In Lebanon's multi-confessional system where political bickering is the norm, the ability to finalize a policy statement in two weeks is quite an achievement, especially after the country had been left without a president for six months while pro- and anti-Western forces locked in a bitter and sometimes violent power struggle that brought Lebanon dangerously close to civil war.

Thus the anticipated announcement that a draft statement has been endorsed by the cabinet for a vote of confidence in parliament will be a welcome development that the Lebanese hope will restore stability and strength to the state institutions.

Lebanese Information Minister Tareq Mitri told reporters Thursday that the ministerial committee, which is responsible for drafting the statement, will meet for the last time on Friday to iron out minor differences in the wording of the text.

He indicated that an agreement could have been reached in the 13th meeting on Thursday, but sought not to finalize it then for superstitious reasons.

"We did not want to have everything done in the 13th meeting since many people are pessimistic about the number 13," Mitri said.

Whether the minister was joking or serious about bad omens, which Lebanese commentators say the country can do without, it appeared that the committee may have kept a final agreement for Friday to punctuate Army Day, the 36th anniversary of the establishment of Lebanon's military institution.

President Michel Suleiman, in a speech at the army celebrations outside Beirut on Friday, perhaps indicated the sort of wording the policy statement will contain regarding "resistance" [against Israel] and Hezbollah's weapons – the cause of squabbling within the ministerial draft committee.

"Your soldiers' weapons should join the weapons aimed at the chests of the enemy, which has been defeated before at your hands and the hands of the resistance," Suleiman said. "I said two weeks ago that the countdown for liberating the rest of our lands has begun. And today I confirm the [use] of all available and legitimate means to achieve this goal."

The president was referring to the Shebaa Farms and the Kfarshouba Hills, which remained occupied by Israel after it withdrew from south Lebanon in 2000, and to which Hezbollah has vowed to liberate through armed resistance.

And almost in the same breath, Suleiman called for greater effort to be exerted in order to achieve a just, comprehensive and durable peace in the region, based on the Arab initiative and international resolutions. In his speech, he urged to prepare the ground "for that peace, without compromising our national achievements." In other words, retrieving the land through diplomacy.

Lebanese sources say that Suleiman is to be credited for finding a text to get beyond the sticking points within the policy statement, as he had personally intervened to work out a compromise between the pro-Western parliamentary majority and the Hezbollah-led opposition, which holds 11 veto-wielding seats in the unity cabinet.

In a meeting with Prime Minister Fouad Siniora this week, Suleiman proposed wording that would not grant Hezbollah a "monopoly" on resistance.

Siniora said in a statement Thursday that "no single party has a monopoly on the right to resist, or imposing its own methods and choices without taking into account the principle of preserving the state."

But sources close to Hezbollah say the organization was not seeking a "monopoly" over resistance, but the right to resist, noting that Hezbollah's Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah had recently said "resistance was the duty of every Lebanese."

He made his remarks in a speech marking the disproportionate prisoner swap deal with Israel last month, in which five Lebanese prisoners, including the longest-serving Arab prisoner Samir Kuntar, were released in return for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers captured in a cross-border operation in July 2006, which sparked a 34-day war.

The pro-Western March 14 coalition, the parliamentary majority, wants the state to make decisions on war and peace, and some are demanding that the Shiite Hezbollah group be disarmed altogether.

But well-informed Lebanese sources say that because this cabinet is serving for only 10 months, until parliamentary elections in May, it has decided to postpone discussion on the future of the guerilla organization for a national dialogue that Suleiman is planning to sponsor this year.

Therefore, according to the sources, the compromise reached on the terminology of the government's policy statement entails "the right of Lebanon, its people, army and resistance to continue the liberation or regaining of land with all legitimate and available means."