Between two Lebanese right-wing camps, each with its own narrative, its sacred values, its certainties, its salvation and its story about the other, stands Nawaf Salam. They do not merely disagree; they tear up geography and erase history, even as they share the same country, political system, and government. Until recently, they had held the state captive: when they clashed, it paid the price; when they reconciled, it became the price.
These two right-wing camps are not necessarily sectarian, even if each is very closely associated with a sect. To some extent, they represent an unhealthy and illogical extension of both the (predominantly Muslim) Lebanon National Movement and the (predominantly Christian) Lebanese Front who went on to shape the post–civil war system.
Between these two camps, the space for the state and what remains of its institutions has narrowed. It is now entrusted to a judge “who came running from the farthest part of the city.”
In his pursuit of a state and on its behalf, Nawaf Salam- in his capacity as Prime Minister and as an academic and moderate political figure- is confronting both of these camps despite their differences.
Despite their sharp contradictions and divisions, they converge around a network of power that controls the state, regardless of each side’s size or weight. Beyond their rivalry and the potential for them to resort to violence, they agree on suffocating the state and obstructing anyone who attempts to liberate it without submitting to their conditions.
In practice, Nawaf Salam faces a right-wing camp that outbids him on sovereignty issues, particularly regarding the monopoly of arms and the mechanisms for making decisions of war and peace. It behaves as though peace could be attained if Lebanon simply demanded it, as though past experiences had not taught us that moving too quickly leads to regret. Even if some foreign actors’ calculations have changed, domestic calculations are more complex and cannot be measured by the logic of communal gain or loss.
On the other hand, he faces another right-wing camp that outbids him in patriotism. It reduces history and geography to the rifle and doctrine and sees any disagreement over the interpretation of peace, and its conditions or objectives, as treason. It considers itself above the state: it does not believe in the notion of having one army, or one decision. It embraces duplication in everything related to the state and its institutions, while maintaining exclusive monopoly over everything tied to its own axis.
This latter camp has led its own community into a new war of attrition, crushing lives and livelihoods and exposing the community to serious risks of long-term demographic and geographic transformations that will cast dark shadows over its present and future. Between the promise of perpetual victory and the cruelty of reality, it is failing to take responsibility for its catastrophe. It has found a convenient target in Nawaf Salam and has decided to threaten him.
The crisis of this camp, which has lost its supra-state privileges, is not about Nawaf Salam. Its crisis revolves around the difficult questions its own environment will pose. It had promised “victory,” and Salam did not prevent this camp from attaining it; when the war ends, the question of peace will become even harder. At that moment, there will be a reckoning, and Nawaf Salam will become a mirror that reflects the face of truth. For that reason, this camp has chosen to demonize him.
Neither inciting chants, nor threats to bring down his government, nor mobilization of the street will push Salam into a compromise tailored to power or into sharing it.
In the end, this right-wing camp (along with the other one) sees Nawaf Salam as nothing more than a burden on its project to control the state, as if he were a “tumor” that is growing and must be removed so the state returns to being smaller than itself and the network of power larger than its state.
This system, with both its right-wing camps (even independently of the weapons in the arms of one of them) is gradually losing control but continues to resist. Its ultimate battle today is with Nawaf Salam: moderate in his affiliations, firm in his positions. He is an explicit target of the party, its allies, and its weapons, while being an implicit target for the network of power and its corruption. Together, they seek to bring him down. Yet, he seems steadfast in his moderation and continues to rise.
