In his speech two days ago, Secretary General of the Lebanese Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah noted that the balance of popular support between the March 8 forces – the code name of political Shiism represented by the party – and the March 14 forces – the code name of political Sunnism represented by the Future Movement – will remain unchanged for the next hundred years, concluding that both sides should offer concessions to exit this predicament. This divide, in the sense intended by Nasrallah, has deep historical roots. And since it is related to the core of sacred beliefs, the next hundred years will not carry a solution for it. Hence, the real solution resides in offering concessions, not to ensure further distribution of the shares in the political authority, but to restore the state's rights which were taken from it by use of weapons. The founders of modern Lebanon have agreed – although reluctantly – to uphold the state and its institutions as a common arena for all. And even if they did not all show sectarian and denominational impartiality, political integrity or patriotism, they secured the right circumstances for peaceful coexistence and power rotation. They did so by preserving the common space represented by the state, which in turn maintained the shares inside its institutions. The historical paradox at this level is that the structural weakness of this state is behind the ongoing concord between the sects that perceive it as a platform for all the sides, and this is what caused the undermining and collapse of civil peace every time one of the parties tried to breach concord over this common space. But today, this civil peace is more threatened than ever, due to the fact that Hezbollah – the representative of political Shiism – has the ability to differentiate itself from the remaining Lebanese components, enjoys a military, economic, and political power exceeding that of the other sects, and is using these capabilities to limit the participation of others in the common space represented by the state. In the meantime, the only thing preventing the recognition of its right to expand throughout that space is linked to the sectarian and denominational division which the party's secretary general believes cannot be changed in a hundred years. In light of this situation, and if the intentions related to the instatement of coexistence and political stability are truthful, Nasrallah should ask all the sides - including his own party - to offer concessions to the state and its institutions, not to exchange concessions among each other. Such concessions to the state would mean the restoration of its powers and full prerogatives to run people's affairs on all levels, including through the use of armed force. But such concessions should be made by the party, which forcefully took over key jobs in the state and is trying to control the remaining common space. And when it calls on the others to offer concessions to it, the party is actually asking that it be allowed to proceed with its forcible control over the state. This might be the meaning behind the talk saying that a voluntary concession at this stage will soon turn into a forced one. By linking the coercion of others into conceding to it in Lebanon the victory of the Syrian regime over its people, the party is enhancing the theory of the unsolvable historical conflict, bearing in mind the nature of the two sides' transboundary alliance. Nasrallah also sustained the latter theory through a violent attack against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. At this level, it is unlikely that he was affected – in his perception of Saudi Arabia – by what was written by a rejectionist newspaper about the Saudi role. Hence, the point at this level is not Saudi Arabia's support of the Syrian people's demands, but rather its religious weight in the balance of the historical conflict and its stand against Iran. Here also, the calls for a political solution in Syria can be linked to the calls for concessions in Lebanon, i.e. for surrender to the Iranian axis, Hezbollah and the Syrian regime - i.e. one of its pillars along the Mediterranean shores - not only at the level of regional hegemony, but also at the level of the historical interpretation of Islamic divide.
