The government of Lebanon has resigned over last week’s deadly explosion and demonstrations demanding the government take responsibility.
“I announce the resignation of the government,"Prime Minister Hassan Diab said at the end of a televised speech which was followed by sounds of cars honking their horns in the streets and celebratory fire in the northern city of Tripoli, a strong hold for the anti-government Sunni parties and Saad Al-Hariri supporters.
Four ministers had already resigned as did nine parliamentarians in protest.
Diab blamed the blast on corruption by former warlords from the 1975-1990 civil war who have exchanged their military fatigues for suits, or were replaced by relatives. “Their corruption created this tragedy,” said Diab. “Between us and change stands a thick wall protected by their dirty tactics,” stressing that the corrupt forces “are more powerful than the government”.
However, President Michel Aoun still has two years left of his mandate, and his coalition of parties still represents the majority in Parliament. So, the regime-changers might have to push even harder with more destabilization to force him to abdicate and call for new elections.
Protests and clashes with the police have been occurring for the last three nights. But the regime-change process was set into motion already in the evening of the explosion, when a group of former Prime Ministers, led by ousted Saad Al-Hariri, called for internationalizing the crisis through inviting foreign investigators, because they no longer trust the current government. Hariri-owned and Saudi media started issuing calls for the resignation of the President Michel Aoun and his government. In the subsequent days, small groups of demonstrators were sent out into the streets invading and burning government offices.
The discussion among pro-government forces, both Christian, Sunni and Shia, is that French President Emnauel Macron’s visit to Beirut two days after the blast in the port was a signal to start a new “national coalition” government, bringing together all the parties together. The problem is that this is an invitation to all the foxes of corruption into the Lebanese henhouse. According to Wiam Wahab, a pro-government Druz leader (who is a rival of Walid Junblat among the Druz) said in an interview with Lebanese OTV that Macron made it clear what his mission was, “the formation of a national coalition”.
But Wahab interjected that two questions have to be answered: “One: Did Macron coordinate this move with President Trump? Two: Has Macron gotten the agreement from King Salman of Saudi Arabia?” The reference to Saudi Arabia is due to Hariri’s strong connection to Saudi Arabia. Wahab indicated that “the fact that President Trump has dispatched the more diplomatic Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, David Hale, and not David Schenker (hawkish Undersecretary of State for Near East Affairs) is an interesting sign.”
As reported by Hussein Askary in a recent EIR article, Schenker has been involved in the attacks on both Lebanon’s government (because it includes Hezbollah) and more strongly Lebanon’s openness to work with China on infrastructure projects. Hale was in Lebanon last December when President Michel Aoun was about to form the new government of Hassan Diab which followed the ousting of Hariri’s government in a popular revolt against corruption and the economic and financial collapse of the country. Hale, according to Wahab, is different from Schencker in the sense that Schenker would demand that Hezbollah be thrown out of the government and the whole political system come hell or civil war. Hale is different, because he is more open and knows Lebanon and the region much better as he was ambassador to Lebanon several years ago and to other countries in the region.
There are some hard questions raised by these moves by Macron and Trump and the whole “Donors’ conference” which other than its symbolic significance was a big flop in reality. Is this an attempt to pull Lebanon back into the “western camp” and force it to abandon its resistance to the IMF-policies and openness to China. Lebanon needs 15 billion dollars to rebuild the port and the city alone, a lot more than the mere 300 million dollars pledged at the recent donor video conference. It will not matter how corruption-free the next government will be, the country will sink. All the aid which was pledged in the conference has a string of “fighting corruption and economic reform” attached to it. China had pledged to the equivalent of more than 10 billion dollars in railway, power plants, tunnels and roads, and cleaning the rivers and building hydropower plants. A new port in Tripoli, not expansion of the Beirut Port, was among the Chinese plans. Once again, physical economics and geopolitics are clashing head on.