War, by Default

I belong to a generation that grew up with war, that fears dying with it, and that, in the meantime, will have wasted the best years of its life waiting or hoping for things to get better. I belong to that in-between generation that witnessed the pre-1975 era without being able to salvage any real memories of youth from it. The one that can feel regret without ever truly turning the page. The one that believed that today’s youth–regardless of the camp they belong to–would, much as we did, look back and choose life over dying as so-called martyrs.

I am left, like so many others, stunned that my country has been pulled back into an absurd war rather than signing a peace deal. It was that very peace that let the rest of the Arab world make giant strides, while we thought we held the region’s Holy Grail. Instead, we have been demoted to the very last rank, forced to witness the permanent reshaping of our geography and our demographics.

To leave or to stay is no longer even the question. Today, the very existence of the country is at stake. Whether or not Israel intended to launch a preemptive strike is beside the point. By firing those few rockets, Hezbollah merely handed them the pretext that would prevent us from invoking international law–assuming such a thing even still exists.

The federal system causes teeth to gnash–perhaps the country is too small for it–and the Taif Agreement seems obsolete now that coexistence has become so fragile. Indeed, was this famous Lebanese “living together” not built on artificial foundations that always camouflaged the underlying tensions? And is this coexistence not rather a convivence, as historian Dima de Clercq calls it? One that, now, also risks collapsing.

Lebanon–and its authorities, who never ceased equivocating over disarming the militia on the pretext of avoiding civil war–now finds itself facing total war. Between two evils, one usually chooses the lesser. Lebanon chose nothing. It allowed itself to be dragged along, biding its time, much like the Iranians who knew all along what the final outcome would be. Alliances are neither made nor broken by cultural or sectarian affinities; they are simply a function of intersecting interests. And when those interests converge, one must know when to board the train–even if it means watching it derail decades later. Such is the way of the world. Especially today’s world, which has gone mad.

While Europe was preoccupied with its lag in artificial intelligence, it was blindsided by the war in Ukraine, even as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict took on a permanent character. Far from the ‘Riviera’ promised by Trump, Lebanon now finds itself caught in the nets of a most macabre regime of mullahs. This time, we are told, will be the one–the final reckoning. Except that in this part of the world, nothing is ever final. Everything fluctuates; everything bends to the whims of one autocracy or another. It is useless, then, to believe that the path has been cleared. It is only a matter of time before the weeds grow back.

As for aberrations, Lebanon is far from done with them. In a single day, a population that was never even consulted saw its Parliament's mandate extended by two years, and armed militants released on a ten-dollar bail–only for a minister, in an attempt to save face, to refer the judge responsible for this madness to the judiciary.

And after all that, you would dare tell me that living in Lebanon doesn’t give you your money's worth?

*The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the editorial staff.