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In a first article examining the situation of Middle Eastern Christians, we outlined the demographic and social reality facing Syria’s Christian communities – one that was bleak in every respect. This second installment explores the spiritual, cultural, and historical stakes involved. Commenting on a report by L’Œuvre d’Orient on Syria’s Christian communities, completed in the summer of 2025 (see previous article), Bishop Hugues de Woillemont, the organization’s director, underscored the vital role Christian associative and charitable institutions continue to play across Syrian society, notably in the fields of reconciliation, women's empowerment, and education. Returning to the report, he states: “Religious and ethnic pluralism is one of Syria’s greatest assets. However, after half a century of dictatorship and fourteen years of war – compounded by sectarian violence in the post-Assad period – it is clear that this religious and ethnic diversity has been considerably weakened and threatened in Syria.” “Moreover, the crucial need to protect minorities in order to ensure stability and prevent conflict has been highlighted in numerous UN reports,” Bishop Woillemont noted. “Yet current European and international aid and protection mechanisms clearly do not take sufficient account of the vulnerability and fragility of this ecosystem.” “We are calling in particular,” the director of L’Œuvre d’Orient said, “for the creation of a fund dedicated to ethnic and religious diversity, along with a national platform for intercommunal dialogue. These national and international instruments could be supported by various United Nations and European Union agencies. Far from fostering sectarianism, such initiatives would help support a political transition and anchor these minorities within the societies in which they live – thereby safeguarding national stability while strengthening respect for human rights for all.” Diversity and Cultural Memory “This issue concerns the balance, diversity and cultural memory of the Middle East,” the director of the NGO continued. “It also calls Europe’s historical responsibility into question. The presence of these communities is a guarantee of pluralism and democracy. Without substantial support, schools close, young people emigrate, families scatter, and the religious mosaic collapses. An International Day would help make a silent crisis visible, provide concrete support to educational and healthcare institutions, and rebuild bridges between East and West.” For Vincent Gelot, the NGO’s representative in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, the decline in the number of Christians is not an ordinary demographic fact but “a historical and cultural rupture of theological magnitude.” In other words, it reflects the very presence of God in history. Using an expression from Pope Benedict XVI, it amounts to a “spiritual desertification” of the cradle of Christianity – a replacement of one truth about the human person with another. Yet the disappearance of Jesus at the societal level is not a neutral development. It marks the fading of the particular way in which God loved the world in Christ, and of the understanding of humanity imparted by that God – indeed, of an entire anthropology. In many respects, it is the Eastern counterpart to the “death of God” in the West: the irreparable loss of a truth about the human person that no other system of thought can replace. Christian religious authorities have been particularly attentive to the threat to pluralism. “The diversity of religions and ethnic groups has always existed in Syria; we cannot imagine a nation that does not resemble our own,” said Jacques Mourad, the Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Homs. “Syrians have never been attached to such a traditional form of Islam,” the archbishop added, reflecting on the impact of the rise to power of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. In his view, the social and cultural climate in which Christians had lived for decades has been profoundly altered. Coming Back Down to Earth “Let’s come back down to earth: €18 million for a thousand projects is not much,” Vincent Gelot stressed. “Today, aid depends almost exclusively on private Western donors through the organizations grouped within the ROACO*, and that is clearly insufficient.” “It is high time for the international community to assume its responsibilities and take concrete action on behalf of the ethnic and religious communities in this region, whose very existence is now at stake. Without substantial support, the religious mosaic will collapse. The presence of these communities is a guarantee of pluralism and democracy for our world. An International Day would bring visibility to a silent crisis, provide tangible support to educational and healthcare institutions, and rebuild bridges between East and West. We are calling for immediate mobilization – not to preserve a frozen past, but to keep alive a presence that has contributed to the balance of the Middle East for two millennia.” “These Christian communities are irreplaceable witnesses to the Christianity of the early Church,” Gelot