Weapons For Political Power?

So now Michael Young wants March 14 to bribe Hezbollah into giving up their weapons. He’s suggesting that in return for giving up their arsenal, Hezbollah should get an “expanded political representation of the Shiite community”.

I don’t often disagree with Michael Young, but man this is such a lousy idea.

To understand why this is misguided, let’s go back a bit to the little town of Ghajar in the south. The israelis wanted to leave it so that Hezbollah will no longer have any excuse to keep its weapons. How did Hezbollah react? They reasoned: The Israelis are leaving because of the power of our weapons. This is proof that the weapons work, why should we give them up?

That exact same logic can apply to Mr. Young’s proposal: If the guns give us more political power, why let go of them?

In reality, there is no amount of political concessions Hezbollah can get that will substitute for the power they’re getting today from their guns. Even if the Shiaa had all three leadership positions and all military and official posts, without their guns, they will not be as powerful as they are today.

There’s also another reason why this is a bad proposal: What kind of signal will this send to other communities? People will conclude that the only way to get political influence is to arm themselves, and that’s a very dangerous slippery slope..