Lebanon only flourished when there was a “state.” There was no term called “the state first” because this term means that there is a “second, third, fourth and tenth state.”

The reason behind these words is that Hezbollah wants to hold on to its “state,” as Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah asks to give priority to life and livelihood issues, “and let weapons wait for two years,” as he put it. This means that “don’t think about weapons now!”

Hezbollah puts itself as a state above the state, programming its entitlements: Today, living issues, weapons after two years!

In this case, why the state? Why power? Why new parliamentary elections? Why a new government? As long as Hezbollah decides everything, and sets priorities for everything.

If the authority really wants to build a state, then it must drop all other terms, so that one term remains: “a state first and last”, neither a state above a state nor a statelet within a state. If those concerned do not reach this conviction, then talking about a state, is all in vain.

It is true that corruption is one of the biggest causes of collapse, but can corruption hold for decades if there is no “state” covering it?

Corruption needs open borders to facilitate smuggling: by land, sea, and air. And who controls the land crossings, and some of the naval ones, and on the lanes at Beirut Airport?

whoever controls the security squares and areas that the authorities are forbidden from entering, and if they do so, in coordination with the de facto forces, does not want a state, but rather insists on his “state.”

Moreover, and prior to demarcation, who will guarantee gas exploration before there is a state with full descriptions and powers?

Then who said that the exploration companies would accept that the “Hezbollah state” will be protect the drilling?

There is only one “highway”: the state first and foremost. As for those who are arrogant and who delude themselves that they are capable of replacing the state, they are mistaken, and the biggest evidence of this mistake is the parliamentary elections, whose mark, with all it silence, is still clear. Hezbollah lost the political quotient, and the proof is the fall of most of its allies, so will it learn the lesson that there is only one country in Lebanon, even if it takes a long time?