emphasized. “The holy places are here: Jesus and his Apostles walked this land; Tyre and Sidon, now in Lebanon, are mentioned in the Gospels; Saint Paul was converted on the road to Damascus; Saint Peter went to Antioch; and Jordan is home to the site where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. Yet we are seeing Christian communities in these regions pack up and leave. Leaving is unacceptable. Of course, the departure of Christians does not call Christ’s Resurrection into question, but is it not already a theological wound for these communities to lose access to the holy sites? Moreover, their departure is not only a loss for them; it is also a loss for us in the West, because part of our roots, our civilization, our cultural and religious heritage comes from here. It is also a loss for Muslims. The countries of the Middle East must be helped to preserve their mosaic.” Anchoring Minorities “Accordingly,” Vincent Gelot emphasized, “L’Œuvre d’Orient is calling for the swift establishment of mechanisms to support reconciliation and a form of justice adapted for all Syrians. It also recommends the creation of international mechanisms and funding instruments to ensure inclusive reconstruction, along with sustained mobilization by the international community to promote ethnic and religious diversity in Syria.” Gelot concluded: “Far from encouraging sectarianism, such initiatives would help support a political transition and anchor these minorities within the societies in which they live, thereby safeguarding national stability while strengthening respect for human rights for all.” * ROACO: Reunion of Aid Agencies for the Oriental Churches (including Aid to the Church in Need, Misereor, the Pontifical Mission, and L’Œuvre d’Orient). Read on the same theme: “Spiritual Desertification” in Syria: A Dire Reality (1/2)

The Iran-U.S. confrontation recalls a quote by the Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu (4 th – 5 th century BC): "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting". President Donald Trump seems to adopt a strategy based on this quote, and he deliberately maintains ambiguity to keep his strategic objectives and military thinking secret. Strikes, large-scale war, sustained threats (from both sides) that risk escalating at any moment… Speculation is rife. The concentration of American war assets in the Middle East is enormous and leaves no doubt as to the vast damage these assets can inflict on Iran. In this regard, and speaking of his warships, President Trump told reporters last week: "They have to sail somewhere. They might as well sail near Iran". However, President Trump's strategy based on Sun Tzu's quote cannot apply to the case of Iran, where the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards prioritize ideology over objective data. Moreover, the regime will do everything to survive, even if it means bringing the temple down on itself and its adversaries. Historically, Khomeinist Iran has only relented twice, and that was after painful strikes: the first, after the destruction of a large part of the Iranian navy by the US Navy, the very heavy losses suffered against the Iraqi army, and after strong economic pressures, Tehran finally accepted Resolution 598 of July 1988, adopted by the Security Council a year earlier and stipulating a cessation of the war with Iraq. The second time occurred in June 2025 after 12 days of Israeli strikes and a massive American bombardment against nuclear facilities; the mullahs then immediately accepted a ceasefire proposed by President Trump via Qatar. US aviation raids Iran's determination to enrich radioactive uranium and continue manufacturing ballistic missiles, as well as the presence of the American armada in the region, will most likely lead to an armed confrontation with severe consequences for Iran, but also with real risks of American losses. Indeed, on February 23rd, the Pentagon informed President Trump of its concerns about the risks of a prolonged military campaign against Iran, particularly concerning loss of life. This is not surprising, but is an American strike against Iran likely to be long? And what do we mean by "long"? Between March and May 2025, at the beginning of the first year of President Trump's second term, the United States conducted strikes against the Houthis that only ceased with the halt of their attacks on international shipping. In June 2025, US Air Force B2 bombers dropped a dozen 10-ton bombs each on Iran, causing massive damage to Iranian nuclear sites. Then in December 2025, American aviation retaliated against the Islamic State in Syria, targeting 70 objectives, and the same month American missiles targeted the Islamic State in Nigeria. In early 2026, Maduro was captured and handed over to New York justice, and since then dozens of US Navy strikes have been counted against the Islamic State and the Al-Shabab organization in Somalia. Outcome: zero American deaths and undeniable military and political successes for Washington. Gaining time President Trump has so far kept his electoral promises: no more endless wars where the United States gets bogged down. He is certain to continue keeping his promises