Lebanon cannot be effective as long as Hezbollah is armed, Forces Party leader says
Lebanon cannot be as effective and strong as a state
as long as Hezbollah continues to be armed, the head of the Lebanese Forces
Party Samir Geagea told Al Arabiya in a wide-ranging interview.
“The truce exists because I have a firm belief that
with Hezbollah’s weapons, there can be no effective Lebanese state as strong as
we want,” Geagea told Al Arabiya’s Rima Maktabi.
Regarding the recent sanctions imposed by the United
States on Iran, Geagea said he expected a decline in the funding of Hezbollah
as an armed group.
“The tougher the sanctions the more it will be
reflected in the funding of Hezbollah as it appears on the Lebanese arena,” he
said, while adding that he predicts the group will suffer in its overall
influence.
“Even though a huge part of Hezbollah is driven by
ideology, doctrine and religious sentiment, we are talking about tens of
thousands of people who are receiving salaries, social institutions, and a lot
of aid. Consequently, it will have its effect,” he said.
Geagea also spoke on the situation in neighboring
Syria, saying that he expects the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s if the Iranians
and the Russians decide to eventually withdraw from the conflict.
“The equation is well known, the power in Syria is
in the hands of the Iranians, the Russians, the Americans and the Turks
consequently we cannot talk about the presence of a state in Syria,” the leader
of the Lebanese Forces Party said.
The Lebanese Forces Party said there is no direct
impact of the regional crisis, but there will be an indirect effect by virtue
of our presence in the region itself, but I do not think it will be
significant.
Hezbollah lose influence even though a huge part of
Hezbollah is driven by ideology, doctrine and religious sentiment, we are
talking about tens of thousands of people who are receiving salaries, social
institutions, and a lot of aid, consequently it will have its effect.
There is no future for the party or any party except
adhering within the framework of the Lebanese constitution and the exercise of
its role as a political party like others.
Anything else and even from our experience as
Lebanese forces, although they are not identical, ultimately anything illegal
is doomed, only law prevail and by that I mean that in any state the army and
the security forces hold weapons and the strategic decision should be in within
the framework of the legitimate government. Anything other than that can last
for a year or two or five or ten or twenty as in our case, but in the end,
things must return to their natural state.
Nobody knows. The important thing is that we are
persistent. From the first moment, we have sought this, and you know the
difficult circumstances, but I do not doubt for a moment that this illegal
situation will end and therefore the status of Hezbollah cannot continue as it
is.
There is no doubt that the current Iranian regime
with its existence, especially with its theory of exporting the revolution,
caused unrest in many Arab countries starting with Yemen and not ending in
Lebanon.
But if you want to talk about Lebanon, the country
has the elements of constitutional life and has enough history to overcome
these challenges, even if the regime as a whole does not fall in Iran. Some may
say that Lebanon and the Lebanese didn’t resist enough in the sense that we followed
Hezbollah, but in my opinion, we cannot dismiss what happened so far, it may
not have reached our ambitions but sooner or later.
We will be
able to build an actual state in Lebanon where the state and only the state
hold the strategic decision and the arms.
