Does the nomination of Aoun by Geagea make us closer to presidency?

Written by Nasser Kandil,

The major electing blocks in the Parliament are Al Mustaqbal Bloc, Change and Reform Bloc and the alliance of the two blocs Amal and Hezbollah, so the presidency is between the quarter; General Michael Aoun, the Speaker Nabih Berri, the Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri, , and the center of the presidential elections that is represented by Al Sayyed Hassan Nasrollah as a necessity needed by the major allied blocks to meet around, and its acceptance is needed by  the third major bloc and the opponent in order to achieve a presidency that emerges to light.

It is clear that the center of the political movement which is related to presidency revolves around these three blocks, all of them are addressing Al Sayyed Hassan Nasrollah directly, the nomination of the Deputy Suleiman Franjieh by the Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri is addressing Al Sayyed Hassan Nasrollah by adopting an ally instead of an ally, but it threatens the unity of two allied blocks with breaking up, while the nomination of the General Michael Aoun by Samir Geagea is addressing Al Sayyed Hassan Nasrollah directly but it threatens the two allied blocks with their unity and cohesion, in addition this nomination created an isolation of its traditional ally which leads the third block represented by Al-Hariri because it proposes just the defeat.

There are quiet facts that are assorted by the two nominations, first the devotion of the referentiality of Al Sayyed Hassan Nasrollah in resolving the presidential issue by choosing between them or to postpone the elections. Second, these two nominations put the Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri between two difficult choices to go through, but from the position of the recipient not the presidency-maker, either the disruption from the site of the difficult sectarian veto or going on into the adventure of nominating Franjieh whatever are the consequences. Third, the devotion of the referentiality of the President by the allies of Hezbollah, Syria, and the resistance in return of that the presidency of the parliament is for the opposite team. Forth, the international regional moment of presidency is getting matured paving the way for a horizon of the Lebanese presidency within the new image of the Middle East from the gate of answering the question what does Washington need from Lebanon?

Does Washington by using its allies for the nomination of the allies of Hezbollah alternately need to test its ability of isolating Hezbollah from them and fragment its arena and to mix the papers for a political fragmentation and a sectarian and doctrinal tension, in conformity with the methodology of sanctions, isolation, and harassment? towards something that is prepared by Israel within the coordination of Washington after the understanding between the Prime Minister of the Occupation government Benjamin Netanyahu and the US President Barack Obama on following the policy of the regional settlements within the equation of restricting the war to target Hezbollah. Thus everything that we witnessed is an introduction for an Israeli war that has a security and logistical coordination and a preparation process under the mantle of the alliance announced by Mohammed Bin Salman for the war on terrorism, and which has turned the assassination of the martyr Samir Al-Kuntar into an operational room for processes of the security and intelligence coordination against Hezbollah, ending with an international blockade that follows a short war to stop  the engagement between the resistance and Syria on one hand and the occupation troops in the Southern of Lebanon and Golan on the other hand, even if it requires an Israeli withdrawal from Shebaa Farms and a partnership with Russia through observers in the international troops.

Or whether Washington was trying to test something else, it is opportunities of the engagement with Hezbollah on the basis of the understanding with Iran, it is clear that this understanding is no longer a nuclear one, it is an understanding that Washington  knows that its importance is through its wide impact from the borders of the American-Iranian bilateral to reach a new version of the balances map in the region, thus the goal is the admission of the disability of securing an Israeli Saudi and Turkish partnership in the regional settlements for different reasons. So America has put its hand directly with Iran for going through them, it knows that it needs to maintain the presence of its allies and the sources of their strength, but it is aware that the policies of Iran and its most realistic aspirations allow the opportunities of settlements that they cannot bear their consequences, moreover the understanding with Iran has a limit; it is the linkage of the dispute not the understanding on the issues of confrontation in the Gulf and with Israel with the commitment of the mutual staying out of the major wars, and putting the controls of not involving in them every team from within its alliances and choices. In this case will the endeavor of Washington to test the opportunities of being closer to Hezbollah mean a translation of this trend, starting from the encouragement of Al-Hariri to have an understanding with the General Aoun then encouraging the nomination of Franjieh, and finally the encouragement of Geagea of the nomination of Aoun?

The dealing with the presidency from outside the two coherent mixed-sect systems for each team of the Eighth and the Fourteenth of March is practically an announcement of their end as two systems to manage the Lebanese crisis and a mixture of papers that foreshadows of a big peace or a big war, the answer is in producing a president or in pushing the elections toward more complexity, so will Washington encourage the Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri to seize the opportunity and to go on with the nomination of the General Aoun or will it “ understand” his interrupting the session and presenting a title for its disruption which is the absence of a constituent component? And how will Washington deal through the permanent friend of the Deputy Walid Jumblatt “Jeff” by his announcement that we are in front of a civil war that will not lead to a presidency or are we in front of a shift that foreshadows of the political rationality that we will deal with similarly?

The big question is will the Lebanese presidency advance according to who has attended and with the quickness of meeting the Syrian Genève of who was attending or will it wait the maturity of the Syrian presidency in order to go along with after two years, till that date there will be small attrition wars and scoring points.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,