Lebanon is a country of opposing forces, and those rare times when it has enjoyed stability and prospered have come when these forces have been balanced. Achieving this is far from a simple process — aggregate the shifting geopolitical realities of our neighborhood, the foreign influences at play in the country and the plethora of domestic political interests and sectarian affiliations, and you may understand the task at hand. Najib Mikati sought this balance. In upholding such things as the funding for the United Nations Special Tribunal for Lebanon, he defended priorities of the March 14 political bloc in a cabinet of March 8 ministers. When the Cabinet refused to renew the term of Internal Security Forces chief Ashraf Rifi, however, Mikati’s position as prime minister did not offer him the tools he needed to keep this equilibrium; thus, he resigned. The government failed to successfully reform virtually any aspect
