The military and security institutions should have enforced the government's decision. They did not. Salam's response was reduced to a public disavowal. From that moment, Hezbollah understood it could continue acting with impunity. The state had demonstrated its impotence.

This pattern repeated with the $21 bail incident. Three individuals arrested for illegal weapons possession stated they were Hezbollah members. The military court—supposedly less susceptible to political pressure than civilian courts—released them for less than the cost of a minor traffic violation. A judicial source described it as a "scandal."

General Haykal may be correct that confronting Hezbollah directly risks army cohesion and civil peace. But as L'Orient Le Jour notes, what Lebanon is already enduring because of state inaction appears increasingly worse than the risks of action.

The army's Saturday statement was retrograde in its framing. It cannot tell the Lebanese people that "national unity" on Hezbollah's terms is the priority. It cannot state that the solution is ending "Israeli aggressions" when those aggressions are the direct result of the state's failure to assert territorial sovereignty.

Most problematically, the statement suggested strengthening military capabilities as part of the solution. But such strengthening is impossible precisely because of Hezbollah's presence. In 2016, Saudi Arabia froze a $3 billion program to supply French weapons to the Lebanese Army because of Hezbollah's grip on decision-making. Since the 2019 financial crisis, the army has been sustained largely through U.S. aid—aid that depends on progress toward state weapons monopoly.

The army's dilemma is genuine. Hezbollah has embedded itself within Lebanese Shiite communities over four decades. Any military confrontation risks not just army defections but communal violence. The institution's unity is precious and fragile.

Yet the current path leads to predictable destruction. International reconstruction aid will not flow while Hezbollah remains armed. Israeli operations will continue as long as Hezbollah's infrastructure exists. Lebanon's economic collapse will deepen. The brain drain will accelerate. State institutions will continue their erosion.

General Haykal could be frank with the Lebanese people: that under current circumstances, full implementation of Cabinet decisions is impossible, that this must proceed gradually. But he cannot ask the public to accept premises that contradict reality—that national unity is served by tolerating armed factions, that foreign aggression is the cause rather than consequence of state failure, that military capabilities can be strengthened while sovereignty remains fictional.

Under Chehab, the army preserved unity through inaction because the stakes were internal Lebanese political disputes. Today, inaction costs far more. The question posed by L'Orient Le Jour becomes unavoidable: If the army cannot act to preserve Lebanese sovereignty, what purpose does it serve?

This didn't start yesterday. For decades, Lebanese political and military leaders have chosen short-term stability over long-term viability. Each compromise with parallel power structures, each accommodation of armed factions, each prioritization of sectarian balance over state authority brought the country closer to this moment.

The army's neutrality doctrine made sense when Lebanon faced internal political disputes. It makes less sense when the country faces existential threats that neutrality itself enables. Preserving army unity while Lebanon disintegrates around it achieves nothing.

General Haykal faces an impossible situation not of his making. But impossible situations require acknowledging impossibility, not pretending that old formulas still work. The Lebanese people are entitled to honesty about their state's capacity and limitations, not rhetoric about national unity that rings hollow as their country burns.

In this region, today's headline is yesterday's history repeating. Chehab's neutrality worked because it prevented a crisis from escalating. Today's neutrality perpetuates a crisis that has already escalated beyond control.