that the following comments may shock, Hezbollah is not (yet) considered an outlaw organization in Lebanon, especially since it is represented within the government and Parliament itself.

Unlike the IRA, which had the idea of separating its paramilitary wing from its political wing (Sinn Fein), which, thanks to leaders like Gerry Adams, managed to gain the upper hand over the militia, Hezbollah's military wing is the one that dominates the political wing, as well as the entire Lebanese system. Hezbollah MPs pose in militia attire, defend all positions as well as the instigation of wars and hostilities that have devastated the country.

The most disheartening thing is that other political factions, out of opportunism or, worse still, conviction, defend Hezbollah, which, during its glorious thirty years (from 1994 to 2024), has managed to extend its influence throughout the entire Lebanese administration, including the army.

It is undeniable that, since September 27, 2024, the militia's decline has begun. However, asking subordinates to change their ways (literally "change shoulder rifle" in this context) is utopian. The episode of the illumination of the Raouché grotto is the most flagrant example. One must give time to time, as Cervantes wrote, even if our political and/or military institutions show a certain quixotism by avoiding seeing "the elephant in the room" and tackling other problems that will never truly be resolved until Hezbollah has been definitively demilitarized.

But, here's the thing: time is pressing, and we don't have the luxury of waiting.

Therefore, Rodolphe Haykal's answer is not wrong: everything is relative, everything is a matter of perception. At the moment the question was asked, Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization in the eyes of the State. Otherwise, it would mean that Ministers Chéhadé, Issa el Khoury, Nassar, Raggi, and Saddi, as well as all sovereignist deputies, associate and discuss with criminals, and in a certain sense, are themselves criminals. One could always say in their defense that Judas had irreproachable friends, but that still remains a simplistic view of the situation.

Consequently, and very objectively, the fact that General Haykal gave an answer that does not necessarily correspond to the aspirations of a majority of Lebanese is not particularly reprehensible. However, what is unfortunate is that Hezbollah's lobotomized camp, their cerberuses and other individuals suffering from Mar Mikhael syndrome, far more powerful than that of Stockholm, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary, have already used and abused, in an Epsteinian manner, General Haykal's remarks to resurrect the triptych "army, people and resistance," a true triolism that the country and its entire population have endured for decades.

It remains to be hoped that the president will not bestow a new decoration upon Rodolphe Haykal's return, especially since the one he previously received (after Raouché) was the highest distinction. Unless a new category is envisioned: that of relative merit, a medal for services rendered to national confusion, awarded with honors by a State that prefers to decorate its contradictions rather than face its reality....