Cognitive Dissonance

I've read the arguments for an interim president a few times now, and each time I end up more confused than in disagreement. The argument generally begins with a fairly accurate description of Lebanon's problems -- and then veers off into a "solution" which does nothing to address those problems. The only affect of an interim president, as I see it, would be to decrease the already low probability of Lebanon ever electing a President based on its constitutional requirements and not the exigencies of the day.

I am not even sure that a two-year President would do anything to lower the tensions between March 8th and March 14th. Would either faction covet the Presidency less if it was announced that the President would only sit for two years? Given this "tweak" of the constitution, and the extension of Lahoud's term, wouldn't it be a fair bet from any Presidential aspirant that their term, too, could be extended? The role of the interim President would be the "drafting of a new and broadly approved electoral law," and the reform of Taif. Why a true, six-year President couldn't do this remains unclear.

The disconnect lies in fundamentally different explanations for Lebanon's problems. The technocratic, feel-good answer for Lebanon's political crisis is to point to its laws and constitutional structure. If we just tweak Taif and reform the electoral law, these people say, we'll have a functioning government and the Lebanese will get along. They are counting on an interim President to reform the system, and then get out of the way for the new order to assert itself.

You'll find no argument here that Lebanon's electoral law is perfect. It isn't. But its flaws are also not the reason for Lebanon's difficulties. In America, too, we have an electoral law that makes a mockery of the concept of "one person, one vote." Each state is apportioned two Senators in the US Senate - that means that tiny Wyoming (pop. 500,000) and gigantic California (pop. 34,000,000) have the same voice in the higher legislative chamber. And there's no tent camp laying siege to Congress.

What causes tension in Lebanon is not the imperfections of its laws, but a fundamental difference among its people over the course of the country. This is not exactly groundbreaking news. The different sects have different visions of Lebanon's future. Energy would be better spent trying to reconcile these visions and building bridges between the communities, than dealing with distractions such as an interim President.