How to disarm Hezbollah using a handy political lever

Lebanese soldiers stand guard at the entrance of the Burj Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp in southern Beirut, on August 29. EPA

Recently, during the session of a Lebanese parliamentary committee on a new election law, two of the country’s Shiite parliamentarians, one from Hezbollah and the second from the Amal Movement, floated an idea the government in Beirut should examine closely. The two MPs, Ali Fayyad and Ali Hassan Al Khalil, called for reform of the political system and full implementation of all the stipulations of the Taif Accord of 1989 – the agreement that ended Lebanon’s civil war and sought to update its confessional political model.

Though they didn’t say so explicitly, it was clear they were hinting at an exchange of Hezbollah’s weapons for the implementation of such reforms. While Taif has already been implemented in part, a number of its major provisions have not been.

Sceptics interpreted the idea as a political manoeuvre by the Shiite parties, principally to impose conditions on disarmament that were unlikely to be accepted. This would derail efforts by the Lebanese state to impose a monopoly over weapons. Government sources have been quoted as saying that the state is open to addressing political reform in its efforts to disarm all factions in Lebanon.

What allegedly makes the quid pro quo unacceptable to certain Lebanese communities is that Taif calls for the abolition of “political confessionalism”, which effectively means ending sectarian quotas in national institutions of the country. Today, there is a 50-50 split between seats reserved for Christians and Muslims in Parliament and administrative bodies, and senior posts are distributed along sectarian lines.

Taif does not entirely eliminate sectarianism, however. It establishes a Senate, “in which all the religious communities shall be represented”, according to Article 22 of the post-Taif constitution. The Senate’s role “shall be limited to major national issues”, a somewhat vague phrasing but one that can be interpreted in constructive ways.

The presumption is that the Christian community’s leaders will never give up on the 50-50 quotas in Parliament and national administrative bodies. Moreover, a deconfessionalised system is one in which the Shiites, as one of Lebanon’s largest communities, would have a greater say in the system, which some other communities might reject.

However, is a Christian refusal a given? While Mr Fayyad and Mr Khalil’s insinuation may indeed have been aimed at submitting conditions for giving up Hezbollah’s weapons in the hope that it would block everything, it makes more sense for their political adversaries to call their bluff and make counter-offers.

Why should they do so? Principally, because the post-Taif political system is no longer functioning adequately. In fact, the idea of constitutional reform is long overdue. The system in the past two decades since the end of the Syrian occupation in Lebanon has been used much more as an instrument to thwart progress than to carry the Lebanese polity forward.

In other words, there is nothing wrong with trying to hit two birds with one stone: disarming Hezbollah and other militias, while laying the groundwork for a more functional political system through the implementation of Taif in its entirety.

Christian leaders still regard the 50-50 split in representation as a means of protection for their minority, when in fact the community’s numbers no longer reflect such a ratio. However, this anxiety was predicted when Taif was being negotiated by Lebanese parliamentarians.

At the time, Christian representatives had demanded, among other things, administrative decentralisation as a condition for accepting political deconfessionalisation. The rationale was that if Christians had less representation in the state, they would be compensated by having greater latitude to manage affairs in their own areas.

However, Christian attitudes have evolved considerably since 1989. Today, many in the community are looking for much more than administrative decentralisation, with many even calling for federalism. Nothing less than both broad administrative and financial decentralisation would be acceptable to the community’s leadership.

There is nothing wrong with trying to hit two birds with one stone: disarming Hezbollah and other militias, while laying the groundwork for a more functional political system

In other words, Lebanon would have the contours of a system that is federal in all but name. There are no guarantees this would make Lebanon more efficient as a state, but it could well make the Taif pill easier to swallow for many Christians.

Whatever the outcome of a reformed system, there is nothing wrong with opening the debate on political reform and using this as one lever to disarm Hezbollah. The state should make this point but also set conditions of its own: above all, that before the communities embark on a national project of political reform whose ultimate aim is implementation of Taif, Hezbollah and other armed groups must first disarm. There can be no discussion of reform if one community alone retains weapons.

By formulating their proposal in the context of Taif, the Shiite parliamentarians knew what they were doing. It’s difficult for their political foes to condemn a proposition that calls for implementing a legitimate constitutional accord passed by Parliament. If anything, it underlines that Hezbollah is willing to place itself under the authority of Taif – a major concession. When Naim Qassem, the party’s secretary general, said such a thing last year, Hezbollah’s enemies celebrated. Why not now?

It’s now clear that an important new dimension has been added to the discussion on disarming Hezbollah – namely, that the Shiite community’s political leaders want something in return. This means Hezbollah is beginning to think of what lies beyond its weapons, which may represent an admission that these weapons no longer serve a purpose. That is a good thing.

To close the door on this would be the height of foolishness. If the state approaches the matter intelligently and with conditions of its own, it can widen the breach that the Shiite parties seem to have opened in the stalemate over Hezbollah’s disarmament. Suddenly, the shape of a deal seems more possible on this question.