Our broken general

Michel Aoun is not wrong to complain that the Information Branch of the Internal Security Forces has taken on duties and powers that transgress the institution’s original mandate. But the general is also irony-free, undermining his own case.

Since his return from exile five years ago, Aoun’s primary preoccupation has been to encrust himself in the political class he once pretended to despise. The general has played the inside-outside game well enough, portraying himself to his devotees as a principled dissenter while fighting with his political rivals over control of instruments of patronage and power. His latest tirade against the Information Branch, but also, unexplainably, President Michel Sleiman, was a fine example of his contradictions.

If Aoun can make a good case that intelligence institutions are mushrooming in Lebanon, and that this goes against the spirit of the constitution, he really needs to take it a bit further. Will we hear Aoun soon complaining, for example, that the General Security Directorate has also morphed into an intelligence body far beyond its original, largely administrative, terms of reference, including the signing of our passports? Probably not, because the general’s Hezbollah allies are in control there, and the metastasis of General Security took place under another de facto ally of Aoun’s, General Jamil as-Sayyed.

As Aoun defends the constitution, has he bothered to read the very first sentence in its Article 1, namely that “Lebanon is an independent, indivisible, and sovereign state.” And might he wish to apply that to Hezbollah, which has undermined all three propositions? Lebanon is not independent, if, for example, the party carries the country into a war against Israel on behalf of Iran, as it may well do. And Lebanon is certainly not indivisible for as long as there continue to be parts of its territory off limits to the state, where Hezbollah gunmen can detain people for questioning and fire on Lebanese army helicopters.

And Lebanon is positively not sovereign when Hezbollah is able to maintain an armed force more powerful than the Lebanese army, and a security and intelligence apparatus parallel to Lebanon’s official security and intelligence agencies. If Aoun is to convince anybody of the justice of his perorations on the Information Branch, he must also mention these other, even more alarming, realities.

But then Aoun’s savaging of everyone, all the way up to the top of the political ladder, must mean something else. How naïve you are, some might direct my way: Aoun’s anger is all about Fayez Karam, the general’s aide arrested several weeks ago by the Information Branch for allegedly being an Israeli spy. Perhaps, although we here were the first to suggest that Karam’s arrest might be part of a larger scheme to break Aoun away from Hezbollah and bring him more fully into Syria’s fold, while also representing a knife over the general’s head to prevent him from exiting the Hariri government.

By and large Aoun and his parliamentarians have ended up confirming that or a similar interpretation. Salim Salhab, a pro-Aoun deputy from the Metn, repeated that the Karam arrest was an effort to split the Aounists and Hezbollah. After initially distancing himself from Karam, on the grounds that the spying accusations might be true, Aoun changed track and began attacking the Information Branch and the judiciary. The general’s daughters are said to be visiting Karam’s wife regularly, while Karam himself is being well treated. There is much ambiguity surrounding his guilt, and Aoun’s tirade underlines that what is at stake is more political than legal.

If so, we shouldn’t take too seriously Aoun’s protests against the Information Branch on ethical or constitutional grounds. The fuss is a consequence of Aoun’s personal calculations, his efforts to maneuver between Hezbollah, Syria and his political foes, all the while ensuring that he can one day leave behind what passes for a political dynasty, one ruled over by his sons in law and daughters.

It’s a shame, because like a broken clock that tells good time twice a day, Aoun can sometimes be correct. The unjustified and uncontrolled proliferation or expansion of intelligence and security agencies in Lebanon is worrisome. Pluralism can be valuable, but the propagation of mini-states and partisan state institutions is not. This means fragmentation, and Lebanon’s elusive democracy is the worse for it.