When Rafiq Hariri was assassinated in 2005, sectarian impulses were unleashed, along with buried hatreds. Lebanon became fertile ground for all kinds of intelligence agencies. Militias discovered a golden opportunity to recover their past glory. Some leaders, who had missed out on these glories, hurried to form “armed forces” that they summoned up from Osama bin Laden's Tora Bora, and international mercenaries, preparing to create a new Middle East, as the United States had declared. Those with long experience in this kind of activity, who had been wronged by the earlier dissolution of their militias, took revenge for the years of oppression and injustice. Newspapers, radios and satellite stations were turned into trenches, from which they fired at this person or that, or courts, whose most trifling sentence is the assassination of an entire sect, or resistance centers to bring down ruling regimes. There was mass hysteria, in which took part politicians and clergy, believers and atheists of all levels, and from all sects. Very few maintained their sense of balance, and building a nation and state remained the basis of the way they saw things. Among those were former Prime Minister Salim Hoss, who was accused of betraying his sect, and former Speaker Hussein Husseini, who was also accused of being outside the “consensus” of his sect. The latter resigned from Parliament, in protest at going back to a backward parliamentary election law, from the 1960s. After five years of this hysteria, and the anchoring of sectarian barricades, and the claim by influential individuals that they are discussing the establishment of a state for all people, Husseini reminded us during a talk to the media on the occasion of convening National Dialogue, that the Parliament he headed in 1989 endorsed constitutional reforms and the Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination with Syria, and the establishment of the Higher Lebanese-Syrian Council. He said the three Syrian officials – Abdel-Halim Khaddam, Ghazi Kenaan and Hikmat Shehabi, in coordination with militia leaders, worked against the agreement, obstructed its implementation and excluded Husseini from the speaker's post, to preserve their influence. Since Husseini was a key witness to that era, and determined to protect the future of Lebanese-Syrian relations, and a supporter of building a civil state, his comments about this phase are more than historical testimony. These comments are directed at all Lebanese, so that they be careful when it comes to the National Dialogue participants at Baabda Palace, who have taken it upon themselves to plan the future of the regime and the state. The participants in dialogue have not left behind the mentality of the militias, or the logic of the civil war. They only gathered around the table after receiving reassurances on their domestic and external alliances. Those who did not get such reassurances actively sought them in order to guarantee their future and their position of influence. Samir Geagea was absent from the most recent sessions. He was on a trip that took him to Cairo, where his leadership of the Christians was recognized, and where he was dubbed a “great thinker” by the secretary general of the Arab League. He then went to France, which continues to “monitor Syria,” as its foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, put it. Geagea's trip was an attempt, outside the country, to revive the alliance that arose after Hariri's assassination, after it collapsed inside the country. The leaders of the sects are MP Walid Jumblatt, Speaker Nabih Berri, Hezbollah, the Phalange Party and Michel Aoun: they are concerned with the dialogue table. None of these players is expected to exit this domestic political equation, in order to build a modern regime for all Lebanese. This is the logic, and this is what we have learned from past wars. Hussein's comment reminded us that Lebanon has statesmen, and not just sectarian leaders, who were excluded from National Dialogue – which was left to those with experience in civil wars. It is ironic that we are waiting for them to build a modern system for all the Lebanese.