for a multitude of reasons, including mid-term legislative elections, his personal reputation, and his desire to preserve U.S. supremacy not only on the American continent, as stipulated in his 2025 national strategy in accordance with the "Monroe" doctrine, but worldwide. Khomeinist Iran, for its part, has seen eight presidents succeed one another in Washington, three of whom clashed with Tehran: Carter, Reagan, and Trump. The others contented themselves with sanctions that did not prevent Iran from developing its formidable military force, supporting its allied militias, and expanding in the region, which indicates gaping loopholes in these sanctions, especially regarding oil exports. The mullahs have always adopted the strategy of gaining time, exploiting diplomacy to advance their nuclear and ballistic programs, and dragging out any negotiation. The eight American presidents were very busy at home and around the world to focus on Iran. The current crisis is different. Even if Washington wishes to conclude the conflict with an agreement on its own terms – which is unlikely – the concentration of military forces, Iran's intractable stance on the enrichment of fissile materials and the manufacture of missiles, alongside inflammatory speeches from both sides, are leading straight to a confrontation. Facing this risk, and according to Nate Swanson in Foreign Affairs of February 24th, "the White House shows widespread confidence in President Donald Trump's ability to manage the consequences of such a confrontation. This confidence is part of a trend that has shaped Trump's thinking for years". That said, the coming days and weeks will put an end to speculation, and several indicators suggest that a highly probable American strike will be "limited," a term that is very relative. It is certain that, given Iranian threats of retaliation against the dozen American military bases in the Gulf countries as well as against U.S. embassies, threats to mine the Strait of Hormuz, and the use of supersonic anti-ship missiles by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the American strike or war will, from the very first hours, target the Iranian navy to secure Hormuz, anti-aircraft batteries to ensure air superiority, land-to-sea anti-ship missile sites to secure naval maneuvers, and especially command posts, not to mention the deployment of cybernetic and electromagnetic means to blind Iranian surveillance radars. While this strike may seem enormous to some, it is relatively limited given that Iran has 90 million inhabitants and spans 1.6 million km². An Iranian retaliation/escalation? An American quagmire? Perhaps! But we are far from the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War. No American ground troops in Iran, that is certain, except for very precise and lightning-fast operations, which avoids exposure to guerrilla warfare. Iran's asymmetrical means and those of its allies in the region will not hold their own in the current context, and they have shown their transience in the war against Israel. The fact remains that whatever the outcome, war or no war, regime change or not, Iran is no longer what it was over the past two decades.

A grave situation is quietly unfolding in the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity. The region is being emptied of its Christian population. Similar processes were observed in Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion and in the Holy Land. Now, Syria is facing the same reality. “The rupture is existential,” says Vincent Gelot, the representative for Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan of L’Œuvre d’Orient, a non-political organization affiliated with the French Catholic Church, which is currently campaigning to establish an International Day for Christians in the Middle East. Using Syria as an example, Vincent Gelot says, "In fourteen years of war (2011–2025), the country has lost nearly 80 percent of its Christian population." Reliable estimates suggest that between 300,000 and 400,000 Syrian Christians remain in a population of roughly 26 to 27 million, he adds. In Aleppo, only about one-sixth of the Christians who lived there before the 2011 war are still present. In Deir Ez-Zor, which has been 75 percent destroyed, the Christian population has fallen to just four, compared with 7,000 before the war. These figures are based on estimates rather than an official census. A reliable source within the secretariat of the Greek Orthodox Church, Syria’s largest church, suggests that the numbers are likely underestimated. However, it didn’t release any official figures. In any case, the exodus is expected to continue as long as political stability does not return and a strong economic recovery fails to materialize, according to a Maronite Church source. In 1905, Christians accounted for about 15 percent of Syria’s population, roughly three million people, compared with 10 percent just before the conflict began in 2011. According to the figures provided by L’Œuvre d’Orient, that share has now dropped to less than 1 percent. “This is a brutal decline that can only be compared to episodes of genocide or ethnic cleansing,” the head of L’Œuvre d’Orient