When Joseph Aoun Takes Lebanon Out of the Iranian Game

The essential point of the bold address that President of the Republic Joseph Aoun delivered to the Lebanese remains that relating to the attainment of "permanent agreements" with Israel in the light of a ceasefire. The head of state deliberately affirmed Lebanon's complete exit from the Iranian game by passing over in silence any role for the "Islamic Republic" in reaching the ceasefire. He instead underscored the role of "friend" President Donald Trump and the Arab group, "at the forefront of which the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia." This has undoubtedly drawn the wrath of Iran and Hezbollah upon a president who is working to end the occupation and restore the displaced to their villages.

The ceasefire in Lebanon was achieved after Presidents Joseph Aoun and Nawaf Salam came to understand that a half-exit from the Iranian game was worthless. Either a complete exit from that game, or Lebanon would remain yet another victim of the Iranian expansionist project and the dead end it has reached.

Iran's problem with Lebanon appears to be of extreme complexity. It stems, at root, from the Iranian inability to grasp Lebanon's composition and its intricate formula on the one hand, and from the refusal of most Lebanese to see their country fall under direct Iranian domination immediately after freeing itself from Syrian tutelage on the other.

But Iran's overriding predicament remains its discovery that its investment in Hezbollah, an investment spanning more than forty years, was misplaced. Every billion poured in by the "Islamic Republic" has gone up in smoke, whether in Lebanon or in Syria.

One must understand Iran's situation and the predicament that Lebanon has caused it. That predicament lies in the "Islamic Republic's" inability to adapt to the transformation the region has undergone. The best illustration of this transformation is that the war currently under way is playing out within Iran itself. Not far off is the day when this war will lay bare the failure of the regime that Ayatollah Khomeini established in 1979, a regime whose founding watchword was "the export of the revolution."

Forty-seven years after the birth of the "Islamic Republic," the slogan Tehran once brandished has rebounded against those who brandished it. Lebanon, in its majority, refuses to be dragged down by this same Iranian recoil.

The Iranian regime has ultimately proved incapable of continuing to defend itself by exporting its crises beyond its borders. A game at once grotesque and dangerous was bound to come to an end. It rested on the naivety of successive American administrations since the Jimmy Carter era, and on Israeli complicity. Israel played every role Iran required of it in order to serve its own interests, grounded in the fragmentation of the region.

The rules of the regional game have changed. That game rested primarily on American permissiveness toward Tehran and on Israeli complicity. The region has changed, Israel included, since October 7, 2023. The "Islamic Republic" did not even grasp the meaning of no longer being the party that decides who becomes president of the Republic in Lebanon.

One cannot forget that Hezbollah imposed Michel Aoun as president of the Republic on October 31, 2016. Nor can one overlook that Joseph Aoun reached the Baabda Palace in early 2025 against the will of Iran and Hezbollah.

The fact remains that reality is one thing, and illusion quite another. Michel Aoun, along with his son-in-law Gebran Bassil, was a mere instrument in the hands of Hezbollah, itself an instrument of Iran. The different regional circumstances, especially with the major transformation that has occurred in Syria, now allow the current president of the Lebanese Republic to break free of Iranian hegemony and to be a genuine president for Lebanon, despite the occasional absence of clarity in Baabda's vision...

The whole issue is that Iran does not know how to lose, unlike Germany and Japan in their time. The "Islamic Republic" appears not to know how to lose today, just as it did not know how to win during the period when it believed it controlled four Arab capitals, Beirut among them.

What matters for a country like Lebanon is knowing how to lose and extricating itself definitively from Iran's grip. The options before a country that will have to pay the price of "a war imposed upon it," in Nawaf Salam's words, are few.

Through Joseph Aoun's address, Lebanon showed that it genuinely intends to go further than a mere ceasefire with Israel, which will require inevitable concessions. The sooner Lebanon accepts the terms capable of leading to a permanent ceasefire, the better for the South and its people. Just as Iran negotiates with America, Lebanon must negotiate with Israel without any complex of any kind.

When the "Islamic Republic" shows no mercy toward the people of the South, nor toward the Southern villages and towns, Lebanon has no choice but to place its own interest above all others, above Iran's most of all. It must take note that in the face of a monster named Benjamin Netanyahu, the country holds no card to play other than direct dialogue with "Bibi." Such dialogue could prove useful at a certain stage, with a view to going beyond a ceasefire and exploring whether there exists a means of ending the occupation in exchange for a price that cannot be avoided.

It is the price of Hezbollah's total subordination to the "Islamic Republic"...