Honor, Sacrifice…Loyalty?

The surprising neutrality of the Lebanese Army Commander

On the eve of the presentation of the Mehlis report to the United Nations, Lebanon is on a high security alert. The perpetrators may want to further destabilize the country with large-scale explosions and assassinations, so the Army has kept a heavy presence in the capital and in other important cities.

Most of the Lebanese (rightly) trust the Army. Not only has it kept a remarkable neutrality in different sensitive milestones, but it has also proven that it can make its own sensible decisions whenever necessary (look how they disobeyed Sleimen Franjiyeh’s orders and let the March 14 protesters do their thing). Gen. Michel Sleimen’s stewardship has proven admirable, but his neutrality remains a mystery.

General Emile Lahhoud, considered by many to be a Syrian pawn, had appointed Mr. Sleimen to replace him when he became President. One would think that the Syrians would have wanted to install another pawn as the head of the military. That would fit nicely in the scheme of things; the Syrian controlled the president, the heads of the different security departments, key Judges, key bankers and most parliamentarians. Why not control the army commander? Wouldn’t he come in handy when Syria decides to play destabilizing games? In fact, the army is now playing a destructive role to the Syrian plans of smuggling weapons to the Palestinian camps.

Perhaps General Emile Lahhoud saw in Mr. Sleimen a trustworthy pro-Syrian,
but underestimated his pragmatism. After the Hariri assassination, Mr. Sleimen cleverly branded the army as the guarantor of the security of the Lebanese people. In other words, he stirred it from high-minded pointless ideologies to a purely technical role: The role of “safeguarding the national unity and […] guaranteeing the freedom of expression and ensuring security for all the Lebanese people”. This role was most clearly expressed in the “order of the day” of the first Lebanese Army Day after the Syrian military withdrawal. You can read it here.

The other Mystery is the trust P.M. Seniora has placed in Gen. Sleimen and in the military; was Mr. Sleimen brought in the folds by the Independence movement and the international community, or (gasps) was president Lahhoud always right when he claimed that he has built a “truly national army”?