Pro-Hezbollah Christian MP Alain Aoun Loves Sitting on the Fence

Hezbollah ally, pro-Syrian, pro-Iranian MP Alain Aoun is a fence-sitter par excellence. He is Michel Aoun's nephew, and together with Michel Aoun's son-in-law Zebran Basij, they form the political family farm's nepotistic nucleus. He is afraid of naming a candidate to the presidency and is waiting for Hassan Nasrallah to tell him what to do. Problem is that Nasrallah seems to have made his bet on the Syrian dictator's favorite candidate, Sleiman Frangiyeh, discarding Basij in the trashbin and with him their infamous Memorandum of Understanding.

Hezbollah wants the presidential election stalemate over soon, hopefully before the Iranian regime falls apart, and has no time for Basij who is traveling the world capitals begging for forgiveness and for the lifting of sanctions imposed on him. Basij knows that unless he severs his satanic ties with Hezbollah he has no chance of ever becoming president. That is how a deal with the devil comes around demanding your soul in exchange for the fake eternal life he gave you.

Alain Aoun's problem is that he is the weak element in the inner Aoun family sanctum. He obviously is afraid of saying no to an over-achieving, abrasive and domineering Basij, but deep down he himself wouldn't probably mind becoming president. We all know how these things work inside politically-inbred families. Still, and until Hezbollah tells them what to do, they have no favorite candidate and will continue dropping blank votes and blocking the quorum for a second round of voting. That Memorandum of Understanding between the FPM and Hezbollah is full of misunderstandings, and like the Taef Agreement, was never really intended to be implemented. It merely gave Hezbollah a Christian fig leaf of pseudo-respectability, while propelling by the force of Hezbollah's weapons Michel Aoun to the presidency where, over 6 long and abominable years, Aoun botched everything and never achieved anything except oversee the collapse of the country and its institutions. 

Now a chasm has formed within the Syrian-loving ménage à trois (Hassan Nasrallah, Zebran Basij, Sleiman Frangiyeh): Hassan and Basij got married in February 2006, but now the turbaned-bearded Casanova is in love with pretty boy Sleiman "Sam" Frangiyeh, and Zebran is losing his mind over this betrayal. He wants to change his name back to Bassil, after Hassan lovingly nicknamed him Basij during a make-out session in honor of the brutal thugs of the Iranian paramilitary militia established in 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini.

Here are excerpts from Alain Aoun's interview with "Free Lebanon" in which he explains, like the Chinese dictator Xi Jinping would,  that democratic competition is bad for the country. Alain wants a "consensus" president whose farce of an election is pre-cooked in a backroom deal, then revealed to the Lebanese people, just as the Chinese Communist Party selects its country's president. Alain Aoun does not want a real election because there is a chance his horse might lose. So he wants the new Lebanese president to be "chosen" the way his heroes in dictatorships and autocratic regimes (China, Iran, Syria, etc.) choose their leaders: The big boys sit down for a soiree with cigars and drinks, and barter favors and money until they find a suitable political eunuch slave whom they install and begin tormenting for the next 6 years. They are terrified at any candidate with political testosterone.

Alain says:

Our choice is we do not want to vote as a mere formality, but rather we want to prepare for the vote with the other blocs. We have a right to use blank votes, but not to block the quorum at the sessions [to elect a president].

In an interview with “Free Lebanon”, MP Alain Aoun, Michel Aoun’s nephew and a prime example of the Aoun dynastic nepotism, said, “it doesn’t appear that there is a candidate who has a serious chance at getting elected, and even the candidacy of Michel Mouawwad is treading water”.

“We are not insisting on Zebran Basij or anyone else. We want to develop the possibility of a consensus candidate without entering into a bazaar of names, and whether this candidate is from our bloc or from somewhere else, we will support him”.

Aoun criticized the opposition for fielding Mouawwad as a candidate in order to withdraw his candidacy later, like it was done with Line 29 [in the maritime border delineation with Israel]. He pointed to the fact that “no one has announced Basij’s candidacy to the presidency”, adding, “He has the right to present himself, and at the present time the conditions are not favorable to his candidacy. These conditions could change, but for now the political circumstances are bad”.

Aoun claimed that “the [Change and Reform] Bloc is open to an agreement over names”, rejecting the equivalence between candidates who are open to options and those who have no options”.

Aoun said that “we cannot go on ad eternum with a vacuum in the presidency [a vacuum he himself is creating by refusing to vote for a candidate]. The problem today is political. The vacuum cannot last, and we won’t be part of it”, clarifying that his beloved uncle Michel Aoun “waged a partnership battle to correct the way in which the Christians are dealt with in the political system as a whole while today there is a Christian representation balance. If the two Christian blocs can agree and embrace one candidate, no one can beat that candidate”.

On the question of Hezbollah’s weapons, the Jesuitic French-educated Alain Aoun said, “We need to complete the discussion on this matter and remove it from the lines of division across the country. We disagreed with the various forces on many political issues. We must seek understandings to produce a president, and we are looking to communicate with everyone and reconcile with everyone because we need to open new channels in order to deal with them”.

Each party has the right to obtain guarantees from its candidate. As the Free Patriotic Movement [Tayyar], we want a president with whom everyone feels at ease and who reaches a realistic and responsible understanding with Hezbollah over its weapons”. Aoun was adamant that “the Tayyar has not named a candidate to the presidency, and it may be that Ziyad Baroud is one of the options over which the bloc could agree if the circumstances are made favorable.”

Aoun concluded that “domestically Hezbollah is a representative and a partner in the country; it is part of an axis in which it is difficult to separate the various arenas from one another.”