Former President of the Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Jumblatt, confirmed that the Lebanese National Resistance was what forced Israel to withdraw from Lebanon, considering that “every resistance on occupied land wins in the end,” stressing at the same time that the ambition of the Lebanese remains for the army to assume responsibility for the country’s security and for the state to return to being the only reference.
In an interview on the “Witness to the Era” program, Jumblatt reviewed pivotal moments in the history of Lebanon and Syria, noting that after the death of former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir called for a complete Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, pointing out that he demanded in Parliament during October 2000 the implementation of the Taif Agreement and the repositioning of the Syrian army from Mount Lebanon to the Bekaa in preparation for negotiating its complete withdrawal, but he was then accused of treason.
Jumblatt stopped at the incident of exhuming Hafez al-Assad’s grave, considering that a person bears the consequences of his actions during his life and after his death, “to the extent of the injustice he inflicted on the Syrian people.”
Speaking about the relationship with former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Jumblatt said that from the first meeting he sensed “his hatred for the martyr President Rafik Hariri,” attributing that to the narrow circle around him, including Major General Muhammad Nassif, who he said was one of the most prominent security officials in Syria and raised Bashar al-Assad and his brother Basil.
He added that Syrian officials viewed Bashar al-Assad in his early days as “just a student,” and described him as a “boy,” noting that these conversations were said in front of the martyr President Rafik Hariri during meetings in Bloudan. He also pointed out that former Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam moved to live in Paris after Hariri’s assassination, in a house that Hariri owned and still belongs to his family.
Regarding the assassination of martyr Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Jumblatt said that no one expected the extent of the planning that preceded the crime, noting that the meeting of US President Donald Trump (correction: George W. Bush, according to the time frame) with French President Jacques Chirac in 2004 paved the way for the birth of Resolution 1559, which stipulated the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon and the disarmament of the militias.
Regarding the resistance weapons file, Jumblatt believed that Iranian influence established the equation of “the army, the people and the resistance,” considering that after the liberation of the south, the Lebanese army alone should have assumed responsibility for security in all Lebanese territories, stressing that the Lebanese are still looking forward to restoring the state’s full role.
He also touched on the phase of the Syrian security presence in Lebanon. He spoke about Major General Ghazi Kanaan, noting that he assumed responsibility for Syrian intelligence in Lebanon after the Israeli invasion, succeeding Muhammad Ghanem, before speaking about the circumstances of Kanaan’s death and the arrival of Rustom Ghazaleh to manage the Lebanese file. He also praised some of the Syrian officers with whom he dealt, including Saeed Bayrakdar and Ibrahim Safi, considering that among them were respectable figures and others who were not.
Jumblatt restored the mountain reconciliation in 2001, considering that the visit of Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir to Al-Mukhtara constituted a historical milestone that established the return of Christians to the mountain and the consolidation of tranquility, noting the participation of various Christian forces in that reconciliation, including representatives of President Michel Aoun and the wife of the head of the “Lebanese Forces” party, Samir Geagea.
He concluded by noting that his last visit to Syria was in 2011, with the outbreak of popular protests, saying that he began to doubt Bashar al-Assad’s intentions after the shooting of peaceful demonstrators in Daraa, and the arrest and torture of a number of tribal leaders, considering that that stage witnessed the beginning of the Syrian regime’s reliance on “Shabiha” groups, which he described as consisting of criminals who had been released from prisons.
Jumblatt’s statements come at a time when Lebanon and the region are witnessing a broad re-evaluation of the stage of Syrian tutelage and the role of regional powers inside Lebanon, coinciding with the continuation of the political debate about the future of resistance weapons, the exclusivity of weapons in the hands of the state, and the implementation of the Taif Agreement and relevant international resolutions, amid transformations taking place in the Syrian arena after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and the accompanying opening of political and security files dating back decades.
