Avoiding confrontation, allowing a military organization to rebuild

Since the Lebanese state took historic decisions to establish a monopoly on arms, little has changed on the ground. Despite its formal commitment to bringing all weapons under state authority, the government has yet to act decisively, while Hezbollah, the Iran-backed armed group, appears to be using the passage of time to regroup and reorganize.

For Ghassan Hasbani, Lebanese Forces MP and former deputy prime minister, the problem is not a lack of state institutions or legal instruments, but the failure to mobilize them in a coordinated effort to enforce the law.

“The state has tools that go beyond the military. It has the army, the security agencies, the judiciary, the financial oversight and the ability to tighten financial controls, as well as the administrative apparatus and the ability to impose administrative restrictions,” he told The Beiruter.

Hasbani was unequivocal: If all these institutions acted together, swiftly and on a broad scale, a military confrontation with a particular party would no longer be necessary. Instead, the state could enforce the law across multiple fronts.

He pointed out to what he described as a pattern of deliberate inaction.

“Judicially, there is an avoidance of referring the explosives case to the Judicial Council. Administratively, the state refrains from addressing the status of associations operating under the guise of civil society organizations whose activities support Hezbollah and its community politically, militarily and in security matters.

“Financially, the state fails to crack down decisively on tax evasion, cross-border smuggling and customs evasion, while continuing to allow provisions in the state budget that benefit Hezbollah. Security operations, meanwhile, appear to take place by chance with arrests made at a checkpoint in Dahr al-Baidar, for instance, rather than through coordinated, proactive operations.

“On the military front, the army refrains from engaging in confrontation, conducting raids, sealing off weapons depots, dismantling trenches or seizing weapons and other assets, whether movable or immovable.”

If none of these institutions does what it is supposed to do, this is not a way of avoiding confrontation. It amounts to allowing a military organization capable of turning against the state to rebuild itself. In other words, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Addressing the argument that confronting Hezbollah could destabilize the country and alienate a particular community, the former Deputy Prime Minister rejected the premise that the situation reflected a balance between the two sides.

“Today, there is no balance. The argument of ‘accommodating’ an armed group - rather than a segment of the Lebanese population- that has its own constituency as well as institutions operating outside the state, disregards the demands of the rest of the Lebanese people and the fundamental conditions for building a functioning state: one that exercises its authority independently and takes responsibility for its decisions, rather than becoming a rogue or failed state. Turning a blind eye and aligning with this position effectively denies the rest of the citizens their right to a functioning state”.

The state cannot simply stand in the middle and claim to represent all citizens equally when some abide by the law and others operate outside it.

By failing to act, Hasbani added, the state effectively signals that it has no intention of enforcing its own decisions, instead waiting for events to unfold on their own.

Finding excuses

Hasbani dismissed what he described as Lebanon’s ready-made expressions, “This is simply the latest fashion in finding excuses for avoiding law enforcement, that is all there is to it,” he said.

“One such expression is preserving civil peace. Another is protecting coexistence. A third is avoiding civil war and invoking the fear of civil war. These arguments have been used for 40 years. They have destroyed the state and devastated the country,” the MP told The Beiruter.

In his assessment, the ones invoking the threat of civil war - the one party who has weapons- are effectively warning of a military confrontation with the state should it seek to enforce the law. He described this as an attempt to overthrow the State, potentially amounting to an internal war against the Lebanese state itself.

“It is similar to the Houthis in Yemen. That is the clearest way to describe the threat,” he added.

He argued that the ones invoking fear of a civil war are trying to avoid a confrontation between the state and those operating outside the law, a confrontation that would be necessary to enforce the law. 

Avoiding the very task of building the state

The gap between Lebanon’s stated commitments and their implementations has become increasingly difficult to ignore.

On August 5, 2025, The Council of Ministers tasked the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) with preparing a plan to establish a state monopoly on weapons across Lebanon, with the objective of completing the process by the end of 2025. This was a major step toward addressing Hezbollah's arsenal. 

On September 5, 2025, the government welcomed the army’s plan to place weapons under the exclusive authority of the state, in line with President Joseph Aoun's inaugural address and the government's ministerial statement.

on March 2, 2026, the government went further and declared Hezbollah's military and security activities illegal.

Yet these decisions have not translated into the effective implementation of the state’s stated objective. The contradiction is particularly stark when an organization whose military activities the government has declared illegal continues to challenge the authorities over the handling of its weapons and military assets.

“We must continue to demand that the state implement its decisions and maintain pressure on it to do so. A decision remains nothing more than ink on paper if it is not enforced. Avoiding action means avoiding the very task of building the state, and that is extremely dangerous”, Hasbani said.

He warned that the greatest danger lay in the state’s continued failure to confront the problem.

“The greatest danger that is this policy of turning a blind eye which could ultimately lead to another war, one that would be even more devastating than a civil war,” he added.

As the threat of a wider war looms, Hezbollah’s defiance of the State deepens political paralysis, while the burden on Lebanese citizens grows by the day.