On Friday evening [March 22], Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced his government’s resignation. He resigned because most Cabinet members refused to allow the National Defense Law to be violated by extending the security officials’ term past their retirement date, as Mikati had wanted. But if one looks behind the scenes, the reasons for the resignation are more complicated, creating the possibility of a vacuum in the Cabinet and perhaps even in Parliament, and maybe even more. It would place the Land of the Cedars at a crossroads: Either a comprehensive settlement, or else!
As the saying goes: The third time’s a charm, which seems to apply perfectly to Mikati. He first threatened to resign in early 2012, over whether the Lebanese government should pay its share to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. The UN Security Council established the tribunal to look into former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri’s assassination in 2005, and Lebanon was required to pay half of its costs. At the last minute, Mikati found a way to circumvent the will of the Cabinet majority, which was opposed to funding the tribunal. He succeeded in making Lebanon pay its share for the tribunal in contravention of government funding procedures.
About 10 months later, Mikati threatened to resign for the second time. That was after the assassination of Maj. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, a Lebanese intelligence official in the Internal Security Forces. He was killed in an explosion in Beirut on Oct. 19, 2012. However, the ambassadors of five major countries immediately called Mikati and officially declared their governments' opposition to a Cabinet vacuum in Lebanon, which made Mikati decide to stay on.
Mikati made a third, and final, move to resign on the evening of March 22. In the afternoon of that day, the Lebanese Cabinet held a regular session. Then, suddenly, in agreement with the president and outside the meeting’s agenda, Mikati proposed to extend the term of Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi, the director general of the Internal Security Forces. Rifi reaches the legal age of retirement at the end of March. The issue was put to a vote within the Cabinet, as stipulated by the constitution. But the majority voted against the extension. So Mikati asked the Lebanese president to adjourn the Cabinet meeting, and he immediately went to his Grand Serail office to announce his government’s resignation.
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