BEIRUT // For nearly 30 years of war and peace, General Michel Aoun has done and said anything he can to rule Lebanon. He has sided with genocidal foreign dictators, laid waste to his Christian constituency’s heartland in fratricidal battles and forged alliances with former enemies.
On Monday, the 81-year-old former army chief is likely to see his ambitions realised as Lebanon’s parliament is expected to make him the country’s next president, ending a two-and-a-half-year power vacuum.
The man who once vowed to fight Syria’s dominance of Lebanon to the death will take his throne as an ally of Hizbollah, the powerful Shiite movement that is fighting to defend Syrian president Bashar Al Assad. And he has been brought to power in a deal designed by former prime minister Saad Hariri, a Sunni whose Future Movement has been attacked by Aoun supporters as a front for ISIL. If everything goes to plan, Mr Hariri will again be the country’s prime minister.
Gen Aoun’s eventual ascent to power must have seemed all but impossible back in 1991 as the defeated warlord escaped Lebanon aboard a submarine after a failed power grab.
In the 1980s, Michel Aoun was the commander of Lebanon’s armed forces, an institution largely sidelined in the country’s sectarian civil war. As the war raged on, he would smoke four packs of cigarettes a day and could drink upwards of 30 cups of coffee.
The army and its commander suddenly became relevant in 1988 when the outgoing president Amine Gemayel attempted to dismantle the civilian government of Sunni prime minister Selim Al Hoss and install a military-led interim government headed by Gen Aoun. The move broke an unwritten pact made at Lebanon’s independence that guaranteed that the president would always be a Maronite Christian and the prime minister always a Sunni. Lebanon found itself split between two governments — an internationally recognised government and a rebel Christian-led government.
In March 1989, Gen Aoun declared a “war of liberation” and promised to drive Syria – which had occupied parts of Lebanon since 1976 – out of the country, even if it destroyed Beirut. To help in the fight against the Syrians and other factions, Gen Aoun took arms from Saddam Hussein.
As Lebanon’s other factions began seeking a settlement to the war, Gen Aoun decried them as traitors. Soon he went to war with Samir Geagea’s Lebanese Forces, the dominant Christian militia in the country, bringing some of the worst fighting of the conflict to areas that had escaped the carnage so far.
In October 1990, Syrian forces – with a nod of approval from the United States – launched major air and artillery attacks on Gen Aoun’s headquarters, forcing him to flee to the French embassy, where he remained until he fled Lebanon.
In exile in France, Gen Aoun refused to return to Lebanon until the occupation by Damascus ended. That day came in 2005 when street protests prompted by the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri – Saad Hariri’s father – forced Syria to withdraw its troops.
Gen Aoun returned 11 days later, hungry for power.
While he was away, things had changed in Lebanon. Hizbollah had become the country’s most powerful faction. Gen Aoun cast aside his hatred of Syria and signed a memorandum of understanding with Hizbollah, allying with the group against Lebanese parties that opposed Syrian involvement in Lebanon.
The presidency still remained elusive but “the General”, as he is known to his fervent followers, did not give up. In the past two and a half years his party’s parliamentarians boycotted presidential votes, helping to block anyone else’s election. His supporters took to the streets, sometimes clashing with the army he publicly reveres. He made friends with his old Christian enemy, Mr Geagea, while making new enemies in the process. But in the end, he appears to have won it all.
jwood@thenational.ae
