He Should Go

Ahmad Fatfat is a well-intentioned man, but he’s incompetent as a Minister of Interior. He should resign.

We’ve seen it all before: A Hariri loyalist gets appointed as an interior minister with fresh promises of toughness on crime and terror, only to be rattled well into his tenure by seemingly unstoppable waves of… well, crime and terror.

It is tempting, as many in the March 14 (M14) movement are doing, to blame President Lahhoud for this ineffectiveness. After all, the President still has the power to stall security appointments and, with the help of the remaining Syrian loyalists in the security establishment, to meddle endlessly. The M14 people are often heard saying: If we are ruling, we should at least be given the full ability to rule (code for: we should be given the freedom to make all the appointments we wish to make)

While that makes sense, it only partly explains the catalogue of failures of Ahmad Fatfat in the Interior Ministry. A look at the rocket attacks in the Beirut Central District last Sunday for instance reveals a colossal failure of imagination. All it took was lacing obvious intelligence points together to conclude for instance the the Fuad Shihab bridge would make an ideal launching point for rockets aimed at very sensitive targets. Why wasn’t the bridge monitored?
The shooting of two young boys by the security forces in a Shiaa area was another big gaff.

There’s another important reason why Mr. Fatfat should go: He has become a political liability for the Future Movement.

Mr. Fatfat became the object of much ire when he licenced the establishment of Hizb-el-tahrir, a marginal extremist islamic party that advocates the resurrection of the islamic khalifat. Mr. Fatfat’s logic was impeccable: Since those people are going to assemble anyway, they might as well do it under our watchful eyes (this is a very liberal principle followed by the Netherlands for instance in regulating drug use and the sex industry), but the execution was flawed. He should have pre-empted his critics by calling for a public debate on the matter and explaining in the press. Instead, he went in a typical Lebanese hush-hush way about it and gave munition to M14’s Christian opponents, including LF supporters who are not fully convinced of their alliance with the Future Movement.

Ahmad Fatfat is also very exposed to the embarrassing episode where the M14 shook hands and exchanged smiles and gifts with the universally hated John Bolton.

Can the Future Movement benefit from Ahmad Fatfat’s removal?

Removing Fatfat can be a three-in-one master stroke:

- Since Hezbollah and Aoun are both asking for Fatfat’s head, letting him go can be made to appear as a concession that needs to be countered by a similar move from the other side.

- Dropping the Dinniyeh Minister can further strengthen the alliance with Samir Geagea’s LF by denying the right-wing elements the chance to vent about the Islamist Minister, an argument that is also used frequently by the FPM to shore up its Christian base.

- And finally, the position of Interior Minister can be used to install a competent, high profile…Armenian.

Yes, Armenian.

The Armenians allied with Mr. Hariri (mainly the Hanshak and the Ramgavar) are in a fix. They have no benefits to show their constituents from their alliance with Hariri. Instead, they appear to be increasingly ignored. Look at how the Turkish troops were admitted in the UNIFIL2 despite strong Armenian opposition? Having a high profile Ministry in the Government can go a long way in fixing that situation, and prevent Armenian opponents (like the Tashnak) from tapping into those grievances.

Yalla Mr. Fatfat, sorry, but it is time to start packing.