Despite the multiplicity of definitions of the state, they all share a fundamental thing: the existence of an authority capable of imposing security and order in a particular region through its monopoly alone, excluding others, “tools of coercion”, and the residents of this region are subject to this authority according to a specific social contract. This French “Larousse” encyclopedia defines the state as “a group of individuals who live on a specific land and are subject to a certain authority,” and the “Montevideo Convention” on the rights and duties of states in 1933 defines it as: “An area of land possessing a permanent population, a territory. Defined and a government capable of maintaining and effective control over its lands, and conducting international relations with other countries. ”The definitions of the other country all revolve within this meaning and do not deviate from it.
If we apply this concept to the case of Lebanon, we will easily and effortlessly discover the absence of the state in the known sense since the emergence of the modern nation state after the “Westphalia” conference in 1648; Instead of the parties being affiliated with the state, we find that the Lebanese state has become subordinate to the parties, and even monopolized by one party that tries to achieve effective control over the Lebanese territories and seeks to break the state’s monopoly on the tools of force, which is the terrorist Hezbollah, which has gone beyond the level of trying to create a state within a state. Through its political and military wings, to the stage of controlling the state and employing it for his benefit, and the interest of its main sponsor, which is Iran.
The Beirut bombings on August 4, 2020, were a natural result of the absence of the role of the state, because Hezbollah sought to marginalize and weaken it and monopolize the sources of power, as the party was active in importing weapons and explosives, and this activity by the party did not stop within the borders of the Lebanese geography, but rather went beyond them. Many countries in the region and the world, and in this context, Bahrain announced days after the Beirut bombings that it had thwarted two operations to smuggle explosives from Iran in which the terrorist Hezbollah was involved, and thus the Lebanese state was transformed by Hezbollah in order to become just a tool in Iran’s terrorist and chaotic project that targets The entire Arab region.
The (Beirut explosion) was not the first and it will not be the last, as long as the state is still missing and subordinate, and therefore the Lebanese situation needs to re-set the compass in the direction of building a real and recognized state governed by a single authority capable of preserving and effective control over its lands, and monopolizing The tools of power, and governing the limits of the parties’ role in Lebanese life in a way that serves the higher interests of the Lebanese state, instead of the state of fragmentation and the stripping of its power in favor of the terrorist Hezbollah.
And if the Beirut explosion was not the starting point for real and radical reform in Lebanon, it is regrettable to say that matters will end up adapting the facts on the Lebanese scene, in the interest of the continuation of the status quo, which will lead to the continuation of Hezbollah’s terrorist plot to control the state.
What is happening in Lebanon brings us back to the UAE’s firm position, in affirming the support of the national state against the armed militias that are trying to dismantle or control it, and considering this state a safety valve, and the basis for stability, security and development in the region.
