Michael Young

It didn’t take a prodigy to understand what the foreign minister, Gebran Bassil, had in the back of his mind on his recent visit to Iran. Bassil hit all the right buttons with respect to the Iranians, rising up on their list of Lebanese presidential favorites if his father-in-law, Michel Aoun, fails to be elected because of his age.Bassil’s ascension to the leadership of the Free Patriotic Movement was both fraudulent and rapid. But it served a major purpose, one which the failure to extend the military career of a second Aoun son-in-law, Shamel Roukoz, only reinforced. Bassil has emerged as Hezbollah’s de facto presidential candidate when Aoun dies, so all those wagering on the general’s poor health should know that an alternative is already waiting in the wings.

Bassil went out of his way to say precisely what the Iranians wanted to hear. He condemned Israel, implied that what is happening in Syria is a consequence of “takfiri terrorism,” and expressed his optimism about Iran’s future after the lifting of sanctions in the wake of the nuclear deal with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany. By most accounts he passed the test.

Those who dislike the Aounists have made much of the fact that Bassil is not wildly popular among the FPM rank and file. Roukoz has reportedly interpreted the aggressive Aounist campaign to have him named army commander as a Bassil-led effort to actually undermine his chances. Perhaps. There are indeed many people who regard the foreign minister as a vulgar arriviste. However, power creates its own reality, and if Bassil were to emerge as a serious presidential contender, there is little doubt that many Aounists would rally to his side.

The only thing that restrains Bassil today is that his father-in-law is even more avid than he is to reach the top. Two presidential candidates in one household could make for tense family meals, so the foreign minister will bide his time – with age, vigor and evidently Hezbollah on his side.

However, you have to wonder whether Bassil raised a vital question on his tour of self-promotion to the Islamic Republic. It’s a matter to which the foreign minister, who never ceases to rouse the populist spirits when mentioning the presence of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, should be particularly sensitive. It’s also a topic about which the Aounists, who are so keen, or so they claim, to save what remains of effective Christian representation in Lebanon, should be anxious.

Quite simply, what is to happen to the over 1 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon, most of whom are Sunnis and have been cleansed by Bashar Assad’s regime, Iran and Hezbollah from wide areas around Homs, Hama, Damascus and Qalamoun? The forced expulsion of those Syrians was a political decision by Assad and his allies to change the demographic balance in parts of Syria essential to them. Iran has only added to the fire by apparently bringing in Shiites from Asia and settling them in a number of areas, including neighborhoods of Damascus.

If Bassil truly represents Lebanon, then he should have inquired about the ultimate fate of these refugees while he was in Tehran. Do the Iranians view the Sunni exodus from Syria as permanent? Surely, there must be worries among Lebanon’s Shiites, particularly Hezbollah, that, today, they have become a minority at home. And that’s not mentioning that Christians, estimated at roughly a third of the population before the Syrian war, now see their relative numbers dwindling further, even as Aoun and Bassil aspire to a revival of Christian fortunes.

The demographic factor is Lebanon’s time bomb, but so keen are the Aounists to improve their relationships with the sectarian cleansers that they have not bothered to raise this most critical of issues, let alone express alarm with what is taking place. Much the same can be said of Hezbollah, though what is exchanged privately between party officials and Iran is another matter. However, unless the destiny of Syrian refugees is clarified, the sectarian Syrian conflict has the potential of becoming a sectarian Lebanese conflict before long.Bassil might respond that a complete Assad victory would resolve all these problems. Once the Syrian regime consolidates itself, the refugees will be able to return to their areas of origin. But is that necessarily true? It may take much time for Assad and Iran to feel confident enough to allow a repopulation of the vital geographical link between Damascus and the coast with Sunnis. Every year that passes makes it less probable that Syrians in Lebanon will return home, even if the misery in which they live provides them with a disincentive to remain. Yet until now Bassil has not raised publicly the long-term implications of the sectarian cleansing perpetrated by those he considers protectors against the Sunnis. Nor has the foreign minister bothered to work toward building an international coalition to address the refugee issue in a way that will spare Lebanon’s stability down the road. There is already much global lethargy toward the refugees in Lebanon, so it’s a main duty of Bassil to break through this glass of indifference.

One cannot expect too much from Bassil. He is hardly a visionary, and is so busy burnishing his political credentials that he will not want to rock the boat with those whom, he believes, could bring him to power. But if the foreign minister would, for a moment, think less about himself and more about his country, then he should ask a simple question of his allies: Is Lebanon destined to collapse just so that Bashar Assad can survive?