Report: Qassem's verbal escalation aimed at reassuring popular base

Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim resorted to verbal escalation days before U.S. envoy Tom Barrack’s return to Beirut in order to “obtain needed guarantees to reassure his popular base about Hezbollah’s political future in the political structure that is being reconfigured,” political sources informed on the deliberations between Hezbollah and the Amal Movement said.

“Qassem raised his political ceiling to negotiate with Barrack in his own way, live on air, and to bolster the negotiation stance of the three presidents” Joseph Aoun, Nabih Berri and Nawaf Salam, the sources told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.

“Qassem does not intend to block the agreement should they reach another arrangement combined with U.S. guarantees that would be binding for Israel in return for Lebanon’s commitment to monopolizing arms in the state’s hand with Hezbollah’s approval,” the sources said.

“Qassem is not seeking to bypass the stance of his ally Berri, with whom he is consulting over all the details of implementing the agreement that is being prepared,” the sources added.

Hezbollah wants guarantees that “would justify to its environment its giving up of weapons and its joining of the transformations that are taking place in the region and Lebanon,” the sources said.

Commenting on Qassem’s remarks that Hezbollah “will not hand over its weapons to Israel,” the sources said that Qassem’s statement “opens the door to handing over the weapons to the army out of his commitment to the monopolization of arms in the hand of the state.”