The Washington Summit: Between Hopes and Illusions

The scene was impeccably choreographed in the Oval Office on Tuesday, July 21, 2026.

On one side, Donald Trump, promising military aid and offering a spectacular economic opening by lifting a forty-year-old aviation embargo.

On the other, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, brandishing an official document presented as the definitive roadmap for disarming Hezbollah.

To Western observers, the trade-off looked perfect: an extension of Lebanese state sovereignty in exchange for American sponsorship to permanently drive Iranian influence out of the Levant.

Yet behind the obligatory smiles, handshakes, embraces, and witty remarks, this summit — however promising — risks becoming yet another diplomatic illusion.

The enthusiasm on display in Washington deliberately glosses over three structural blind spots that temper this optimism: the limits of American pressure on Israel; the Lebanese state's lack of credibility when it comes to touching the pro-Iranian militia's weapons; and the Iranian factor itself.

The equation put forward by Joseph Aoun rests on a principle of strict conditionality — namely, that Hezbollah's disarmament is contingent on a full and permanent withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon.

This is a classic stance, one Aoun has announced on several occasions already, and making it at the White House helped calm the political storm in Beirut that preceded the summit — but Washington has limited leverage when it comes to Israeli security as seen through Israel's own lens.

Donald Trump stated that Israel is "in the process of withdrawing," reflecting a flexible attitude toward both Tel Aviv and Beirut, yet no binding timeline was announced.

The Israeli military answers only to its own national security doctrine, which demands the immediate right to monitor and intervene militarily in response to any perceived threat.

This requirement for shared or violated sovereignty is fundamentally incompatible with the plan championed by the Lebanese presidency.

The warning shots fired by Israeli forces at our army in Zawtar al-Gharbiya, just hours before the summit, served as a reminder that on the Blue Line, it is the Israeli military that sets the tempo — not State Department communiqués.

Donald Trump, whose support for Israel remains the cornerstone of his Middle East policy, will never risk a frontal break with his ally.

Without an absolute guarantee that Hezbollah's weapons will be eliminated, American pressure will remain superficial and the Israeli withdrawal will stall.

On this same point, serious doubts hang over the credibility of the Lebanese executive.

The international community places little faith in a disarmament plan that is essentially a repeat of the one drawn up in August 2025, when Israel withdrew from Lebanese territory except for five points adjacent to the border.

Moreover, given the past twenty years, the universal political memory demands skepticism.

From the hollow promises of the 2006 national dialogue to the Doha Accords of 2008, through the Baabda Declaration of 2012, and spanning the Israeli withdrawals of 2006 and 2025 under Resolution 1701 — every text ostensibly designed to place weapons under exclusive state control has ended up in the dustbin of history.

The plan Aoun presented to Trump seems unlikely to escape that fate: it appears to have been drafted without the consent of the Shia armed factions — Hezbollah and Amal — which hold a significant share of political decision-making power in Beirut.

Furthermore, President Aoun implied at the White House that Berri supports an end to the war — a statement that only deepens the diplomatic ambiguity.

That said, this summit was more than necessary, not least because it keeps a process alive — the only one currently capable of maintaining a minimum of calm in the South.

The Lebanese army, which Washington sees as a potential replacement force, is a respected institution — but it will not engage in a direct confrontation to seize Hezbollah's missiles north of the Litani River.

This is clearly the intention of President Joseph Aoun, since his team's calculations suggest that such a move risks spiraling into socio-political instability — even though residents of the south are generally eager to see troops deployed in their villages, and even though Hezbollah is showing clear signs of weakening.

As such, this Hezbollah disarmament plan leaked in Washington looks more like a communications strategy than a solid plan — or one that actually contributes to maintaining stability.

Hezbollah, for its part, retains a capacity for disruption that it will not hesitate to exploit, despite its weakened state.

The pro-Iranian militia, together with its ally Nabih Berri, can paralyze the state from within or engineer calculated armed incidents in the so-called "pilot zones" of the South — or beyond them — to provoke an Israeli response, thereby demonstrating to the world the impotence of the Lebanese army.

Beyond the optimism generated by this summit — centered on Washington's support for the army and pressure to restore stability — and despite the significant obstacles facing Joseph Aoun's plan, the real surprise lies in the reopening of direct air routes with the United States.

While the move offers an undeniable economic and psychological boost to the diaspora and the tourism sector, it should also be read as a political signal that Beirut's airport is now firmly under Lebanese army oversight — which is an extremely positive development.

As for the rest, in the medium term, Lebanon's horizon through the end of 2026 is far from one of peaceful normalization or an orderly disarmament process. It is, rather, one of an armed status quo under international surveillance, with cautious hope that the pilot zones will serve as a springboard for broader measures. Lebanon will thus continue to navigate by sight, in a geopolitical environment undergoing profound change.