French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in the Lebanese capital Beirut, carrying with him a plan that he would present to the Lebanese political leadership while hoping that it would be instrumental for Lebanon to help overcome the worsening economic and political crisis.

The French president’s visit to Lebanon is the second of its kind within a couple of weeks, and this indicates that France has come to realize that the situation in the Land of the Cedars has become dangerous and reached the threatening level of even collapse of the state. Therefore, Macron wants an urgent solution to the immediate and medium-term crises so as to ensure that the country stands on its feet.

The French president knows that proposing solutions appears to be a very complex task, as the core issue is not holding early parliamentary elections or formation of a government with a unanimous consensus of all the Lebanese parties or finding a solution to the electricity problem and a more effective treatment of the coronavirus crisis, or even that of not launching an investigation into the Beirut port explosion, but the key issue is related to restoring balance in the Lebanese domestic arena.

This country, which was established on the basis of sectarian balance, is not likely to go on for a long time on one foot. This is significant while taking into account the fact that in Lebanon, a sect dominates the rest of the sects and a terrorist party carries arms and controls the rest of the parties and is ready to go to any extent in mounting pressure on them.

This is exactly what happened in the month of May 2008, when the Hezbollah militias invaded Beirut and imposed a political equation that was subject to the (Iranian) concept of Wali Al-Faqih or guardian of the jurisprudent as it was the source of their legitimacy and authority. Since then the Lebanese equation, which was based on coexistence between various sects and the rule of no victor or loser, came to an end.

Rather, this did not stop at the borders of the Lebanese domestic front. The terrorist Hezbollah mortgaged the country and its people to the Iranian occupier and therefore Lebanon was thrown into the furnace of the Syrian war. Hassan Nasrallah’s militias roamed around the Middle East, moving from Lebanon to Syria, Yemen and Iraq, until the outfit’s activities reached Europe, Africa and the Americas.

Nevertheless, the international community, as well as the countries of the region, continued to deal with Lebanon in terms of form rather than content. This meant that they turned a blind eye to Hezbollah’s control over the state’s main organs, especially the terrorist outfit’s endorsement of war and peace, without giving any consideration for the legitimate institutions of the Lebanese state.

They also paid no heed to the fact that the international community and Arab countries were financing the government in which Hezbollah had a major stake and practically controlling it.

Furthermore, Nasrallah has appeared on more than one occasion bragging that he is drawing his salary from his master in Tehran and that his loyalty is to Iran, with emphasizing that he follows the ideology of Wali Al-Faqih. Yes, we understand that there is a historical French commitment to the Lebanese state.

We all wish to see a serious French role that would bring Lebanon back to an avenue of rightness. But it should be a real thing that we can touch with our hands and not a lie we claim to believe, just like what happened during the past decade.

Perhaps there are those who whisper in the ear of the French president that the recipe in Beirut is easy, which is the return of the Lebanese state with the disarmament of all militias, headed by Hezbollah, and the Land of the Cedars would become a state like the rest of the states and would return, as Paris wanted it, to its position as the “Switzerland of the East.”

— The author Dr. Rami Al-Khalifa Al-Ali can be reached on Twitter: @ramialkhalifa