Aoun Floats Idea of Lebanese Military Govt to ‘Save’ Bassil

President Michel Aoun recieves PM Saad Hariri at the Baabda palace in 2019. (NNA)
President Michel Aoun recieves PM Saad Hariri at the Baabda palace in 2019. (NNA)
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Aoun Floats Idea of Lebanese Military Govt to ‘Save’ Bassil

President Michel Aoun recieves PM Saad Hariri at the Baabda palace in 2019. (NNA)
President Michel Aoun recieves PM Saad Hariri at the Baabda palace in 2019. (NNA)

A Lebanese parliamentary source warned of a “trap” being set up by President Michel Aoun to transform the Supreme Defense Council into a new military government in an attempt to “save” his heir and son-in-law Jebran Bassil.

The source explained that Aoun is attempting to exploit the current political deadlock and ongoing coronavirus pandemic to declare the formation of a military government, similar to the one he headed in 1988 during the country’s 15-year civil war.

The military government would replace the current caretaker one headed by Premier Hassan Diab, who opposes the proposal, the source told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Aoun’s plan coincides with the “insistence” of Bassil’s Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) to drag the Progressive Socialist Party and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri’s Mustaqbal Movement towards a political dispute. Bassil would seek to exploit the dispute to bring forward the proposal to form a military government.

The source said that Aoun had relentlessly tried to use his position as head of the military cabinet to become president. He launched the “war of liberation” against Syrian military deployment in Lebanon and the “war of elimination” against the Lebanese Forces, headed by Samir Geagea, in order to control Christian regions.

He added, however, that Aoun misjudged the regional and international circumstances surrounding Lebanon at the time, which forced him to seek refuge at the French embassy. The Syrian regime later received the greenlight from the United States to eliminate Aoun’s role, prompting him to seek exile in France.

The source said that Aoun is again trying to repeat his experience from 1988 in order to “save” Bassil, whose popularity took a nosedive in wake of the 2019 popular protests and last year’s US sanctions against him.

He added that Aoun is exploiting his presidency of the Supreme Defense Council given that the caretaker government is not convening. The council, said the source, has proven to be ineffective in addressing Lebanon’s stifling economic crisis and surge in coronavirus cases.

Diab has refrained from convening the cabinet to allow Hariri the opportunity form a new government. Those efforts have, however, been met with Aoun’s pressure on Hariri to step down.

The source stressed that the Supreme Defense Council cannot replace an effective government, whose formation is being hampered by Aoun, who already knows that his efforts to drive Hariri to resign will fail.

So what is the point of the president pursuing this line of action? wondered the source, noting that the Supreme Defense Council does not even enjoy any executive power to implement its recommendations.

He also questioned Hariri’s reasons for remaining silent and refraining from frankly addressing the Lebanese to explain the causes of the delay in the government formation.

The source said that Aoun is aware that his presidential term is a failure, even though his political entourage remains in denial and continues to extol his “achievements”. The president is seeking to embarrass Hariri to push him to either resign or yield to his conditions to “save” Bassil.

The source added that Aoun has gone so far as to stoke sectarian sentiments between the Druze PSP and Sunni Mustaqbal in order to divert attention from the government formation process.

The PSP and Mustaqbal are unlikely to fall for the trap because they will opt against giving Aoun an excuse to further exploit sectarian sentiments.

From a FPM standpoint, a sectarian division would embarrass Christian forces opposed to Aoun and Bassil and push Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai to abandon his call on the president and Hariri to reconcile in order to form a new cabinet.

As it stands, Aoun and Bassil find themselves isolated without any Christian support and are relying on the backing offered by their ally, Hezbollah, which in turn does not favor any sectarian dispute.

Significantly, the FPM is avoiding attacking Speaker Nabih Berri, a Shiite and ally of the fellow Shiite Hezbollah. An attack against the speaker, who supports Hariri’s stand, would reshuffle the cards in Lebanon and perhaps even pave the way for Hezbollah to review its calculations. The party would stand against any attack against its main ally to avoid any divisions within its main popular Shiite base.



Why is Israel Launching Crackdown in the West Bank after the Gaza Ceasefire?

Israeli army vehicles are seen during a military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed).
Israeli army vehicles are seen during a military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed).
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Why is Israel Launching Crackdown in the West Bank after the Gaza Ceasefire?

