Where, Then, Is that Much-Vaunted Shiite Prudence?

“The Shiites want a state” (1), the late Speaker Hussein el-Husseini would repeat tirelessly. This was his refrain and his answer to those Lebanese who made no secret of their distrust of the rise of a community that had long been disadvantaged—or at least never ceased to portray itself as marginalized.

A seasoned political veteran, he did not mean that the Twelver Shiites should seize power and exclude the country’s other communities. Far from it: his only ambition for his community was for it to be allowed, like the other religious groups, to take part in governing the country, share in its benefits, and be recognized not as the nation’s poor relations but as full citizens.

And who could deny them that ambition or challenge those expectations?

And what do we have today?

The trouble is that Speaker Husseini’s apt formulation has been distorted. The Amal movement and the Party of God, combining an institutional foothold, political representation, and independent military power, have taken the country hostage. Having entrenched themselves at every level of the administration, they use their power to bring the machinery of government to a halt and veto any attempt at reform.

The two heads of the executive, no match for the ironclad pact forged by the Shiite tandem, take the blows whenever they cannot dodge them!

By way of illustration, consider the recent case of Hezbollah explosives seized at Dahr el-Baidar.

Given its seriousness, the case was supposed to be referred to the Judicial Council. Fearing that Hezbollah would carry out its threats, however, the authorities backed down—but only for now, we are told.

And that is not all. In deference to this tandem, the principles of the rule of law are repeatedly trampled underfoot. Most recently, Bassam Badran, a close associate of Nabih Berri, was reappointed as president of the Lebanese University, despite the Constitutional Council’s annulment of a law allowing the university’s president to seek a second term.

There is no shortage of such examples! Faced with this display of impotence and spinelessness, one has to wonder how the United States—and Tom Harb in particular—can still demand that the Lebanese army disarm Hezbollah.

Going forward, let us bear firmly in mind that the unitary state will continue to pursue an indecisive policy, so great is its fear of civil conflict with an armed militia!

Where will deliverance come from?

Every day, the Lebanese experience maneuvers aimed at capturing the state by undermining it from within.

And the takeover of what remains of the state apparatus is due not to the overrepresentation of Shiites in the army, foreign affairs, the judiciary, or education, but rather to clientelism, partisan appointments, and patronage practices that inhibit the executive’s ability to act and render it powerless.

By stripping the executive of its decision-making power, the Shiite duo imposes “its choices outside the normal mechanisms of public accountability” designed to ensure sound governance.

Republican legitimacy has been abandoned: shadowy backroom networks wield authority, and the country retains only a façade of pluralism.

As a result, our distinctively Lebanese political system, designed to guarantee coexistence among religious communities and allay their age-old fears, has “turned into a mechanism that paralyzes institutions and limits national sovereignty.”

In short, while the Shiite duo’s open obstruction and coercion define the prevailing situation, Lebanon’s other communities struggle on amid adversity and suspicion, wishing only for deliverance.

For a Shiite Qaimaqamate—a pilot district!

Perhaps we would do well to reread Kamal Salibi, who published a major work on Lebanese history in the 1960s: “Among the Shiites, a long history of persecution and repression was reflected in the community’s characteristic political timidity and its apparently loose organization” (2).

The eminent historian’s observation no longer holds true today. Since the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, and perhaps well before then, the Shiite community has undergone profound changes that were bound to reshape Lebanon’s political system.

But rather than carving out a place alongside the other communities, the Shiite parties sought to take over entirely. Riding a groundswell of support, Hezbollah arrogantly claimed the sovereign right to declare war, thereby dragging the Twelver Shiite community into reckless adventures on Iran’s behalf.

In short, Lebanon’s fabric has been continually torn apart since 1975.

Even if implemented down to the smallest detail, the Taif Agreement could not have mended it in its present state.

So why not consider establishing a Shiite qaimaqamate that would bring together Hezbollah supporters, whatever their religious affiliation, and where the Party of God would lay down the law?

It would be a “pilot zone,” to use the fashionable term, where hardliners could govern themselves in complete peace, without inflicting collateral damage on their partners and compatriots.

After all, Christians and Druze endured the trying period of the double qaimaqamate between 1842 and 1858, before enjoying more than fifty years of civil peace under the Mutasarrifate!

1- “The Shiites Want a State”

2- Kamal Salibi, A History of Lebanon, from the Seventeenth Century to the Present, Naufal, 1988, p. 29.