The initiative to extend the mandate of General Joseph Aoun as Army Commander-in-Chief received wide support from the states that have Lebanon’s interests in mind, including the Group of Five comprising the United States, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt. The ambassadors of these countries—and those of other countries, in addition to the representatives of the United States Central Command and UNIFIL—all contacted Aoun to express their support.
In this context, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna expressed, at the end of her visit to Lebanon, the international community’s inclination to support the Army Commander’s mandate extension. According to certain information, this wave of support is motivated by the validation of the role that the army will be playing in the next phase, notably after the war in Gaza ends and political agreements are achieved to solve the conflict in South Lebanon. This includes the area that stretches from the Blue Line to the Litani River and is subject to Resolution 1701.
The same information indicates that the concerned states perceive the extension in question as an unavoidable reality, one that cannot be altered despite the appeal that the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) said it would file next Tuesday. These states know full well that the Constitutional Council members are aware of the dangers Lebanon is facing and the risks posed by a vacuum in the army command. Seemingly, the nomination of a new chief-of-staff, general inspector and head of administration at the military council will not occur before the appeal issue is dealt with by the Constitutional Council and a final decision is made.
That being said, if a chief-of-staff is appointed, the actors who endeavor to put pressure on the members of the Constitutional Council would use this as an excuse to say that revoking the extension law will not generate a vacuum in the army command, as the chief-of-staff would have taken office. It is worth noting that the text pertaining to this stipulates that the chief-of-staff would replace the commander-in-chief if the latter is absent, but the text in question would lose its referential value in the event of a vacuum in the army command.
Western diplomatic sources have found it odd that MP and FPM leader Gebran Bassil would seek to antagonize the Army Commander-in-Chief. According to these sources, the recent events are somewhat confusing given that Bassil criticized General Aoun and accused him of being lenient at the border with Syria, instead of taking stricter measures that would reduce the influx of refugees while tightening security measures at sea to keep other Syrian asylum seekers from traveling illegally to Europe.
So why doesn’t Bassil ask his friend, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to take the refugees back to Syria? And why doesn’t he urge his ally, Hezbollah, to return the displaced people to Qusair and Zabadani, and the villages and towns in rural Qalamoun ?
The sources revealed that Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib held talks over the refugee issue with Cypriot Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou in Geneva, at the Global Refugee Forum. Ioannou has reportedly criticized the lack of control of illegal immigration at sea in Lebanon and the fact that a large number of vessels have been reaching Cypriot waters carrying hundreds of refugees. The Cypriot minister added that Cyprus has documented all of these operations and knows the exact number of vessels and immigrants that have departed from Lebanon. As for Bou Habib, he assured Ioannou that, despite all efforts made, the Lebanese marine and its coast guards do not have the means to thwart illegal immigration.
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