Israeli army vehicles are seen during a military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed).
Israeli army vehicles are seen during a military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed).

In the days since a fragile ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip, Israel has launched a major military operation in the occupied West Bank and suspected Jewish settlers have rampaged through two Palestinian towns.

The violence comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces domestic pressure from his far-right allies after agreeing to the truce and hostage-prisoner exchange with the Hamas militant group. US President Donald Trump has, meanwhile, rescinded the Biden administration's sanctions against Israelis accused of violence in the territory.

It's a volatile mix that could undermine the ceasefire, which is set to last for at least six weeks and bring about the release of dozens of hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, most of whom will be released into the West Bank.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. Escalations in one area frequently spill over, raising further concerns that the second and far more difficult phase of the Gaza ceasefire - which has yet to be negotiated - may never come.

Dozens of masked men rampaged through two Palestinian villages in the northern West Bank late Monday, hurling stones and setting cars and property ablaze, according to local Palestinian officials. The Red Crescent emergency service said 12 people were beaten and wounded.

Israeli forces, meanwhile, carried out a raid elsewhere in the West Bank that the military said was in response to the hurling of firebombs at Israeli vehicles. It said several suspects were detained for questioning, and a video circulating online appeared to show dozens being marched through the streets.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military launched another major operation, this time in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, where its forces have regularly clashed with Palestinian militants in recent years, even before Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip triggered the war there.

At least nine Palestinians were killed on Tuesday, including a 16-year-old, and 40 were wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The military said its forces carried out airstrikes and dismantled roadside bombs and "hit" 10 militants - though it was not clear what that meant.

Palestinian residents have reported a major increase in Israeli checkpoints and delays across the territory.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz cast the Jenin operation as part of Israel's larger struggle against Iran and its militant allies across the region, saying "we will strike the octopus' arms until they snap."

The Palestinians view such operations and the expansion of settlements as ways of cementing Israeli control over the territory, where 3 million Palestinians live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering cities and towns.

Prominent human rights groups call it a form of apartheid since the over 500,000 Jewish settlers in the territory have all the rights conferred by Israeli citizenship. Israel rejects those allegations.

Netanyahu has been struggling to quell a rebellion by his ultranationalist coalition partners since agreeing to the ceasefire. The agreement requires Israeli forces to withdraw from most of Gaza and release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners - including militants convicted of murder - in exchange for hostages abducted in the Oct. 7 attack.

One coalition partner, Itamar Ben-Gvir, resigned in protest the day the ceasefire went into effect. Another, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has threatened to bolt if Israel does not resume the war after the first phase of the ceasefire is slated to end in early March.

They want Israel to annex the West Bank and to rebuild settlements in Gaza while encouraging what they refer to as the voluntary migration of large numbers of Palestinians.

Netanyahu still has a parliamentary majority after Ben-Gvir's departure, but the loss of Smotrich - who is also the de facto governor of the West Bank - would severely weaken his coalition and likely lead to early elections.

That could spell the end of Netanyahu's nearly unbroken 16 years in power, leaving him even more exposed to longstanding corruption charges and an expected public inquiry into Israel's failure to prevent the Oct. 7 attack.

Trump's return to the White House offers Netanyahu a potential lifeline.

The newly sworn-in president, who lent unprecedented support to Israel during his previous term, has surrounded himself with aides who support Israeli settlement. Some support the settlers' claim to a biblical right to the West Bank because of the Jewish kingdoms that existed there in antiquity.

The international community overwhelmingly considers settlements illegal.

Among the flurry of executive orders Trump signed on his first day back in office was one rescinding the Biden administration's sanctions on settlers and Jewish extremists accused of violence against Palestinians.

The sanctions - which had little effect - were one of the few concrete steps the Biden administration took in opposition to the close US ally, even as it provided billions of dollars in military support for Israel's campaign in Gaza, among the deadliest and most destructive in decades.

Trump claimed credit for helping to get the Gaza ceasefire agreement across the finish line in the final days of the Biden presidency.

But this week, Trump said he was "not confident" it would hold and signaled he would give Israel a free hand in Gaza, saying: "It's not our war, it's their war."