To Be or Not to Be
To be or not to be. In this famous tirade, Shakespeare symbolizes life with its share of pain, injustice, and suffering, which we have endured for decades, but it also embodies death and suicide as a way out. If a fanatical splinter group has decided to take this path in the name of an obscurantist cause, the majority of Lebanese openly reject it.
The Announced End of a Tyranny
The signs are not deceiving. History teaches us this again and again. When a dictatorship such as that of the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards finds itself cornered, when danger looms, when the delusions and megalomania it long fed on for its survival crash against harsh reality, when the house of cards it painstakingly built for decades at any cost, in defiance of all moral and ethical consideration for a population it believes it holds under its yoke, collapses, when despair takes over and all indicators turn red, then blind fanaticism, furious hysteria, and kamikaze madness take over and prevail over reason.
To paraphrase Georges Clemenceau: “Dictatorships are like impalement: they start well but end badly.” The Iranian frog that wanted to make itself as big as the ox eventually imploded. But at an always exorbitant price for the populations bending under its vicious grip. The same goes for its agent in Lebanon, Hezbollah.
Has the Mountain Given Birth to a Mouse?
“You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war.” In my view, this acerbic and premonitory criticism by Churchill of Chamberlain symbolically illustrates the government's policy towards Hezbollah.
After weeks of tranquility, the rockets sent to Israel by Hezbollah on March 1st were not only a resounding slap in the face and an affront to the state, but above all, blatant proof that this militia's loyalty to Lebanon is null and void. Without any military value, they are mere wasted efforts, a headlong rush, an irresponsible and suicidal act.
Paranoia, delusion, megalomania, and blind fanaticism are the guiding threads. But the price paid by the Lebanese people, and particularly the Shiite community that the militia claims to represent, is very heavy. It entails not only enormous material devastation, painful human losses, general impoverishment, displacement of populations, and boundless humiliation, but above all, the destiny and future of an entire country that the murderous aberration of a totalitarian, doctrinaire, exalted organization, totally subservient to the Islamic Republic of Iran, is leading directly to the abyss.
The decision of March 2, 2026, to consider the party's military wing an outlaw organization, unfortunately came too late. The iron should have been struck fifteen months ago, when it was hot. Missing the momentum proved fatal and benefited the militia, which exploited official laxity and lack of firmness to pursue, right under everyone's noses, subversion and destabilization.
The Pigeon Grotto's pressure tactics were, however, a harbinger of problems to come. Instead of firmly opposing and prohibiting it, instead of putting a stop to it, the authorities deemed it better to lie low and wait for the storm to pass. And on March 2, again with another attack towards Israel. A new defiance of the government's decision.
Trying too hard to smooth things over often leads to missing the boat. History teaches us that at a given and fateful moment, banging one's fist on the table and showing intransigence when it comes to the superior interest of the State are necessary and crucial, regardless of the potential price to pay. Notwithstanding President Joseph Aoun's vain attempts to bring the militia to reason (this same militia that had signed the ceasefire agreement and its disarmament throughout Lebanese territory), the average citizen has the legitimate right to consider that Aoun was duped, and us with him.
Threats of civil war, military schism, Syrian invasion, and other demonic scenarios daily propagated by Hezbollah's propaganda are nothing more than smoke screens, crude scarecrows intended to sow fear and confusion. “Tyrants are great only because we are on our knees,” wrote A. de Tocqueville.
The Eternal Recurrence?
Zeus condemned Sisyphus to eternally roll a boulder to the top of a hill, which boulder tumbles down the hill when it reaches the summit. Sisyphus knows the extent of his miserable condition and it is of that he thinks during the descent. But he chooses life against all odds, does not give in to despair, and continues to roll his rock, thus defying the gods.
This tragic myth makes me think of our drained country, caught in the eye of the storm, a maelstrom from which it will have enormous difficulty escaping, but it has no choice but to fight evil and conquer it. However, time is pressing. Urgency is at our doorstep. Words and official good intentions are not enough and have proven sterile, ineffective, and counterproductive to date.
Procrastinations, hesitations, political jargon are no longer acceptable and cannot be tolerated. As long as the authorities do not immediately implement the official decision to once and for all impose the law over the entire territory, as long as they do not have the audacity, determination, and courage to bring Hezbollah to heel and disarm it without kid gloves and without asking its permission, Lebanon will remain at the mercy of irresponsibles, thugs, and criminals, and will enjoy no international credibility or sympathy, incidentally to the great satisfaction of Israel, which was waiting for the misstep to carry out, in good conscience, its undermining work, which it will persist in pursuing until further notice.