The precursors of Shiite frustration in Lebanon are unsettling. Their indicators point to a sense of existential decline that has begun to dominate the community’s psyche, to which it is responding by taking steps toward a civil gamble, playing what appears to be a final card: either a “victory” that has become impossible, or a rupture beyond repair.
This helps explain not only the delirium on social media, but also the actions of the community’s leadership, namely Hezbollah, from asking the Iranian ambassador not to comply with the Lebanese government’s decision requesting his departure, to continuing a fight that the state has deemed unlawful.
The leadership of the Lebanese Shiite community no longer seems to feel the need to justify its actions to those who are supposed to be its partners. Today, it stands entirely outside the law and outside state institutions. This is unprecedented, even at the height of the successive civil wars Lebanon has witnessed over the past five decades. Regardless of what this violent detachment from Lebanon signifies, understanding it requires examining what is unfolding within the community’s collective psyche, especially if Lebanese are to think about any future for their country.
“Frustration” is a phase that follows ascendancy. It is a response to a blockage that has affected the community, within the cyclical rise and decline of groups, as described by Ibn Khaldun.
The Maronites have previously experienced “frustration.” External circumstances imposed it, and they failed to grasp its early signs. Michel Aoun sought refuge in the French embassy before leaving for Paris. Samir Geagea was imprisoned for 11 years. Then the Syrian army withdrew from Lebanon, and the Maronites emerged from their frustration.
Later, Rafik Hariri was assassinated, his son was forced abroad, and Lebanon entered a phase of Sunni frustration, which persisted until the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, after which Lebanon’s Sunnis regained some footing.
Neither of these two frustrations, Maronite and Sunni, was free of violence and tragedy. Both carried elements of withdrawal from the state and from Lebanon itself, each with its own specificities. Today, we are facing the third frustration, completing Ibn Khaldun’s cycle of communal rise and decline in Lebanon.
Just as Lebanon did not collapse during the Maronite and Sunni phases of frustration, it will not collapse in this third phase, despite the signs of violence it carries. This conclusion does not stem from confidence in Lebanon’s strength. At times, it may instead stem from its fragility, which makes total disintegration an unlikely destiny, since the end of Lebanon would not produce anything realistic or viable. Moreover, endings require projects, and no Lebanese group possesses a project capable of bringing the state to a definitive end.
By contrast, the Shiite impasse has closed off any room for anticipation. It is either victory or death. Victory over Israel and the United States. This is not a gamble, because a gamble carries at least some possibility of gain, however small. Here, the chances of success are virtually nonexistent.
What is more likely is that any margin of gain will be internal. That is, Israel may leave a narrow Lebanese window for investment, allowing Hezbollah to emerge with some semblance of face-saving, which it can then amplify and inflate in the face of its domestic opponents, much as happened in 2006.
But even this window is now closed. The gap is vast, not only between the two wars, but also between the surrounding conditions and circumstances. There is no longer any regional depth that could sustain a Shiite ascendancy. Hezbollah has shut every window available to the community. Wars on all fronts: with Israel, with Syria, and with Sunnis and Christians within Lebanon, while Iran is distant and exhausted.
This closure helps explain the state of confusion and delirium. The community senses that it stands on the brink of a political catastrophe, and that everyone is waiting for the moment to pounce. Sectarian groups possess instincts that sharpen such perceptions. In this regard, the Shiite community may not be wrong, as many are indeed waiting to settle sectarian scores.
At a certain point, a sectarian community loses its political compass. It fights without it and crashes into the wall. Michel Aoun did so when he insisted on fighting despite an evident, inevitable defeat. Today, Nabih Berri fully understands where the war is heading, yet he knows it is no longer in his hands. In such a situation, little remains but the voices echoing across social media platforms.
In the early 1990s, Maronite leaders were pushed out of Lebanon, ushering in Maronite frustration. At the beginning of this century, Rafik Hariri was assassinated, his son was forced into exile, and Sunni frustration began. Today, Israel has killed Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, while his counterpart within the Shiite duo, Nabih Berri, is nearing his ninth decade. In all three cases, internal conditions were not the only factor; regional and international dynamics accompanied them and pushed them forward.
It is not possible to foresee the contours of the end of the Shiite moment based on what was experienced by the Maronites and Sunnis. Such forecasting is likely unhelpful, as each “frustration” has its own conditions, and each community has different mechanisms for dealing with its setbacks.
As for relying on our experience of “frustration” to spare others its accompanying symptoms, that would require a level of awareness that Lebanon’s sectarian instinct-driven system has never been able to provide since the state’s inception.
