Is Michel Aoun a problem or a solution?

There was snickering and indignation on Monday, after Michel Aoun held a press conference to defend his son-in-law Gebran Bassil. Aoun’s vulgarity on the occasion notwithstanding, his nepotistic tendencies aside, it would be a mistake to blame him alone for the blockage in the government’s formation. The essence of the problem lies elsewhere.

The fuss being made over Bassil’s appointment is silly. Bassil is a notably unremarkable figure, despite his father-in-law’s extravagant commendations. However, nothing in Lebanon’s Constitution or political practice justifies the decision to deny him a ministerial post. Ministers are not parliamentarians and shouldn’t be obliged to meet the same criteria. To win a seat in Parliament, a candidate must usually ride the coattails of a powerful political leader. This means that governments filled with election winners also tend to be governments filled with yes-men. Is that a model we should be promoting, under the guise of enhancing legitimacy?

It would have been wiser from the start to give Aoun what he wanted, a portfolio for Bassil, and leave the Aounist movement, which had been divided over his appointment, to thrash out the consequences. Why did Saad Hariri allow himself to be trapped by what should have been a relatively minor political obstacle? Instead, the Aounists are now united behind Bassil, even those among them who dislike him, while the real reason for the delay in the Cabinet’s formation remains hidden.

The fact is that the delay is due to tensions in the relationship between Syria and Saudi Arabia, in the shadow of their uneasy reconciliation. The Syrians seek to hammer home their indispensability to any inter-Lebanese reconciliation, and they apparently still want Saad Hariri to visit Damascus before the government is finalized. The American veto of such a visit, but also Hariri’s reluctance to go along with a whitewash of his father’s assassins, evidently contributed to the cancellation of a meeting in Damascus several weeks ago between King Abdullah and Bashar Assad. Since then progress on the government has been slow, and was further hindered by Walid Jumblatt’s speech earlier this month.

In this context, the Gebran Bassil saga is a footnote, one being exploited by Aoun to raise the ante on Hariri, That is why it would have been far better for the prime minister-elect to neutralize this particular headache preemptively, by accepting Bassil and therefore perhaps avoiding the current row over handing the Aounists a sovereign ministry, which Aoun is using as leverage to shoehorn his son-in-law into the Cabinet.

It’s easy to underestimate Aoun. Rare are the major battles he has undertaken that he has won. He failed to liberate Lebanon from Syria when he headed a military government between 1988 and 1990, and he failed to defeat the Lebanese Forces afterward. Upon returning home in 2005 he scored a major victory, but then did nothing with it when he failed to become president – though he would have been uncircumventable had he remained neutral in the March 8-March 14 rivalry. And finally, he failed to win a majority in the elections last June, instead becoming a lighting rod for the growing number of Christians voting against him.

That Aoun should now be fighting so hard over Bassil is a revealing sign of how far he’s dropped. Having lost almost everywhere else, he at least wants to win the struggle over his succession. This creates an opening that Hariri and March 14 should profit from, in light of the aggressive Syrian endeavor to reimpose some sort of hegemony over Lebanon.

March 14 needs more imagination in dealing with Aoun. In the end his excessive demands are part of a bargaining ploy. Hariri has to advance gingerly when it comes to the general: he doesn’t want to alienate President Michel Sleiman or his own allies Samir Geagea and Amin Gemayel. That’s understandable, but as prime minister he will have to widen his horizons beyond March 14, while also preserving his Christian partnerships. One of the main aims of the Syrians is to break Hariri and the Sunnis off from the anti-Syrian Maronites. That is why they have threatened Gemayel, making him more responsive to engagement from Damascus; and it is why Syria’s local peons are now preparing to isolate Geagea, otherwise a much tougher nut to crack.

This situation makes it more desirable for Hariri to help facilitate inter-Christian reconciliation, which would bolster his own authority and his community’s defiance in the face of Syrian efforts to contain the Sunnis and undermine their ability to remain the backbone of opposition to some form of Syrian restoration. Such a plan is by no means easy. Since when have Sunni leaders dared play Christian politics? And with the Christians so divided, Hariri is more likely to fail than to succeed.

However, it’s equally true that Aoun is most dangerous when he feels forsaken. That’s why it’s worth determining what it is he really wants, and conceding what can be conceded in exchange for greater support from Aoun against Syrian moves weakening Lebanese sovereignty. Aoun has tried to use the Syrians to his advantage, but ultimately he has gotten very little out of them. Even his trip to Syria last year did not generate any particular warmth or long-term cooperation. Aoun may be more receptive to Hariri on the Syrian front than the general’s detractors imagine, even as his close ties with Hizbullah and Iran will doubtless limit his maneuverability.

The balance of power has shifted in Lebanon since Jumblatt’s turnaround. The Druze leader will be very careful not to alienate the Saudis, but that doesn’t mean Saad Hariri should stand pat. Political alignments are changing and it might be time to seriously investigate whether Michel Aoun would not himself welcome an opportunity to revise a political strategy that has ultimately left him empty-handed.