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Macron, Back in Beirut, Gives Lebanese Leaders a Warning on the Need to Reform (Part 1)

Sep 5, 2020 10:00 am By Hugh Fitzgerald

The French President, who has been the foreign leader most involved in pushing for reforms of the Lebanese political system, is back in Beirut to pressure the Lebanese leadership to make haste with those “reforms,” which may help bring the country back from the brink of economic ruin. His visit is described here.

French President Emmanuel Macron has warned Lebanese politicians they risk sanctions if they fail to set the nation on a new course within three months, stepping up pressure for reforms in a country collapsing under the weight of an economic crisis.

So far there has been no sign of reforms. The cabinet resigned en masse in mid-August, only to be replaced by a caretaker cabinet consisting of the same kind of permanent fixtures in the Lebanese political machine as were those they replaced. The President, Michel Aoun, announced he would not be resigning, however, because as “the father of my people” he chose to nobly stay on, out of a sense of duty. Everyone had a good laugh over that. In his years in office, Michel Aoun, a Christian ally of Hezbollah, has managed to amass a fortune of $90 million, and has watched proudly as his son-in-law, former Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, has acquired $50 million for himself.

Just a day before Macron arrived for his second visit to Beirut, the Lebanese politicians managed to agree on a new Prime Minister, Mustapha Adib, whose candidacy Macron had pushed. No doubt they wanted to name him before the French President flew in, in order to give the illusion of progress. Adib has been a professor of law and a diplomat (currently posted to Germany); this history suggests that he may indeed be outside the usual political class. On the other hand, Adib has been a political protégé of Nijab Mikati, the richest man in Lebanon, with $3.3 billion, and given how that kind of money is made in Lebanon, one has reason to be wary.

Visiting for the second time in less than a month, Macron marked Lebanon’s centenary by planting a cedar tree, the emblem of a nation that is facing its biggest threat to stability since the 1975-1990 civil war.

“It’s the last chance for this system,” Macron told POLITICO in an interview while traveling to Beirut on Monday. “It’s a risky bet I’m making, I am aware of it … I am putting the only thing I have on the table: my political capital.”

Macron said he was seeking “credible commitments” and a “demanding follow-up mechanism” from Lebanon’s leaders, including a legislative election in six to 12 months.

Should they fail to shift direction in the next three months, he told POLITICO, punitive measures could be imposed, including withholding bailout money and sanctions on the ruling class.

Macron hasn’t spelled out what “credible commitments” he wants. But since corruption is a colossal problem, here are some suggestions that he may not have thought of.

First, there should be total transparency about the wealth of government officials, including cabinet members, members of Parliament, and the officials of major parties.. That includes tax records, bank statements, the value of all real estate owned – to be reported publicly every year. If a cabinet minister making $75,000 a year is living in a four-million dollar house, or has millions in the bank, and has no explanation for this, the public has a right to know. How exactly did President Aoun make his $90 million? Or Gebran Bassil his $50 million? We’re all ears.

Second, there is rampant nepotism in Lebanon, as in so many Middle Eastern countries. An anti-nepotism law is needed, so as to avoid such scandals as the President’s son-in-law being appointed Foreign Minister. The hiring of powerful politicians’ relatives — their extended families — for government sinecures needs to end. Politicians will have to report the names of any relatives who have been placed in such government jobs. Term limits, too, would be a good idea, to force out the sclerotic warlords who, representing their own sects – Shi’a, Sunni, Christian, Druze — for decades have peopled the political landscape. Investigative journalists should be encouraged to keep politicians sufficiently scared to be honest.

Another kind of reform has to do so with Hezbollah, which is now more powerful than the Lebanese Armed Forces. No state should be expected to tolerate a huge armed force within its territory, answerable not to the government but only to its own leaders who are – like Hassan Nasrallah — in thrall to another country. Lebanon is the only country in the world where this state of affairs is permitted. The government should call for the disarming of “all military forces in Lebanon except for the Lebanese Armed Forces.” This is directed, of course, only at Hezbollah, that need not be named. Everyone will understand. The Christian armed forces – the South Lebanon Army, the Lebanese Forces — disbanded decades ago. The government decree should go something like this: “All weapons should be turned over to the LAF (Lebanese Armed Forces); small arms and artillery will be kept by the LAF, while missiles and rockets will be destroyed. The Lebanese Armed Forces will again be the only armed force in the country.” Hezbollah will naturally refuse to comply – at first — and hope, as it has so often, to brazen it out. But that is where the foreign donors like Macron come in. They will refuse to release any funds to Lebanon until Hezbollah has complied with the order to disarm. The fury of the Lebanese people at Hezbollah — for helping to cause their ruinous financial straits in the first place, for being responsible for the Beirut blast, and now, by refusing to give up its weapons, it is preventing a possible rescue by foreign donors — will be impossible to contain. Waves of street protests, not only by Christians and Sunnis but also by the large numbers of Shi’a who, since Hezbollah last fall suppressed those protesting against government mismanagement and corruption, and especially since the Beirut blast for which it was entirely responsible, have come to see Hezbollah as a threat to their well-being.

