March 8 forces bet on changing balance of power
In an interview with al-Mustaqbal daily on Tuesday, National Bloc leader Carlos Eddé said the March 8 coalition was betting on shifting the balance of power inside the Parliament to maintain their weapons. This was the result of the Doha Agreement, through which some Lebanese officials were purposefully kept away from taking part in the Lebanese decision making process. He said the national dialogue sessions would not result in any agreement over the national defense strategy. “We will move from one meeting to the other until the [upcoming parliamentary] elections,” he said.
Eddé noted there were two opposing points of view over Hezbollah’s weapons in Lebanon. The first position is that of Hezbollah and its allies who wanted to keep the Resistance’s weapons under any claim or slogan of defending Lebanon against Israel. Eddé related the second position to those who supported weapons solely being the hands of the Lebanese state.