January 13, 2025 | Haaretz
With No Power or Constitutional Authority, Lebanon’s New President Won’t Disarm Hezbollah
January 13, 2025 | Haaretz
With No Power or Constitutional Authority, Lebanon’s New President Won’t Disarm Hezbollah
After two years of deadlock, the proverbial white smoke has emerged from Lebanon’s parliament in Beirut’s Nejmeh Square. Former Lebanese Armed Forces commander Joseph Aoun has been elected as Lebanon’s fourteenth president – to rare unanimous Lebanese and international acclaim.
Particular attention has been paid to Aoun’s promise, in his inaugural speech, to usher in a sovereigntist “new era” in Lebanon, where, among other matters, “the state would monopolize carrying arms” – interpreted as a promise to disarm Hezbollah.
But Aoun’s words remain just that, and optimism over his promises remains premature, not least because he lacks the constitutional authority and powers to fulfill them alone.
Lebanon’s quasi-constitutional 1989 Taif Agreement, which ended the country’s 15-year civil war, redistributed the country’s political powers to reflect demographic developments.
The Agreement stripped the Lebanese Presidency, an office earmarked by custom for a Maronite Christian and the embodiment of Maronite hegemony over Lebanon, of many of its authorities – reflecting the diminution of Maronite numbers.
Where, under Lebanon’s Ancien Régime, Aoun could have ordered the Lebanese Armed Forces to disarm Hezbolah, the Taif system granted that authority exclusively to the Cabinet – Lebanon’s true executive power which sets government policy in “all fields” and controls the armed forces.
Fifty-five of 128 Lebanese parliamentarians will reportedly back caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati to head the Cabinet, and he is therefore likely to retain the premiership. Mikati has already said, on December 5, that Hezbollah’s arms will be addressed only through “national consensus” and dialogue.
Practically, given Hezbollah’s parliamentary representation – fifteen seats – and Lebanon’s now longstanding convention of forming national unity governments, Hezbollah will join the Cabinet.
Hezbollah is also highly popular among Lebanese Shiites, Lebanon’s likely largest and fastest growing sect. It won 356,000 of 1.8 million votes cast in May 2022’s parliamentary elections – the most of any party by 150,000 votes – and January and September 2024 polls found upwards of 85 percent of Lebanese Shiites support the group.
Given this support and the sensitivity of the question of Hezbollah’s arms, the Cabinet is unlikely to take any measure against the group without unanimous consent – in other words, asking for Hezbollah’s unlikely permission to disarm the group.
Aoun, who also promised not to overstep his authorities and respect the constitutional separation of powers, is not unlikely to agitate for a contrary course. In fact, Aoun reached his post as a “consensus candidate,” and therefore agitation isn’t in his mandate – much as some would like to imagine its presence.
Lebanon in his self-described “new era” is already heavily burdened with reviving its crashed economy and reconstruction after last year’s devastating war with Israel.
Both Aoun and Beirut can therefore ill-afford to carry those burdens while clashing with Hezbollah. At best, the group could respond with paralyzing obstructionism. But if it feels threatened enough, matters could devolve into a civil war.
Especially when Lebanon now has little incentive to clash with Hezbollah. With Aoun’s election, American and Western officials intend to increase pressure on Israel to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon by January 27 and make the cease-fire between the two countries permanent.
The likelihood of Israel resuming its campaign against Hezbollah has therefore dropped precipitously – meaning its sequel, when it occurs, will not be for at least another decade and will be targeted and relatively short-lived when it does.
By contrast, a civil war could last for at least a decade and bring untold destruction upon Lebanon. So the balance of pain weighs against Aoun acting against Hezbollah.
Furthermore, far from being an anti-Hezbollah pugilist, Aoun’s record as army commander demonstrates a history of coordination – if not cooperation – with Hezbollah. He was also elected with Hezbollah’s blessing and, more importantly, with its votes.
The immediate reason leading the group to vote for Aoun was the withdrawal, earlier on election day, of its preferred candidate Sleiman Frangieh – who threw his own backing behind the army commander.
But Hezbollah was less wedded to the person of Frangieh than it was to obstruct the presidential election process. If they could pressure Beirut’s political forces – as they did in 2016 – into electing their preferred candidate, they would have gained an overtly friendly ideological partner as head of state. If not, Hezbollah could at least wear down their opponents into electing an amenable and non-threatening “consensus” president – just like Aoun.
Indeed, Aoun had been reportedly sending Hezbollah (and its ally, the Amal Party) calming messages long before election day. Additionally, according to pro-Hezbollah mouthpiece Al-Akhbar and other Lebanese outlets, Aoun privately met with Hezbollah officials before the election, calming their “security, political, and military concerns,” and promised his presidency would not further the triumphalism of Hezbollah’s opponents.
Hezbollah (and Amal) still declined to vote for him during the first round of votes held on January 9, casting blank ballots instead, to demonstrate their continued hold over Lebanon’s political processes – upon which Aoun met with them again and ultimately gained their votes in the second round of voting.
These reports also indicated that Saudi Arabia and France also granted Hezbollah assurances regarding Aoun, and Iran greenlit its Lebanese extension’s vote for the LAF commander.
Hezbollah also needs funds for reconstruction assistance – vital to keep its supporters happy or at least quiescent. After the drubbing it took from Israel during last year’s war, which included strikes on many of its financial institutions, Hezbollah’s isn’t necessarily broke, but its liquidity is certainly compromised.
Add to this that the group’s Iranian patron – which has nevertheless reportedly sent it $1 billion in aid after the November 27 cease-fire, alongside additional financial assistance from the group’s regional allies – is suffering an unprecedented financial and energy crisis, only likely to worsen as the incoming Trump administration assumes office in Washington.
The only solution for Hezbollah, then, is for the international community to provide the Lebanese State with reconstruction aid, which will then be channeled to rebuilding areas of Lebanon where Hezbollah predominates.
Hence, Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem‘s insistence, during his December 5, 2024 speech, that the group would be working “hand in hand with the Lebanese government…supplementing [its reconstruction] assistance and giving the appropriate amounts if we consider that what the government is providing is lacking in some ways.”
But without the election of a president, whose presence is necessary to set the wheels of government in motion, that vital international aid will not be forthcoming.
Lebanon is in a vulnerable state. The destructive war that Hezbollah brought upon the country compounded a five-year financial crisis with few historical precedents – and hit its support base the hardest.
The group cannot be seen as a spoiler as Beirut is trying to regain its footing, and re-open the spigots of international assistance, with the election of Aoun. Hence Mohammad Raad, the head of Hezbollah’s “Loyalty to the Resistance” parliamentary bloc, saying Hezbollah cast its votes for Aoun to protect “the national consensus.”
This is not a sign of Hezbollah “Lebanonizing” as some have groundlessly theorized. To the contrary, the group is seeking to replicate the post-civil war pragmatism that led it to rebrand from the “Islamic Revolution in Lebanon” to “the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon” and participate in the Lebanese political system which, a few years prior, was anathema to the group.
Back then, Hezbollah did so to avoid finding becoming the outlier to the Lebanese consensus. It is acting pragmatically now to do so again, adapting and picking its battles to survive and rebuild.
Aoun will seek to do the same for Lebanon, and will therefore avoid unnecessary clashes with the group. Whatever excitement the election of Lebanon’s new president has elicited in Beirut’s and foreign halls of power, it should be tempered with the sobering realization that President Joseph Aoun, Lebanon’s fourteenth president, is unlikely to oversee or promote Hezbollah’s dissolution.
David Daoud is Senior Fellow at at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies where he focuses on Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon affairs.