There is a debate underway, pitting Lebanese groups in the March 14 coalition, especially the Christians, against Hezbollah and its allies, on the party's weapons and its leaders' request to stop raising this issue. It resembles the debate in the 1990s that pitted opponents of a continued Syrian military presence in Lebanon against supporters of this presence, who said it was necessary and needed while awaiting an Israeli withdrawal from the south. Back then, the Syrian leadership called for the request for a withdrawal of Syrian forces, or a redeployment to the Bekaa Valley, from public discussion. In the 1990s, the debate led to a sharp division and in the view of Christian political leaders who insisted on their position, it was one reason, among others, behind the exclusion of these leaders and their representatives from participating in the Cabinets that were formed at the time, especially after the imprisonment of Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and the exile of General Michel Aoun, the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, to Paris, especially since they were supporters of a Syrian withdrawal. However, this did not prevent the removal of the Syrian withdrawal issue from the daily stances and mobilizing rhetoric of Christian politicians. This was because the late Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri intervened with the Maronite patriarch, Cardinal Nasrallah Butros Sfeir, to convince him to wait for a Syrian withdrawal. Hariri told Sfeir that his request to achieve sovereignty would take place by building a state and its institutions and strengthening the economy first, and that this was what Hariri was doing (in gradual fashion). Helping Hariri convince the patriarch was his friend, then-French President Jacques Chirac. During a visit to Lebanon in 1996, Chirac delivered an address at Lebanon's Parliament in which he linked a Syrian withdrawal with an Israeli withdrawal from occupied lands in South Lebanon. The position of the Christians turned into one of discontent over losing sovereignty, without always insisting on demanding a Syrian withdrawal until 2000, when Israel withdrew from South Lebanon. This prompted Syria, because of its need for the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, to pay closer attention to managing Lebanese affairs, imposing a balance of power in the government thanks to the Syrian presence, until the accumulated developments and the assassination of Hariri led to Damascus' withdrawal. The two periods, then and now, are different in some ways and similar in others. If these days, Syria supports a halt to discussion of the arms of the resistance, as a result of its alliance with Hizbullah, the latter's surplus force resembles Syria's intelligence-based control, and in fact compensates for it. In other words, Syria, while outside Lebanon, depends on the military presence of an ally to enable it to exercise influence. This is what led to the 7 May 2008 civil strife, when Hezbollah and its allies invaded the capital, Beirut, and altered the equation of majority-minority, which had been produced by the 2005 parliamentary elections, followed by the 2009 round. Another similarity is that the same Muslim groups in the country's political make-up that called for dropping the withdrawal from discussion, are asking for weapons to be left out of discussion, after the head of the Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Jumblatt, joined Hezbullah and Amal and Syria in this stance. The position of the Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, is a complex one, compared to that of his father. He is supporting the status quo through an alliance with Hezbollah in government, which requires legitimizing the weapons in the Cabinet's policy statement, as resistance to occupation. In return, he does not object to discussing the issue in the framework of National Dialogue sessions, as this was agreed to by the Lebanese and the outside world. However, when it comes to the issue of weapons, Hariri has not gone as far as his father, in justifying the Syrian presence. This is despite his rejection of any pressure from the outside world, particularly the United States, to raise the issue of weapons in a way that threatens domestic stability. If the Shebaa Farms issue seems to be similar, as it justified the continuing Syrian presence as well as Hezbollah's arms today, another excuse can be added: the expected dispute with Israel over water rights and borders and the promised oil and gas exploration on the Syrian-Lebanese-Palestinian coastline, and the need for weapons in this dispute. The elements of difference between the two periods do not reduce the complications that surround internal Lebanese political contradictions on the weapons issue: there is Iranian partnership with Syria and Geagea is out of prison and is in power, with the Christians of March 14, against General Aoun's joining the other camp, despite the fall in his popularity because of this change. The Arab-international delegation of Syrian in the 1990s with responsibility for Lebanon confronts its opposite when it comes to weapons and the role of Damascus, despite the engagement in dialogue with it by the international community. Israel, which was comfortable with the Syrian presence, justifies its constant threats of war by citing the party's weapons, although it is less able to benefit from the surplus of force it enjoys. These complications require the Lebanese to wait for a few years, and the important thing is for them to do so by incurring the least damage possible.
