Resurrecting Michel Sleiman

President Michel Sleiman decided to convene a national dialogue session, and all hell broke loose. You have to wonder why. Absolutely nothing will be achieved once it is held, particularly on the major topic at hand, Hezbollah’s weapons, so why all the fuss over who will attend? At best the invitation will mean having to listen to several hours of tedious monologues only partially compensated for by a free lunch.

As low as expectations are, however, the national dialogue is one of the few instruments that Sleiman has to reassert his dwindling power. Since entering office in May 2008, the president has found himself being repeatedly sniped at by Michel Aoun, Hezbollah and pro-Syrian figures, even as members of the friendlier March 14 coalition have increasingly, if privately, lamented Sleiman’s passivity and urge to please everyone.

The president is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t, much as was President Elias Sarkis during the late 1970s. Incapable of pleasing everyone, Sleiman has, instead, displeased everyone. The Syrians and Hezbollah, along with their allies, have sought to weaken him because, somewhere, he represents the sovereign state. Aoun has rarely missed an opportunity to discredit the president because he fears that Sleiman might emerge as the paramount Christian representative. That fear, albeit more quietly expressed, is shared by Samir Geagea, while March 14 would welcome a Sleiman more robust in support of its agenda, which the president will avoid so that he can remain a consensual leader.

So what is Michel Sleiman to do? There is no obvious answer, but a good start is to stop trying to pursue the mirage of consensus and, instead, play sectarian politics. The president has to shore up his Christian base of support, especially his Maronite base, even if that sometimes involves resorting to the crassest demagoguery. Only as a potent Christian representative will he be able to bargain from a position of relative strength domestically, while turning every attack against him into one against the Christians. Aoun has done very well with that tactic, but Sleiman, as head of state, has even greater potential to make it work.

For starters, the president needs to get out much more, so that he can work his community at the local level. He may not have many allies, but here he does have one who counts: Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir. There is nothing wrong with relying on competent ministers, such as Ziad Baroud, to burnish a reputation, but that’s hardly enough. Sfeir is the most significant ticket to communal legitimacy, and can help Sleiman immensely through the clout and networks of the Maronite Church.

Legitimacy requires more than attending mass. The president must develop patronage relations with his coreligionists, but also be cunning enough not to publicly replicate the sordid behavior of other politicians. Saad Hariri and Nabih Berri have managed to balance their national roles with their communal ones. And while Berri’s sway is perhaps nothing compared to that of Hezbollah, the speaker has always cleverly played on Shia sensibilities to remain relevant. In other words, a leader who tries to remain above the fray only marginalizes himself. Lebanese politics requires getting down into the mud, and Sleiman cannot evade this.

Some might argue that the president would only diminish himself by engaging in retail politics. But all presidents, in all countries, take retail politics very seriously. Having support at the base, in the same way that Hezbollah does, or Walid Jumblatt, or Saad Hariri, buys a politician or a political organization a wider berth to maneuver. More important, it associates them with the broader aspirations of their community, making political enemies think twice before going after them.

Certainly, there would be difficulties. Neither Aoun nor Geagea would take kindly if the president hunted for clients among their constituents. But Sleiman has the authority of the state behind him, so that sometimes rivals will see an interest in accepting compromises with the president. The stronger Sleiman becomes, the more he will be regarded as a threat by all those who want to keep the presidency weak. There will be times when Sleiman will have to take decisive decisions, against one side or the other, even if that means inviting a confrontation. But he might also want to remember that nothing builds support for politicians as well as well-chosen confrontations they can define on their own terms.

Let’s be honest: Michel Sleiman has nothing to lose. He’s as weak as a president does not want to be, and his reviving the moribund national dialogue is a sign that he understands his dire predicament. But Sleiman is not without resources. He has former comrades in the army on whom he can rely in the right moments; he surely has a lot of insalubrious information on a lot of insalubrious people; the Maronite Church is looking for him to be more forceful; and by being dependent on no one in particular, Sleiman can better play adversaries off against one other.

Most important, Sleiman is a Maronite. His community may not be what it once was politically or demographically, but it does still hold the balance in a Lebanon alas polarized along sectarian lines between the two major Muslim sects. It may sound cynical to advise the president to exploit those divisions for his own purposes. But everyone else in the political class is doing precisely that. At least Sleiman would have a justifiable cause: saving his office from terminal insignificance.