Lebanon: The Enemy Within

Lebanese have long repeated the popular saying: “A thousand enemies outside the house are better than one enemy within.” In few words, this proverb has distilled across generations an enduring political and national truth: external dangers, however formidable, remain less devastating than those that seep inward to strike at the unity of the state, paralyze its judgment and undermine its sovereignty.

It is through this lens that one can understand much of Lebanon’s suffering over recent decades. Iran has never dealt with the Lebanese state as a sovereign and independent entity possessed of its own constitutional institutions; it has always chosen instead to operate through forces and organizations that owe it political and ideological allegiance. In the regional circumstances following the Khomeinist revolution, under the banner of “exporting the Islamic revolution,” it found a propitious opportunity to build relays of influence extending well beyond its national borders into several Arab countries.

Over time, this went as far as a public boast of dominance over four Arab capitals, with Beirut at the top of that list. On the Lebanese domestic scene, Hezbollah successfully wielded the banner of resistance to entrench its political and military position, until its former Secretary-General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, openly declared that the Party’s money, weapons and resources all came from Iran.

Yet both parties have fallen into the same error. Iran behaved as though Lebanon had become an integral part of its direct sphere of influence, while Hezbollah conducted itself as though it were the supreme authority, standing above the institutions of the state and its constitutional powers. The facts, however, have demonstrated that Lebanon, despite everything it has endured, has not lost its capacity to rise again and restore its role and its institutions.

With the election of General Joseph Aoun to the presidency and the designation of Dr. Nawaf Salam as prime minister, a new political phase has opened, defined by the rehabilitation of the Lebanese state and the concept of national sovereignty. The conditions that had so long permitted projects of tutelage and domination to persist have shifted, and the clouds of occupation and foreign influence have begun to lift gradually from Lebanon’s sky, while many regional projects are revealing themselves for what they truly are.

The misfortune is that Hezbollah and Iran have refused to acknowledge these changes. Rather than revisiting their manner of engaging with the Lebanese state, they have continued to address it with the mentality of a past that is no longer. The Lebanese authorities had initially sought a calm and diplomatic language, one that combined respect with firmness, affirming the necessity of dealing with legitimate institutions as the sole authority empowered to express the will of the Lebanese people.

But the overreach continued, until the president of the Republic’s unambiguous position cut through it: Lebanese legitimacy, he made clear, resides in the Constitution and in the institutions of the state, and the Lebanese people are the vassal of no foreign state and the subject of no party leadership, whatever its size or influence.

Even so, certain Iranian stances continued to disregard these realities, reaching an unprecedented level of political and moral offense when an Iranian newspaper attacked the president of the Republic in terms unworthy of relations between states and disrespectful of national sovereignty. This conduct reveals the depth of the crisis gripping those who have still not grasped that Lebanon belongs to no one, and that the era of diktat and guardianship has begun to wane.

Lebanese have regarded Israel as an enemy for long decades, and the dispute with it remains open on fundamental questions of sovereignty, borders and security. But negotiating with adversaries and enemies is neither surrender nor concession — it is a political instrument to which states resort in order to defend their interests and protect their peoples. States negotiate from a position of self-confidence, not from a position of fear or subjugation.

By contrast, the wound that comes from within remains the most dangerous of all. Lebanese history is replete with episodes that have shown, time and again, that internal divisions and foreign allegiances have always been the widest gateway to crises and catastrophes. This is why the Lebanese have repeated that betrayal from the inside shakes the very mountains — because it comes from those who were supposed to share the same roof.

What Lebanon needs today is neither more transnational loyalties nor more projects that place foreign interests above the interests of Lebanese people. It needs a single state, a single authority, a single national decision. For when the state advances, influence retreats; when the logic of institutions prevails, the illusions of domination collapse of their own accord; and when the Lebanese rally around their constitutional institutions and legitimate authorities, there is no longer any room for a new Brutus to stab Lebanon from within.