Now that sovereignty has been set on track through the commitment to place weapons exclusively in the hands of the Lebanese Army, and as we await the obstacles that will inevitably face the army’s plan beyond the Litani River, the latest solid leaks from the U.S. administration are genuinely worrying.
It seems that certain Lebanese “sovereignist” forces have successfully persuaded part of the American administration—led by U.S. envoy Morgan Ortagus—to settle for “sovereignty” alone, postponing the reforms and accountability measures that should naturally accompany it.
According to insider whispers, the well-known banker Antoun Sehnaoui has taken it upon himself to solidify this “sovereignty-only” conviction in Ortagus’ mind. This was reinforced during a dinner (not the first and certainly not the last) held in her honor at his restaurant in downtown Beirut. Sehnaoui himself was absent since judicial reasons make his presence in Lebanon impossible, but “sovereignists” were in attendance, while others, less fond of him, were not.
We agree with Ms. Ortagus: there can be no reform without sovereignty and without weapons in the hands of the state. But what is also certain is that there can be no reform with Antoun Sehnaoui.
This man owns one of Lebanon’s largest banks, which colluded with former central bank governor Riad Salameh and was among the biggest beneficiaries of the so-called “financial engineering” schemes. These schemes funded successive corrupt and “resistance” governments—from those led by Saad Hariri, through Hassan Diab’s, and culminating in the peak of corruption under Najib Mikati, whose file was recently taken up by the French judiciary.
It is a disgrace that French courts are pressing ahead with investigations into corruption allegations, while Lebanese courts stumble over even the smallest steps toward accountability. Files on Mikati, Bank Audi, and Salameh reach us from Paris, while Lebanon’s victims of corruption languish outside banks and hospitals, and political party followers split between those pointing fingers and those gloating. The French judiciary, undeterred even by Mikati’s friendship with French President Emmanuel Macron, is proving it can act, precisely because it is a judiciary, and because Lebanese corruption has contaminated the French financial system itself.
To strip the “sovereignty” issue of sectarian exploitation requires telling the Lebanese the truth: the entire architecture of corruption and financial engineering was designed to sustain “Hezbollah’s state.” Sovereignist forces turned a blind eye to this reality because many of them benefited from the “gifts” Salameh distributed at Hezbollah’s behest to silence them. Talking about sovereignty without reform, then, becomes a sectarian vendetta: we seize Hezbollah’s weapons while rehabilitating the very forces that profited from financing the state of arms. And this financing, let us not forget, came from the theft of people’s deposits.
This is why reform is inseparable from sovereignty. The banks were complicit with the power of arms: this fact is well-documented and supported by mountains of evidence. Riad Salameh, the symbol of that era, brokered the deal between both sides of the equation, enabled by consecutive renewals of his mandate and by “sovereignist” media outlets that to this day carry his cause, not to mention political parties that claim sovereignty that extend far beyond the Aounist movement.
By postponing reform and accountability in favor of “sovereignty only,” we end up with schemes to rescue bankers from the consequences of their crimes. The burden of Lebanon’s financial gap will be dumped on depositors, not the corrupt elites or the banks. The first $100,000 of deposits will be repaid over six years, while the rest will be converted into worthless shares. The bankers will walk away unscathed, while the complicit political class will keep leading, draped in the flag of sovereignty. And the only scraps of hope left to us are when foreign courts act after their own financial systems are touched by Lebanese corruption.
The credibility of the sovereignty cause lies precisely in refusing to separate it from reform. Otherwise, sovereignty becomes a sectarian bazaar where accountability is reserved for one religious community, strengthening Hezbollah’s alarmist narrative that Shiites alone are being targeted for the crimes of the era of weapons and corruption.
