Taking significant political risk, President Emmanuel Macron deserves credit for his leadership in Lebanon. Absent that leadership, Lebanon is likely to collapse into a bloody second civil war.
A war that would threaten European, American, and regional stability and security.
Macron wants to ensure that doesn’t happen. On Tuesday, visiting Beirut for the second time since the Aug. 4 explosions which wrecked its port facility, Macron promised that France would support a major package to relieve Lebanon’s economic crisis. But, the young president rightly insists, any package must come with serious political reform. That means action to weaken the sectarian stranglehold that currently defines Lebanese politics.
The challenge is great.
Originally introduced in 1989 to balance power between the country’s three major sectarian blocs, Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, and Christians, the Taif Agreement governs Lebanon’s politics. The intent of this deal was noble, but its outcome has been increasingly problematic. Beirut’s politics are now defined by cronyism and inertia. Hezbollah uses its militia to dangle a veto over decisions it does not like, which means anything that improves the institutional power of the state. Its Amal party ally and Shiite ideological partner treats state finances as a piggy bank for patronage and corruption. The major Sunni Muslim Future Movement party is possessed of weak leaders unwilling to take risks for serious reform. And the primary Christian Free Patriotic Movement party is led by a geriatric who plays nice with Hezbollah in order to enrich his inner circle. It won’t be easy to dilute this culture of sectarian brokering and instead empower public-spirited technocrats in positions of real power.
Still, Macron is making at least some progress. A new prime minister-designate in more of a nationalist mold has now been appointed. The former ambassador to Germany, Mustapha Adib, is promising to go bold with reform. A long demanded audit of Lebanon’s central bank has already been ordered. And parliamentarians are at least talking about serious constitutional reforms of the kind that are needed. Of course, talk is far easier than action. Macron will know that the leaders of Hezbollah, Amal, and the FPM will join together to obstruct or qualify any reforms when it gets to the point of actual voting. The Beirut station of France’s excellent DGSE foreign intelligence service will play a crucial role in guiding Macron’s strategy. But even if mostly from behind the scenes, Macron deserves American support in this agenda.
Unfortunately, President Trump appears focused solely on reelection, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Middle Eastern agenda is fixed entirely on Iran. The Lebanon challenge has thus been left to State Department Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker. To his credit, Schenker is saying the right things. Speaking to Asharq el-Awsat on Tuesday, he pledged that “we are in constant contact with the French on Lebanon. The United States and France are very much interested in Lebanon.” Schenker will visit Beirut in the coming days.
So, yes, serious reform remains a challenge, but Macron’s investment of so much political capital is to his credit. If his efforts fail and Lebanon implodes, it will be a major foreign policy weight around the French president’s neck as he enters his 2022 reelection fight. But if Macron succeeds, a long suffering people may finally find cause for optimism. And a most unstable part of the world might finally find a new democratic peace and prosperity — a prize worth the risk.
