Is Lebanon back in the crosshairs?
Over the past three weeks, Lebanon’s negotiating position has shifted quietly but significantly. Direct Lebanon-Israel talks are underway in Washington. These talks are capped by a 10-day ceasefire that began April 16 and was extended by three weeks on April 23 at Lebanon’s own request. The regional and domestic context has changed, but Lebanon’s government has not yet adapted apparently. Outside Lebanon and in the GCC more specifically, there is growing recognition that seeking Hezbollah’s disarmament and a full peace treaty with Israel is no longer realistic. Prominent regional actors assume that pursuing such outcomes now would likely rupture Lebanon internally, reviving sectarian confrontation that they are trying to avoid.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia persistent advisory to Lebanon to adopt a fundamentally more cautious approach is underpinned by the outcome of the April 8th ceasefire between the United States and Iran, which was concluded without Iran making meaningful concessions on its nuclear program, its ballistic missile arsenal, or its support for proxy forces. While Iran did suffer severe damage in its conventional military infrastructure as a result of the joint U.S.-Israeli military action, it retained a meaningful stock of enriched uranium that stops short of a weapon but is close enough to constitute persistent leverage. It kept a residual ballistic missile arsenal, reduced but not eliminated. Critically, its network of regional proxies, of which Hezbollah is the most prominent, is weakened but still functional.
More importantly, Iran demonstrated during the crisis that it holds a card it had not previously played on this scale, which is the ability to threaten or partially restrict passage through the Strait of Hormuz. What Iran chose not to use is equally significant. The Houthis in Yemen retain independent strike capacity. Furthermore, Iran’s ability to conduct grey-zone operations through its disruptive networks inside the Gulf or even Western countries remains a card held in reserve. Taken together, this residual asymmetric arsenal means that Iran entered the post-ceasefire period not as a defeated power ready to surrender, but as one with meaningful cards still to play, albeit wounded and battered.
For the GCC states, this reality informs every future strategic calculation. A total victory over Iran is no longer on the table. Engaging Tehran, accepting some of its red lines, offering economic normalization, and mitigating rather than dismantling its influence become the rational alternative, and possibly the only one short of an open confrontation in which the GCC has considerably more to lose than a battered Iran.
In this context, the regional pressure on Beirut to accommodate rather than confront Iran’s interests, including its stake in Hezbollah’s survival as a political and military force, will only intensify. Every concession the GCC makes to Iran in exchange for regional stability is a concession that narrows Lebanon’s own room for manoeuvre. The assumption that Iran was sufficiently weakened to allow a decisive push for Hezbollah’s disarmament has been overtaken by events. In such a context, Riyadh may seek to offer a “Lebanese package” as part of its broader diplomatic engagement with Tehran. A Lebanon in the flames of a civil war would make that package impossible to deliver while putting Saudi de-escalation efforts at direct risk. The Syrian dimension adds further urgency. Having invested substantially in the post-Assad transition, Saudi Arabia cannot afford instability crossing eastward from Lebanon, which becomes very likely in the event of sectarian violence triggered by a push to normalize relations with Israel.
Israel has made its position unambiguous. It will neither withdraw, nor relinquish its ability to strike inside Lebanon until Hezbollah disarms. Under these rigid requirements, Hezbollah has condemned the talks as a humiliation and declared it will not abide by any agreement reached without a full withdrawal of Israeli forces and a facilitated, generously funded return of displaced families to all locations in Southern Lebanon affected by current Israeli operations. The structural deadlock this creates is not entirely new. Before October 7, 2023, Lebanese politics rested on a regional balance of power defined by the GCC's reluctance to avoid direct confrontation, which allowed Iran to maintain its influence and left Lebanon with little choice but to accommodate an armed Hezbollah as a permanent feature of its political landscape. The question now is whether a meaningful deal can be constructed that honestly accommodates this reality.
The Israeli security strip inside Lebanese territory along the border, the Lebanese army’s role south of the Litani, and the rules of engagement for UNIFIL, are all real and unresolved complicating factors ahead of any deal.
The Saudi Egyptian advice to President Aoun is to secure the minimum level of domestic buy-in needed to prevent an internal rupture by downgrading the previously expected peace treaty to a deal, limited in scope, that Hezbollah and its constituencies would not perceive as an existential threat. Without such a consensus, any agreement risks being either unimplementable or a catalyst for civil conflict. Deals that tick the box of national consensus would be more of enhanced versions of previous deals (UNSCR 1701 or the 1949 armistice), possibly entailing a clearer and enforceable mandate for UNIFIL, a staged re-deployment of the Lebanese army south of the Litani tied to measurable milestones, and a phased mechanism for Israeli withdrawal linked to those same milestones. The key question, though, is whether Israel is willing, after all that has happened since October 2023, to return to the status quo ante.
A full peace treaty with Israel and the disarmament of Hezbollah are unattainable under the present circumstances. What remains possible is most likely a security arrangement that reduces the risk of renewed war, gives the Lebanese army a genuine role in the south, and creates conditions for the Lebanese state to progressively reassert institutional authority in areas where it has long been absent.
Full sovereignty is not a destination that today’s deal can reach, but it is one that a well-constructed arrangement can keep within sight.