Aoun’s drop of southern comfort
Michel Aoun, politically and geographically, took his supporters deeper into Hezbollahstan on Sunday on a visit to southern villages that was organized, orchestrated and chaperoned – even in the Christian villages – by his allies in Hezbollah. His visit was also a dusting down of his infamous 2007 Memorandum of Understanding with Hezbollah, and an endorsement of his support for the party and its retaining its weapons.
In reality, the trip smacked of panic from the former army commander-turned-exile-turned-MP and Free Patriotic Movement leader. Aoun is preparing for the event that his elections hopes in Jbeil, Kesrouan and the Metn take a hit should there be a swing toward the general’s rivals and potential competitors, such as President Michel Sleiman, a man who incidentally looks set to steal Aoun’s thunder as Lebanon’s muscular Christian. And now Aoun must look to his allies in Hezbollah to make up the shortfall by allowing his candidates onto their lists in the South, where traditionally, southern Christian MPs are either Hezbollah, Amal or pro-Syrian shoe-ins, and it is these that Aoun is maybe seeking to supplant.
Not surprisingly, Aoun did not mention UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and efforts to implement it, even though the grand tour came in the wake of Hezbollah’s stick-waving exercise, during which it promised Israel a “big surprise” for killing Imad Mugniyah (and after which Israel threatened to send five divisions over the border in response). All worrying stuff for those who would prefer living to dying, but for Aoun, the political prize appears to be set above all else.
In his bid to win the South, Jezzine appears to be the prize. The retired general is known to want, among others, Jezzine’s three Christian seats up for grabs, and, though a statement by his son-in-law Gebran Bassil, is riding on a ticket of “reclaiming” the southern town. From what is anyone’s guess, but his posturing appears to have irritated Amal MP Ali Bazzi, presumably because, if Hezbollah does give Aoun squatting rights in the South, it might be at the expense of Amal’s own nominees.
The pieces of the jigsaw are falling into place. The trip to the South came in the wake of a concerted campaign to discredit the Maronite patriarch and two days after Aoun received an invitation to Tehran. Should Aoun, the man who railed against Syria and Hezbollah from his exile in Paris and whose supporters were initially at the vanguard of the 2005 Independence Intifada, accept and be welcomed by the mullahs, the conversion from supposed champion of Lebanese sovereignty to a representative of regional conservatism will be complete.