(CNSNews.com) – Five months after Lebanese voters handed Western-backed parties victory over their Hezbollah-led rivals, the country has a new “national unity” government in which Hezbollah and its allies control 10 out of 30 cabinet seats.
 
And one of the first things made clear when Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s new cabinet was convened for the first time Tuesday was that the unresolved issue of disarming Hezbollah – as demanded by U.N. Security Council resolutions – would not be tackled quickly.
 
A committee of 11 ministers was appointed to draw up the incoming government’s program.  A cabinet spokesman, Information Minister Tarek Mitri, said in response to a question on Hezbollah’s weapons that the new document would be based on that of the previous government. That program sidestepped the issue of disarming Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, which styles itself the Lebanese “resistance” against neighboring Israel.
 
Hezbollah, set up with Tehran’s support soon after the 1979 Iranian revolution, has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department for more than a decade. Before al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. in 2001 Washington held Hezbollah responsible for the deaths of more Americans in acts of terror than any other group.
 
The Shi’ite group, which has been implicated in terror attacks in the Middle East, Europe and Latin America, views Israel as its primary enemy, and fought a bloody month-long war against the Jewish state in 2006.
 
It also operates as a political party in Lebanon, has members in parliament and holds two ministerial seats in the newly-announced cabinet. (Another eight posts are held by its Shi’ite and Maronite allies.)

Although the painstakingly-negotiated deal finalized this week purports to deny any one bloc veto power, Hezbollah has used its military clout in the past to force its will – most dramatically in May last year when, after the government tried to dismantle a telecommunications network run by the group, its gunmen took over parts of Beirut, resulting in the worst violence since the civil war ended in 1990.
 
The crisis ended when a unity government was eventually formed in a deal that gave Hezbollah effective veto power. The attempted shutdown of the telecommunications system – which Hezbollah said was important for its military operations against Israel – was also reversed. (Crucially, one of the sticking points in reaching the new unity government deal has been control of the telecommunications portfolio. It has gone to a Hezbollah ally.)
 
’Hezbollah hegemony’
 
Ghassan Karam, a Lebanese commentator, last week described the country as “a dysfunctional state where the legitimate armed forces of the state are outgunned by the foreign trained and foreign funded illegal militia.”
 
Asked on Wednesday for his take on the newly-announced unity cabinet, he said Hezbollah remained clearly in control and would “continue its hegemony over Lebanon.”
 
“The current Lebanese political makeup is a sorry excuse for independence, sovereignty and democracy,” he said. “It is good that the country can claim to have a ‘national unity government’ when in essence the opposition, read Hezbollah, managed to continue their domination of what passes for a Lebanese government.”
 
Karam said it was important to bear in mind that Hezbollah’s allegiance was to grand ayatollahs in Iran and that the organization would “go to war in order to protect Iranian interests.”
 
“It is a farce to believe that under any set of circumstances a cabinet can expect to operate effectively and smoothly when its members subscribe to opposing means in addition to opposing ends.”
 
‘Vast paramilitary infrastructure’
 
Security analysts say Iran utilizes Hezbollah as a strategic asset, and could deploy it against Israel or the West again should the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear programs lead to punitive or even military action.
 
The Lebanese militia’s ongoing stockpiling of weapons is being closely watched by Israel, and its army chief was quoted as telling lawmakers in Jerusalem Tuesday that Hezbollah now possesses tens of thousands of rockets, include some with ranges posing a threat to Israel’s main population centers.

Last week, the Israeli Navy said it intercepted a ship in the Mediterranean carrying Iranian-origin weapons including rockets, allegedly headed for Hezbollah. Recent unexplained explosions in southern Lebanon have added to concerns.
 
U.N. Security Council resolution 1559 of 2004 calls for “the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias.” Resolution 1701 of 2006, which ended that summer’s Hezbollah-Israel conflict, requires “the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that … there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state.”
 
The White House issued a statement Tuesday welcoming the formation of the new government, and saying the U.S. hoped that its program now being drafted would reflect a commitment to full implementation of U.N. resolutions including 1559 and 1701.
 
“We look forward to working with a new Lebanese government that is committed to extending its authority over all of Lebanon, and to advancing political and economic reforms that benefit the people of Lebanon,” it said.
 
Also noting the government’s formation, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday urged it “to quickly take up the challenges that remain to consolidating both the sovereignty of Lebanon and the institutional capacity of the Lebanese state,” in line with Security Council resolutions.
 
In a report to the Security Council late last month on the implementation of resolution 1559, Ban said that “the threats posed by the existence of militias outside the control of the State, especially Hezbollah’s vast paramilitary infrastructure, cannot be overstated.”
 
He said it threatened the Lebanese state’s sovereignty, created an atmosphere of intimidation incompatible with democratic processes, and undermined regional stability.
 
Hezbollah criticized Ban’s report and slammed his calls for its disarmament.
 
‘An arsenal of martyrs and missiles’
 
On Wednesday, Hezbollah marks its annual “martyrs day,” remembering those who have been killed while carrying out terror attacks. The day is held on November 11 because that was the day in 1982 when a bomber named Ahmad Qassir drove an explosive-packed car into an Israeli military building in Tyre, killing 76 Israeli troops.
 
Hezbollah views that attack as the one that launched the era of suicide bombings. The following year it launched a series of suicide attacks in Beirut, including blasts at the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Marine barracks that killed more than 300 people, most of them Americans; and one targeting French soldiers, 60 of whom were killed.
 
Visiting Qassir’s family on Monday, senior Hezbollah leader Sheikh Nabil Qaouk praised the bomber as “the one who opened the martyrdom and victory era.”
 
“The Islamic Resistance possesses a better and more important arsenal than missiles,” Hezbollah’s Web site quoted Qaouk as saying. “It possesses the willingness to martyrdom which cannot be confronted or targeted.”