During the last week of July last year, I visited PM Najib Mikati in his London house. He then told me, “the situation in Lebanon calls for an exceptional cabinet and I won't be a barrier to the establishment of such a cabinet." This term turned a simple courtesy call into an interview carried in Al-Hayat. It is not a normal thing for a prime minister to say that his country needs a different cabinet. That was a clear message indicating that his cabinet is no longer able to confront the growing challenges including the Syrian fire, the Lebanese people division over that fire, and their increasing implication in it. When the prime minister says something like that, the reader may conclude that he is alluding to a resignation or that he is looking for the right circumstances to tender his resignation. Back then, the Mikati cabinet was about to receive two deadly presents. In less than two weeks, it had to go through the arrest of the former Minister, Michel Samaha, as he was caught red-handed transferring explosives to be used in North Lebanon, mainly in the Sunni areas. Lebanon then became busy with what came to be known as the Samaha-Mamlouk case. Because Mikati was an old traveler on the Beirut-Damascus road, he knew Michel Samaha and Ali Mamlouk very well and he knew who they were. The most dangerous part is that the man who caught Samaha was Brigadier Wissam al-Hassan. In October, the cabinet received another deadly present exceeding the prime minister's ability to cope: the assassination of Wissam al-Hassan. Mikati was well aware of the role played by Al-Hassan in sifting through the thorny threads of former PM Rafik al-Hariri's assassination. He knew that the International Tribunal would have gotten nowhere if it wasn't for Al-Hassan's keenness and patience and the ingenuity of his apparatus. With the death of Al-Hassan, Mikati lost the card that he had been using against the angry majority within his own sect: the card of maintaining Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi and Brigadier Wissam al-Hassan in their posts. Mikati preferred to abstain from resigning at that point perhaps because he knew that such a step would be dangerous under these circumstances. However, this crime accentuated his feeling of the need to resign and he started looking for the right time to do that. Since then, Mikati was torn between the risk of staying and the risk of resigning with a tendency towards the second option. Al-Hassan's assassination caused him to lose the gain that he had achieved when he succeeded in passing the funding of the International Tribunal by adopting the “Mikati style." There is an even more dangerous part: when Mikati was appointed to form the cabinet, the Arab Spring had not hit Syria yet. Like many others, Mikati probably thought that the Syrian castle and its stringent regime were protected against this kind of winds. However, when Mikati formed his cabinet, Syria had started to drown in the daily killings and the Arab and international seclusion. In the past few months, Mikati had a growing conviction that the events in Syria had entered the phase of no-return. From his sea-facing house in Beirut, Mikati was following up on the events like someone toying with bombs. Young men from his hometown in North Lebanon were crossing the borders in order to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. Young men from Hezbollah, the strongest party in the cabinet, were being laid to rest as they died fighting alongside the Syrian regime. Heading the cabinet of the conflicting poles had become too exhausting and too costly for the prime minister. Mikati was in a very difficult situation. Neither his adversaries nor his allies cut him some slack. The only thing left to do was for him to resign in order to distance himself from the cabinet. He had initially taken a risk by accepting to form this cabinet although he was aware of the un-natural circumstances accompanying its birth. There is no exaggeration in saying that Lebanon is now living through its darkest and most dangerous times. The Shiite-Sunni relationships are experiencing an unprecedented and horrific degradation. Tripoli is living through a Sunni-Alawite civil war. The state is eroding at an astonishing pace and its institutions are growing weaker. Experiencing the same fate of Iraq is no longer an imminent threat, for it has actually become a tangible fact in the streets and the hearts. One must now wonder about the future of Lebanon rather than that of Mikati. The complete collapse can only be prevented by halting the risks taken beyond the Lebanese borders. The country cannot be saved through the mentality of the reckless gamblers. There is no time and these gamblers must realize the danger of their bets. The Shiites, the Sunnis, and the Christians must all sit together and abide by the slogan, “Lebanon comes first." Otherwise, they will have to lay Lebanon's dead body to rest. They must return to the state. Mikati shielded himself from his cabinet. The Lebanese people must now shield themselves from the deadly adventures.
