Repeated statements by Lebanese officials about dissociation from the Syrian crisis have now come to express the political stances of those who make them, rather than those of the government or of the executive branch in a country in control of its own decision-making. Indeed, the statements made by President Michel Suleiman or Prime Minister Najib Mikati remain within the bounds of expressing the stances of these officials on a personal level, not at the level of government policy – thus making of the official policy of dissociation, regardless of intentions, a certain way to relieve one's conscience, being completely out of the scope of government influence. There is claimed to be in Lebanon a government coalition comprised of various forces. Yet in reality, decisions made by a single party in the coalition, on the basis of its own considerations, can go through in the government. Yet it would be impossible for other things to go through, if that party in particular were to reject them. This means that the government, regardless of its diverse political constituents and of the distribution of sectarian shares within it, remains in its decision-making subjected to the approval of Hezbollah. This imbalance in decision-making goes beyond the political split between the March 8 Alliance led by Hezbollah and the March 14 Alliance led by the Future Movement. It regards the way decisions are taken in the government, a process which at this point clearly departs from the text of the Taif Agreement and its Constitution, as well as from its spirit, making of the state institutions issued out of this agreement false witnesses to the shift of decision-making away from it. Ever since the Taif Agreement, of which Syrian sponsorship had been a condition, began to be implemented, Damascus was purposely and systematically taking steps, at the political, security and military levels, to prepare Hezbollah alone to play the role of a parallel regime in Lebanon – as was the case in Syria with the country's intelligence services, the only institution above all state institutions. It is true that the excess military force currently held by Hezbollah is what is making everyone fear its use of force or seek to exclude its resorting to turn the situation upside down. Yet it is also true that Hezbollah itself, with political, security and financial assistance from Syria and Iran, has breached the country's state institutions and taken control of their decision-making, this being especially true of the security and military institutions, giving it the ability to implement any decision it takes through those institutions without going through the executive, as could be noted in the arrests taking place here and there, as well as in the stance taken by the Foreign Minister at the latest Arab League ministerial meeting. Hezbollah has also similarly breached, through numerous means, including financial ones, civil groups and institutions that grant it popular support and provide cover for what has become a general feeling in Lebanon and Syria, i.e. confessional conflict. Facing this Shiite split away from a position of dissociation is another split that is essentially expressed in the border strip with Syria, even if it is sometimes echoed in the Lebanese interior. It is the split of the Sunnis of the countryside, who were not polarized by the Taif Agreement, after the first confessional clash between them and the Syrian regime had taken place the day it entered Lebanon in the summer of 1976. Indeed, they had considered this intervention to represent an offensive against them at many levels – at the political level, as it targeted the Palestinian resistance at the time; at the national level, as it sent regular military troops to fight against Lebanese nationals; and at the confessional level, as they were considered to represent the historical heirs of those whom Hafez Al-Assad had eradicated. This is why the Syrian army faced the fiercest clashes in the Beqaa Valley and in Tripoli, as well as at the gates of Sidon. Thus these areas preserved their feeling of having been “defeated at the sectarian level", a feeling that did not come to an end with the Taif Agreement. And what Arsal and Tripoli are witnessing, or have witnessed, is but the expression of this split that was never mended, but has in fact only been fueled by the opposing split.
