Samir Geagea (leader, Lebanese Forces) — statement, ~26 Apr 2025: "We cannot build a real state without the state's monopoly on arms" — his demand that Hezbollah disarm and that the state hold the sole monopoly on weapons. [Second doc — distinct STATE-MONOPOLY-ON-ARMS / Hezbollah-disarmament / sovereignty axis, vs his existing decentralization-and-democracy doc.]

We've been missing a real state for 35 years.

We cannot build a real state without the state's monopoly on arms.

[SECOND DOCUMENT for Samir Geagea, covering a DISTINCT axis from his existing one (decentralization and democracy — i.e. governance structure). This document is his STATE-SOVEREIGNTY / national-security axis: the state's exclusive monopoly on arms and the disarmament of Hezbollah. Source: Naharnet (English), ~26 April 2025 (article carries a reader comment dated 27 April 2025); original Arabic; tier-2; both quotes confirmed verbatim against the fetched page and attributed there explicitly to "Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea." ATTRIBUTION NOTE: the same article also quotes Gebran Bassil ("We support the state's monopoly on weapons"; "Hezbollah has made a strategic mistake…") — those are Bassil's words and are deliberately NOT included here.] A distinct declared position of Samir Geagea — leader of the Lebanese Forces and the most prominent Christian hardline critic of Hezbollah. He frames the absence of a sovereign state over the past 35 years (i.e. since the Taif/end of the civil war) as the central Lebanese failure, and makes the STATE'S MONOPOLY ON ARMS the precondition for statehood: "We've been missing a real state for 35 years," and "We cannot build a real state without the state's monopoly on arms" — an explicit call for Hezbollah to surrender its weapons to the Lebanese state and for the state to be the sole holder of arms and the sole decision-maker on war and peace. This is the SOVEREIGNTIST / state-monopoly-on-violence pole of Lebanese politics, opposed to an armed non-state actor (Hezbollah) operating outside state authority. [Axes: state-sovereignty / monopoly-on-arms (the state as sole holder of weapons and sole decision-maker; disarmament of Hezbollah), Hezbollah / the-resistance-axis (opposition to the armed "resistance" outside state control; distancing Lebanon from regional/Iran-aligned conflicts), state-building / institutions (a "real state" vs the post-Taif vacuum). NOTE: a declared-position document — Geagea's stated position as reported, scoped to the arms-monopoly axis his existing document does not cover.]