Hopes for a unity government in Lebanon have faded and things are back to square one. The regional parties that are fighting over the Arab Levant and are controlling the Lebanese equation are far from a settlement that revives Lebanon’s constitutional life. Even the “minimum settlement,” which loomed on the horizon for a few days and was based on containing the conflict in Syria and preventing a constitutional vacuum that would threaten Lebanon, seems elusive today.

Reaching an internal consensus is almost impossible, given that the sectarian blocs have lined up within regional camps. And the concurrent constitutional requirements are complicating matters further. The dilemma is no longer confined to forming a new government but also to electing a new president, since the current president’s mandate ends in a few weeks.

In May 2013, the parliamentary elections were postponed, through a clear constitutional violation, under the pretext that the political forces had failed to agree on a new electoral law. Thus, it’s hard to believe that these same forces can — on their own and with no outside push — form a new authority with a new president and a new government, with all the compromises that that entails between antagonistic forces and conflicting interests, both apparent and hidden.

The prevailing impression in the past few days about things loosening up was based on a “view” that Hezbollah has abandoned the blocking third and the people-army-resistance mantra — which effectively legitimizes Hezbollah’s arms and puts them outside the dialogue table — and accepted the principle of ministerial rotations. According to this view, this was in return for former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s team (the March 14 movement) agreeing to discuss a settlement with Hezbollah without conditioning it on the party’s withdrawal from Syria.