By Darlene Casella
French President Emmanuel Macron has been on a diplomatic quest in Lebanon for two years.
Many fear that his efforts will reward Iran-backed Hezb’allah more than benefit beleaguered Lebanon.
Macron’s distractors question whether he is capable of motivating Lebanese leaders to reform prevalent mismanagement and corruption.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Macron last week discussed cooperation and determination to work together pull Lebanon out of crisis.
The Saudi/French joint effort to help Lebanon brings a new twist to the multi-dimensional political chess game in the Middle East.
Iran and Saudi Arabia have been historic enemies. Macron supports the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezb’allah as a political organization.
But first, scroll back to 2020, which was where much of the crisis in Lebanon started..
White smoke billowed from the port’s grain silos on the Mediterranean Coast.
If this was Rome, we might have thought a new pope had been elected.
However, this was Beirut.
The roof caught on fire, and then a stupendous mushroom cloud exploded into the air. Supersonic shock waves emanated throughout the city in the world’s largest ever non-nuclear explosion.
More than 200 died, more than 6,500 were injured, much of the port was destroyed, homes were destroyed, and it is estimated to have caused $3 to $4 billion in damage, not a trivial thing for a small country.
This catastrophic event began Lebanon’s downward spiral.
Investigations into cause have been blocked. Prime Minister Hassan Diab and his cabinet resigned. President Joseph Aoun left office in October 2022.
An economic crisis followed, brought on by central bank mismanagement. Angry citizens stormed banks demanding their savings. The Lebanese currency, the poound or lire, as it is called, plunged 80% this year.
The economy went into and remains in a freefall. Lawmakers failed for the twelfth time since October to elect a president. A protracted power vacuum is among the reasons the World Bank ranks Lebanon as potentially one of the top three most severe economic crises in the world since the mid-nineteenth century.
Government top positions are allocated along religious lines: President, a Maronite Christian; Speaker of the Parliament, a Shi’a Muslim; and Prime Minister, a Sunni Muslim. A presidential candidate must receive a 2/3 majority in parliament in the first round. If not reached, further elections are held until someone reaches a simple majority.
Candidates in last week’s failed election – Suleiman Frangieh, supported by Hezb’allah, and a close friend of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. General Joseph Aoun (no relation to the former president) Commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces. Gebran Bassil, who leads the Free Patriotic Movement and is the son-in-law of former President Michel Aoun. Michel Moawad, Member of Parliament and the son of former President Rene Moawad, who was assassinated (1989).
Iran-backed Hezb’allah is a global Islamic jihad network; responsible for bombings, assassinations, and murders throughout Europe and Southeast Asia.
Decades ago, Lebanon ordered the dissolution of all militias, except Hezb’allah. The European Union declared Hezb’allah a terrorist organization in 2013. The United States, Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands have each banned Hezb’allah. Hezb’allah fires rockets into Israel from southern Lebanon, and denies Israel’s right to exist.
France is a holdout country protecting Hezb’allah.
President Trump’s U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, sparked a political discussion in 2020 with his article in Die Welt calling for Berlin to ban the radical Islamic Hezb’allah. Following this, Germany banned Hezb’allah. U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken said that Hezb’allah is a threat to the United States, the Middle East and globally. Reuters reported that Macron advised President Biden to adopt a more realistic attitude towards Hezb’allah to help break the political impasse in Lebanon.
The French president regards Hezb’allah as a political party, not a terrorist group. Many disagree, including Nadim Gemayel a Member of Lebanese Parliament.
Gemayel said in a radio broadcast on June 6, 2023: “He knew that France had fallen when French President Macron came to Lebanon and urged the Lebanese people to ‘put Hezb’allah aside.’
Gemayel also said: “…all of France’s interest in Lebanon are channeled through Hezb’allah in an effort to reach Iran and all the investments that Hezb’allah can facilitate in Africa or in Iran.”
Nadim believes that Macron is wrong, and there is no distinction between Hezb’allah the terrorist organization and Hezb’allah the political entity.
Lebanon and Arab nations share some cultural characteristics, but the country is not a kingdom.
It is a republic with a parliamentary government. National Assembly members are elected for four years. Women vote and can hold office.
One of the world’s smallest sovereign states, Lebanon is located on the Mediterranean Sea and shares borders with Syria and Israel. Historically it was part of the Ottoman Empire. After World War I, Lebanon was a French Military Mandate. It became a republic in 1926 and gained independence in 1943.
Macron is an advocate of the Iran Nuclear Deal. When the U.S. pulled out of that agreement, and placed sanctions on Iran; Macron proposed a multi-billion-dollar credit deal to help Iran’s lost oil trade. Macron advocates for Iran-backed Hezb’allah as a political party and makes a distinction between that and the Hezb’allah terrorist organization. A distinction that Hezb’allah does not make.
For his quest in Lebanon, will history find Emmanuel Macron to have been Don Quixote, Winston Churchill or Neville Chamberlin?