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Lebanon means nothing in the US election campaign. It was only an issue of US foreign policy at a time during the Cold War in 1958 and 1983, for reasons related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This is before the impact of foreign policies on the internal and electoral affairs of the United States diminishes, then, how today, when the issues of the epidemic, the economy and the inter-ethnic crisis accumulate, they leave no room for foreign relations except for a small amount of voter interest at a level that does not exceed the headlines.
On the other hand, everything in Lebanon seems to be suspended until after the results of the contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, amid the belief that the next resident of the White House will have Middle Eastern positions that will reflect on the domestic issue. Lebanese, but in its small details.
After Saad Hariri’s assignment to form the next government, an atmosphere prevailed that the door of possibilities opened by the uprising of October 17, 2019 had been completely closed and that the reform attempts that hundreds of thousands of Lebanese had demanded in the streets had been neglected.
The severity of this climate was compounded by the atrocious lack of results in the investigation of the August 4 explosion, and because the work of the Lebanese judiciary had not yielded “any reliable results, after more than two months,” according to a statement from “Human Rights Watch,” which he added. “Political interference, accompanied by the profound failure of the judicial system, made it impossible to carry out a credible and impartial national investigation.”
The “rooting of the default” to which he refers is another name for the corruption of all the components of the Lebanese State that have so far refrained from responding to the demands for reform that accompanied the approval of the aid and loan package stipulated by the CEDRE conference in 2018, which frustrated negotiations with the International Monetary Fund months ago. After unleashing a dispute on technical issues, after the adhesion of the fund to the need for reforms and transparency in financial and administrative transactions. It should be noted that the IMF issued a blackening assessment of the Lebanese economic situation a few days ago, in which it indicated a 25% contraction in the overall economy, returning to the level of 2002 and the deterioration of per capita income to the level of 1994. In a related context, the Central Bank refused to release the documents related to the investigation. The financial crime carried out by the company «Alvarez & Marsal» under the pretext of bank secrecy …
In this context of the lack of any desire to seek real reform that alleviates the burden of suffering that kills the Lebanese, in the literal sense of the word, due to the loss of many medicines, the increase in the prices of products basic, the collapse of education and the epidemic (Covid 19) escaping from all control (the official number of people with the disease reached 73 thousand injured, while hospitals lack the medical equipment and places necessary to receive this enormous number. Negotiations are underway to form a government in which the faces, methods and practices that led Lebanon to the current disaster are reestablished. On the other hand, the group in control of power does not show the slightest interest in what the Lebanese are going through, and their eyes are on what may come of the US elections, the results of which many believe will re-map the forces in the region.
And if the external impact on Lebanese politics has traditionally been of great importance, not to the importance of Lebanon to international powers, but to the inability of local parties to possess the power necessary to impose their hegemony without joining a state or an external party, a habit ingrained since the early nineteenth century and which caused innumerable ills to the Lebanese. – The interpretation of current anticipation stems from the conviction among influential politicians that the balance of power will not change as a result of any local action. And that change depends on the negotiations or conflicts that the region will witness, especially between the United States and Iran.
The importance of forming the next Saad Hariri government is limited to managing the crisis, avoiding a total collapse and maintaining a minimum level of formal stability, even at the cost of exacerbating the living crises that afflict the vast majority of citizens.
The problem is that a waiting position like this does not have any room for movement or maneuvering, and does not include alternatives in the event that the long-awaited negotiations between the United States and Iran fail, or if the American administration, whatever its orientation, rules out addressing the situation in the Middle East, either because of internal concerns. Or for any other mistake. It goes without saying that Lebanon is one of the failed initiatives of French President Emmanuel Macron, who announced during his visit to Beirut after the criminal bombing there, hoping to get a better price in negotiations with the Americans.
Meanwhile, the indefinite suspension of all reparation or treatment will only lead to the rotting of the entire country, the emigration of more young people, and the impoverishment of those who have survived to this day from the impoverished sword of poverty.
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