Open War... Lebanon’s Chance

Approaching the negotiation process that concluded in the capital Islamabad as one component of the conflict the two sides wage against each other in multiple forms spares us from evaluating it through the binary of success or failure. The event can instead be illuminated from the angle of the first direct meeting between the Islamic Republic and the “Great Satan,” after nearly half a century of a rigidity that was calculated, and not merely ideological. Whatever the case, the most significant achievement for both sides was the smooth descent from the top of the tree, and the ending of a war that has been devastating for Iran and costly for America.

Lifting the Mourning

That was the title of an article by the brilliant Samir Kassir, taken from us too soon, written at the moment of “liberation,” in which he called on Hezbollah to shed its black, but it was they who ended up casting the mantle of mourning over his loved ones, his friends, and the country itself. Had Samir Kassir been among us today, he might have written that it is Ghalibaf who has lifted the mourning, opening the negotiating platform to a serious possibility of understanding with his American counterpart, especially given that Iran’s generous offer of “initiatives for the future” implies that the Iranian economy might shift into the American orbit. But Trump does not buy a fish still in the sea; he wants to hold the coveted goods in his own hands, namely the nuclear file, the master key to all other files. Hence Ghalibaf’s declaration that “America has failed to gain Iran’s trust,” a statement that reflects Iranian arrogance, but if one turns the proposition around, that “Iran has failed to gain America’s trust,” one would be considerably closer to the truth.

In any event, what transpired in Pakistan drew the political lines of the negotiation with clarity. That is an achievement in itself, and another achievement lies in the revelation of American priorities, which differ markedly from Iranian ones, a matter that will require further adjustment of political, economic, and military balances. This is what we see today, and what we will continue to see until the next round of negotiations, even if it has not yet been announced.

Common Ground

Any observer of the open conflict between Washington and Tehran cannot fail to notice certain similarities of mentality and behavior, such as a language whose vocabulary and meanings are symmetrically overbearing, a posture of hauteur, an invocation of a past that the current balance of power renders untranslatable into concrete gains, at least on the Iranian side, and something comparable is to be found in the White House, with however a vastly superior capacity for mobilization.

There is also another trait common to both, namely the pursuit of an accumulation of power in the region, even at the expense of other states or of the very groups affiliated with them, in an attempt to compel the countries of the region to accept Tehran’s demands or to live alongside them. This is also what Washington does through its Israeli vassal, its parallel language and its concrete conduct. It is equally worth noting that both parties exhaust legal and diplomatic channels before jointly bypassing them, at the expense of international bodies and the states of the region and the world at large, however repugnant the means employed to achieve their declared objectives, as we have witnessed and continue to witness, around the clock.

In short, we are faced with a trio of extremism (America, Israel, Iran) that nothing seems to deter from advancing toward its immediate and distant goals, whatever the human and economic costs, which the Arab countries in general, and Palestine and Lebanon in particular, are left to pay.

Separating Interests

The initiative of President Joseph Aoun and the decisions of Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s government together constituted a historic turning point in the trajectory of correcting the political and sovereign role of Lebanese authority, and in its mission to protect the homeland, the people and the state. An initiative that severed the Lebanese national interest from any external attachment, and reactivated the logic of Lebanese interest according to what the overwhelming majority of the people, their representatives and their parties consent to, as well as the custodians of the spiritual families that constitute Lebanon’s particular character, such that any party’s departure from this consensus or opposition to this order of national interest calls for a response commensurate with the noble objective sought, without permitting any obstruction whatsoever of this historic initiative’s course.

And if this moment recalls a painful hour that marked the beginning of Lebanon’s civil war, what the Prime Minister articulated regarding the references adopted for the preservation of civil peace remains the criterion that guides all toward the keys to the solution, and not any other approach belonging to the language of war and arms, rejected by the great majority of the Lebanese people and alongside them by the refugee communities, Palestinian, Syrian and others, and the evidence is abundant, without any need to recall it here.

In this context, the White House’s policy, through its pressure on the Netanyahu government, appears to have grasped the importance of the presidential initiative and the necessity of addressing the Lebanese file separately from the ongoing negotiations with Iran. The presidential initiative has moreover enabled Saudi Arabia, Egypt, France and Lebanon’s many friends, from Britain to Australia, to move in the same direction, which gives reason to believe that the coming negotiating battle with Israel will not find Lebanon bereft of the capacities to protect its national interests. Israeli military superiority is not the decisive factor in everything, and the occupation of the lands of the South does not give the Israeli government all that it covets, and its generals articulate a great deal of coveting, for Lebanon’s political space and the sophistication of its management are infinitely richer and vaster than the extremist Israeli mind, which measures all things solely by the scale of force and excessive force.

Protecting Civil Peace

In these arduous and difficult days, Lebanon needs its great figures, women and men of all communities, to step forward to the front ranks, in order to save both the people and the homeland. I presume that the remarkable man who left us recently, Mohammed Hussein Shamseddine, now joined by his spiritual twin, the “Red Bey” Samir Frangieh, would say today in one voice that a comprehensive national conference is imperative to protect the people and the homeland, on the basis of achieving justice and rejecting violence. And that all must be invited as equals, in their capacity as citizens of this homeland who share its destiny and forge the future of their children, to put an end to the open war so that Lebanon may remain an Arab, Middle Eastern and universal beacon.

Indeed: this is Lebanon’s chance… for those who dare.