Lebanon: Between Democratization and Islamization

In 2010, Lebanon yet again embarked on another round of “national dialogue” to formulate a comprehensive and unified national defense strategy, and to tackle the regulation of armed militias and “resistance” groups, including Hizbollah. The process, which was first inaugurated in 2006, has highlighted the differences between the ruling March 14 coalition – advocating a normalization of the internal power distribution by disarming all armed groups – and the Hizbollah-led opposition forces, which reject this option and stress the need to preserve a defense model based on the concept of popular resistance. The chances that the 2010 talks will lead to a definitive agreement on this topic are slim, as Lebanon’s current political environment is still sharply divided and the elected government largely lacks the strength to impose its political agenda on the opposition forces.