The Jaafarite Mufti Ahmad Kabalan. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Hezbollah has called on the government to "correct its course" as Cabinet meets for a second time this week to discuss a state monopoly on arms that centers around Hezbollah's disarmament, for which U.S. envoy Tom Barrack submitted a proposed "roadmap" drawn up by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Meeting under the chairmanship of its leader, Mohammad Raad, Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc issued a statement denouncing U.S. policy and protesting against what it said was the government's "yielding to foreign pressures" and disregarding the interests of Lebanon and national unity.
"When Prime Minister Nawaf Salam adopts the American envoy’s roadmap, he is going against all the commitments he made in his ministerial statement, as well as those in the president’s inauguration speech."
Cabinet concluded its Tuesday meeting on the topic having decided to task the Lebanese Army with drawing up a plan for the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon by the end of the year, which it should present to Cabinet by the end of August.
Two ministers associated with the Amal Movement and Hezbollah, Rakan Nassereddine and Tamara al-Zein, walked out in protest, and Minister Fady Makki made his reservations known. Hezbollah responded the next day, saying it was not concerned by the government's decision.
Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc described the government and its leader's adoption of the U.S. roadmap as a "suspicious and unreasonable haste," considering that it "disregards respect for the national pact and the principles of the Taif Agreement, which enshrines Lebanon’s right to self-defense."
"Desperate attempts to target the weapons of 'the Resistance' are a free gift to the Israeli enemy and would strip Lebanon of one of its main assets against blind Zionist violence," the statement added. The bloc called on the government to "correct course by reversing its decision."
Kabalan: Stability or a powder keg?
For his part, Jaafarite Mufti Ahmad Kabalan, a Shiite cleric close to Hezbollah, issued a short statement ahead of Thursday's Cabinet meeting, warning that it might "put the country on the path toward stability and respecting national interests, or it may inflame the heart of its people, disregarding their sovereign interests."
"No one has an excuse, silence is a grave crime, and everyone is concerned with protecting the country's higher political and sovereign interests," the sheikh said. "There can be no neutrality in such an existential cause. Any constitutional coup or reckless national gamble will put the country at the center of an ordeal that could be the worst."
