Former President Michel Suleiman marks the twentieth anniversary of the army's deployment to the south, saying protection must come through state institutions and that only the state can make war and peace decisions.
Former President Michel Suleiman said on Monday that Lebanon's protection can only be secured through the state and its legitimate institutions, principally the Lebanese army. He was marking the twentieth anniversary of the army's deployment to the south on August 17, 2006, after a twenty-seven-year absence from the region.
Suleiman said the deployment came as implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701. He noted that the resistance movement considered at that time that it had achieved victory in its war with Israel.
He questioned why tunnel-digging and support operations continued after 2006, along with retaliatory wars and involvement in the Syrian conflict, saying these actions contradicted the terms of Resolution 1701. The former president argued that these activities fell outside the mandate that had brought the army back to the south.
Suleiman said the years since 2006 and the tragedies that accompanied them had proved that the solution lies in the state and its legitimate institutions. He asserted that the Lebanese army would continue to implement the decisions of the political authority in ways that safeguard Lebanese sovereignty and protect national unity.
He stressed that protecting Lebanon requires a single national army, a single sovereign decision-making authority, and a state that alone holds the power to decide war and peace. These three elements, he suggested, cannot be divided or shared among competing armed groups.
Suleiman's remarks come amid ongoing tension over the role of armed groups operating outside state control. The army's deployment to the south in 2006 was meant to establish state authority in the region and ensure that only the military could make decisions about security.
The former president's emphasis on exclusive state authority reflects a long-standing constitutional principle: that Lebanon's government, not private militias or external powers, must determine the country's military and diplomatic posture. He offered no detail about how this principle might be enforced.
Suleiman served as president from 2008 to 2014 and has remained a public voice on security matters since leaving office. His comments on the anniversary suggest he views the two decades since the army's return to the south as an incomplete transition toward state monopoly on security decisions.
The speech underscores a central problem in Lebanese politics: the existence of armed structures loyal to political movements rather than to the state. Whether and how that structure might be resolved remains unaddressed in Suleiman's statement, which offered no concrete proposal for change or path forward beyond reaffirming what he said the constitution already requires.
