Maybe it was the six aging Hawker Hunters – the jet fighter equivalent of a musket – or perhaps the equally vintage armor, or even the machismo carried so unconvincingly on the faces of the soldiers. Whatever ‘it’ was, it’s a jolly good thing that the Arab world is an irony-free zone. Because, quite how Lebanon could take itself seriously on this Independence Day is anyone’s guess.

True; technically Lebanon is independent. We know this because in 1943 France finally gave in and allowed the formation of the state as we know it. Existentially though, we aren’t free, and the mini-Soviet-era show of ‘force’ by an army that is the essence of how the state has been emasculated, was irony writ large.

It is true that the army is currently on the receiving end of unprecedented military support – both in materiel and training – from the West, while ‘our boys’ did restore some of our pride by quelling the Nahr al-Bared uprising in 2007. But all this will come to naught if the big green and yellow Iranian entity that is Hezbollah won’t go away.

Hezbollah, arguably the real force behind today’s Lebanon, was nowhere to be seen in the downtown. The Resistance crows about its legitimacy but it couldn’t even donate a company of its warriors to march alongside their state-sponsored counterparts. The moqawama can march in its South Beirut enclave but not in Martyr’s Square. Odd, you might think, for an organization that places such stock on both patriotism and sacrifice.

But nothing is odd in Lebanon. Sunday’s celebrations must stick in the craw of those who couldn’t get excited about celebrating Independence Day only weeks after the final nail was hammered into the coffin of the movement that represented Lebanon’s yearnings for full sovereignty. On March 14, 2005, Lebanon threatened to do something glorious, and for a few months, most Lebanese believed that they had the tools to map out their own future. Nearly five years on from the day when more than a million Lebanese took to Martyrs’ Square, Syria once again has a hefty say in our affairs.

But back to the ‘celebrations’ and the declaration of the army commander, General Jean Kahwaji: “True independence is not achieved if the state does not impose its sovereignty over all Lebanese territories.”

It’s a nice idea, Jean. We could start with the thorny issue of demarcating Lebanon’s shadowy border with Syria, but we had five years to do so and now it appears that particular boat may have sailed. We could enter into international negotiations on the Shebaa Farms, the disputed rocky outcrop occupied by Israel, that could belong to Syria, but which Hezbollah would rather keep as the poster boy for ‘occupation’. We could also work to gradually phase out the 14,000 UNIFIL troops sitting in South Lebanon, but then again they are there to ensure that Hezbollah – who incidentally, according to its deputy leader Naim Qassem, has no plans to disarm any time soon – and the Israelis don’t scrap.

The army can’t, and probably wouldn’t, disarm Hezbollah, while Lebanon’s elected government isn’t allowed to talk to Israel, even though everyone else is. If General Kahwaji’s declaration was a statement of intent, he has his work cut out.

So to sum up: On Sunday, a country that turned back the independence clock celebrated by parading an army that can’t fight. Meanwhile, Lebanon’s other ‘army’, whose activities – war, civil insurrection and obstructionism – between 2005 and the present did so much to reverse the gains of March 14 on behalf of Iran and Syria, and whose continued presence means that all-out conflict with Israel sits on a hair trigger, waits in the wings.

Go figure.