Lebanese politicians, some of them former warlords who have overseen decades of industrial-scale corruption, face a daunting task with an economy in meltdown, a swathe of Beirut in tatters after the Aug. 4 port blast and sectarian tensions rising.

Hours before he [Macron] arrived on Monday, a new prime minister was designated, Mustapha Adib, following a consensus among major parties forged under pressure from Macron over the weekend.

Macron said he would use his weight to press for the formation of a new government. Without reforms, funds pledged at a 2018 donor conference in Paris would not be released, he said.

At that April 2018 donor conference, $10.2 billion in loans, and $860 million in grants were pledged to help Lebanon with its reconstruction. including damage from the war with Israel started by Hezbollah in 2006, and to help it with housing and other infrastructure for the 1.5 million Syrian refugees now living in the country. But that money has still not been delivered. The donors are waiting to see if Lebanon’s political class can reform itself.

Macron visited Beirut in the immediate aftermath of the port explosion that killed more than 190 people and injured 6,000.

Macron said in Beirut that the international community must stay focused on the emergency in Lebanon for six weeks and that he was ready to help organize an international conference, in coordination with the United Nations, in mid to late October.

“I am ready to host it in Paris,” he said.

Aside from the 2018 Donor Conference, Macron also held a smaller conference in August 2020 on emergency aid for Lebanon after the Beirut blast. Donor countries pledged $300 million in aid, a most disappointing sum given that the Beirut blast caused $10-$15 billion in damages. And instead of staying focused on Lebanon, that “international community” Macron likes to invoke has turned its attention back to the pandemic, and the deaths, economic calamities, and sky-high unemployment the coronavirus has everywhere caused. And in the Middle East, attention has quickly switched from Lebanon to the UAE’s normalization of ties with Israel. Macron is very determined, but with the woes of Lebanon multiplying, he’s got a lot on his plate.

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Filed Under: Featured, France, Hizballah, Hugh Fitzgerald, Lebanon Tagged With: Emmanuel Macron


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Comments

  1. mortimer says

    Sep 5, 2020 at 10:53 am

    Good luck. I hope financier Macron can succeed where others have failed. The real problem with Lebanon is supremacist ISLAM. The Muslims are backward and can’t allow those of other religions to succeed. It’s a blow to their inflated egos.

    Muslims in Lebanon would rather level their country to the ground rather than see it successful under the leadership of hard-working, well-educated Lebanese Christians.

    • Ismail Ali says

      Sep 6, 2020 at 2:43 am

      You are wrong …A piece of religious rubbish ..was it not the same colonial Master that laid the foundation ,for this ugly scenario that Lebanon is facing today ?

      • James Lincoln says

        Sep 6, 2020 at 11:13 am

        Ismail Ali,

        One thing that we can all count on here at Jihad Watch is that you will always give us the devout muslim point of view…

      • SAFI says

        Sep 6, 2020 at 11:31 am

        Are you refering to the Ottomans or one of the several previous “colonial” caliphates? Oh you mean the 2 decades of French mandate rule… yeah that’s what “laid the foundation” not the (islamic) sectarian extremist mafia that has taken over the state and keeps pillaging Lebanon for decades…

  2. gravenimage says

    Sep 5, 2020 at 9:38 pm

    Macron, Back in Beirut, Gives Lebanese Leaders a Warning on the Need to Reform (Part 1)
    ………………….

    Well, I *hope* this does some good…

    • Ismail Ali says

      Sep 6, 2020 at 2:38 am

      Trust France ,,Give by left hand and take back by right hand …the colonial master style .

      • James Lincoln says

        Sep 6, 2020 at 11:14 am

        Ismail Ali,

        One thing that we can all count on here at Jihad Watch is that you will always give us the devout muslim point of view…

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