In today’s news bulletin:

• The educational sector will get back to normal life, and official certificates will not be canceled.
• The financing card threatens the budget, the lifting of support is getting closer and Hezbollah is expanding.
• Syrian refugees spotting subsidized goods and storming them while the Lebanese are hungry, miserable in their homeland.

So far, very little progress has been made in combating corruption, putting an end to corruption, and achieving reform. But it is not too late. This is what the US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale said after his visit to Baabda. The American diplomat, who is visiting Lebanon for the third time after the outbreak of the October 17 uprising, gave a dose of hope when he confirmed that Lebanon is able to rise again. But how long can this opportunity last? And to what extent can our officials continue to pursue a policy of brinkmanship?

The available data indicate that the Lebanese officials will not change their performance, as their course prevails. Their corruption, their lack of responsibility, and their disdain for the interests of the people is stronger than anything else. The theory of forming a government in good or by consensus has fallen.

Because the main parties involved in the formation, namely the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister-designate, are unable to agree and unable to produce an integrated understanding that would lead to the formation of a government. Accordingly, we are facing three scenarios, either reaching a Russian-American-European understanding on the government file, or a major dramatic event that forces the formation of a government or exerting pressure on Lebanese officials through the imposition of French and European sanctions, in addition to new US sanctions, which puts Lebanese officials in front of a governmental reality.

Which of the three scenarios is the closest to verification? The borders are equal and the possibilities are equal, but the greatest fear is from a fourth, grim scenario that some pessimists began to herald, and in which there is no government under the presidency of Michel Aoun and that the pressure on Lebanon will continue as long as the President of the Republic is acting as a team and is biased in politics to the axis of resistance. Is Lebanon destined under the strong era and the strong president to become in the weakest situation in all of its modern history?