The government will have to extend General Joseph Aoun’s mandate as army commander in chief in the next two weeks; otherwise, the Parliament will take over.
The issue of extending the mandate of the army commander-in-chief, General Joseph Aoun, is well on its way to resolution, thanks to an almost national consensus that has emerged around the necessity of maintaining the latter at the helm of the troops while Lebanon risks sliding into a war it did not choose.
White smoke emerged from Ain el-Tineh on Monday, following a meeting of the parliamentary bloc of the Lebanese Forces (LF) led by MP Georges Adwan with the Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri.
The government is supposed to extend General Aoun’s mandate, as the army falls under the power of the Council of Ministers, in accordance with the Taif Agreement.
According to Adwan’s explanations to the press, Berri expressed a desire to wait for two weeks to give the government time to settle this matter. In case the ministers close to the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, Gebran Bassil, fiercely opposed to Joseph Aoun, obstruct the extension (the Minister of Defense, Maurice Slim, who is supposed to present it, is close to the FPM), the Parliament is ready to take over.
Berri assured the LF delegation that he will convene a parliamentary meeting in December, with the proposal of an urgent law amendment at the top of the agenda, regarding the extension of General Aoun’s mandate.
The importance of the Ain el-Tineh meeting and Adwan’s explanations lies in the fact that they testify to the national consensus about the necessity of maintaining General Aoun at the helm of the army and, above all, obtaining the green light from the “Shiite Duo” for the desired extension.
The State’s Rationale
Nabih Berri’s position on Monday is the opposite of the one he adopted when the LF bloc submitted to Parliament, at the end of October, its proposal to raise the retirement age of the army commanders-in-chief to 61 years instead of 60. The Speaker of Parliament had criticized the LF’s initiative, who have boycotted all parliamentary meetings for a year in the absence of a head of state, accusing them of seeking a legislation “à la carte.”
This consensus around the retention of the army commander-in-chief in his position and the appointment of a new army chief of staff to complete the military council is dictated by the political principle of the state’s rationale, given the exceptional circumstances that Lebanon is going through.
Even the head of the Marada, Sleiman Frangieh, who had expressed a principled opposition to extending the army commander’s mandate during his meeting with Gebran Bassil, eventually retracted. The change of heart by Frangieh, himself a candidate for the presidency, is explained by his reluctance to set a precedent—if he opposes an extension of Joseph Aoun’s mandate—by allowing the appointment of a new army commander in the absence of a president.
In Lebanon, it is customary for the head of the regular forces to be chosen by the President of the Republic, considered, in accordance with the Taif Agreement, as the supreme chief of the armies – which are, however, subject to the political power of the Cabinet.
The two-week deadline announced by Ain el-Tineh is supposed to give the Prime Minister time to work towards a consensus within his team; with the help of Nabih Berri and, potentially, Hezbollah, in order to avoid a new crisis in the country and, above all, to cut off the ground from Gebran Bassil. If the latter wants to persist in his opposition, he might resort to constitutional or administrative tools to assert his blocking policy, which, in his logic, takes precedence over the general interest.
From One Deadlock to Another
In December 2021, the Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, under strong pressure from the FPM camp to dismiss the then-governor of the central bank, Riad Salameh, reacted by putting forth an unequivocal argument, “We do not change officers in times of war.” Lebanon was then sinking into an unprecedented financial and economic crisis, but the leader of the FPM leader saw it as an opportunity to try to appoint one of his close associates to the head of the Central Bank before the end of his father-in-law’s term, former President Michel Aoun.
Two years later, the same scenario repeats itself for the same opportunistic motives. The target has changed for Bassil, who now has the army commander-in-chief in his sights, one of the most serious candidates for the presidency and therefore perceived as a formidable opponent. However, unlike in 2021, Lebanon is now in a state of undeclared war, with the opening of the southern front, parallel to the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The Lebanese Forces’ Argument
Gebran Bassil’s opportunism—distinguished from the FPM, as several MPs and officials of the party are in favor of extending General Joseph Aoun’s mandate—was highlighted by the Lebanese Forces when their parliamentary bloc delegation was received at Ain el-Tineh.
“We know perfectly well that now is not the time for political controversies, and that the priority is to prevent a war toward which Lebanon is unfortunately slowly sliding. But MP Bassil has crossed all boundaries in a matter related to national security,” underlined the LF in a statement issued by their information department.
“MP Bassil claims to have a constant and principled position when he expresses his opposition (to extending the army commander-in-chief’s mandate), whereas everyone knows that his position is neither constant nor principled because the only constant he knows relates to his own interests,” affirmed the LF statement, recalling how Bassil “made an exception to his so-called principled position of boycotting legislative meetings in the absence of a president, when he voted in favor of an extension of municipal council mandates and thus block municipal elections whose results would not have been in his favor.”
“Gebran Bassil asserts that an extension of the Chief’s mandate is not considered emergency legislation, unlike, according to him, the municipal council’s mandate,” denounced the LF, recalling that holding the elections was, however, essential, “to address issues directly affecting the population, especially as nearly half of the municipal councils have been dissolved.”
Samir Geagea’s party also highlighted the connection between the military hierarchy and the effectiveness of the regular forces. “Changing the command of the army in this critical period while war looms and the vacancy in the head of the state persists, amid an economic collapse, exposes the country to risks,” warned the LF, emphasizing that the current situation requires the retention of someone with the necessary experience who thoroughly understands the military institution. “When a President of the Republic is elected, a new army commander-in-chief can then be appointed,” concluded the LF statement.