emphasizes. “It is extremely rare for a local, indigenous community – in this case, Christians – to disappear so quickly and so violently.” He adds, “Of the 20 percent who remain, the community is largely elderly. More than half are over 50. In other words, the age pyramid is inverted, with a sharp drop in the number of young people relative to the elderly.” An “Abandoned” Community “Syrian Christians endured the war like the rest of the population, but they were also specifically targeted by ISIS. Structurally unarmed and lacking regional confessional support, the community was left to fend for itself, which explains the brutality of the exodus,” Vincent Gelot says. The June 23, 2025, attack on the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Elias in Damascus, which killed at least 25 people and injured more than 60, starkly illustrates this vulnerability. The Christians exodus has been compounded by three additional factors: the aftermath of the 2023 earthquake, international sanctions imposed on the Assad regime, and mandatory military service, which affected all young Syrians until the regime’s fall (in December 2024). Based in Lebanon for the past ten years, Vincent Gelot, 37 years, lives there with his wife and their four children. He oversees 1,000 projects that sustain the social fabric of the three countries under his responsibility. He did not arrive in the Middle East in a suit and tie. "At 23, with barely a penny to his name, he set off alone in a 4L to encounter a Christian world on the brink of extinction. From the plains of Nineveh to the borders of Afghanistan, his journey lasted two years. This adventure was akin a conversion," writes journalist Guyonne de Montjou, who profiled him for the Aleteia website. Since then, he has risen through the ranks and now oversees, within L’Œuvre d’Orient, nearly 18 million euros a year across the region under his responsibility, supporting hospitals, schools, clinics, refugee centers, support groups, and student incubators. Central Role of Christian Institutions The number of Christians in Syria should not be measured solely by their social and cultural impact. Institutions run by Christian congregations do not serve only Christians; they provide spaces for intercommunal dialogue and foster national cohesion. Their disappearance would greatly weaken the entire social fabric, as well as its openness to modernity. A report by L’Œuvre d’Orient from the summer of 2025 highlights the “deep marginalization, marked by fear and persistent insecurity,” experienced by Christians in Syria and provides recommendations to the international community. “Despite their fragile situation, Christians continue to serve other communities tirelessly. Through their four major hospitals, 57 schools across the country, and a vibrant network of associations, they help support the population and promote a return to employment,” the report states.

By February 2026, the temperature in the Persian Gulf is approaching a boiling point. The U.S. Fifth Fleet has completed a military buildup rarely seen since the Cold War. Strategic bomber wings rotate through forward bases. Tel Aviv experiences intermittent GPS signal jamming. News feeds oscillate between predictions of “World War III” and dramatic narratives of a “Sino-Russian alliance defending Tehran to the death.” The world is staring at radar screens, waiting for ignition. Yet if we strip away the ideological noise, the confrontation deserves to be analyzed through a far more sober framework: game theory. Game theory – a branch of applied mathematics – studies strategic interaction in situations where the outcome for each actor depends on the choices of others. It is not about morality or rhetoric. It is about incentives, constraints, equilibrium. And once we apply this lens, the crisis looks less like chaos – and more like a forced systemic adjustment. The Geopolitical Balance Sheet Military activation is the most dramatic way of settling geopolitical bad debts. “To strike or not to strike” is ultimately a choice of liquidation method – kinetic versus negotiated. But it may not change the final geopolitical balance sheet. To understand the equilibrium toward which this system is moving, we must first identify what is truly at stake for each player. United States Washington’s objectives are straightforward: – Eliminate Iran’s nuclear threshold capability. – Dismantle medium and long-range offensive missile capacity. – Degrade or sever Tehran’s regional proxy networks. The U.S. can coexist with the Mullah regime – provided it ceases regional destabilization and removes the existential threat to Israel. Recent deployments in the Middle East have cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Deterrence must now be monetized through tangible strategic results. The United States seeks to secure energy corridors and free up strategic bandwidth for the Indo-Pacific. Israel For Israel, the equation is existential. Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missile infrastructure represent a red line. Any residual nuclear threshold capability invalidates long-term deterrence. Israel’s objective is not symbolic containment – it is the physical dismantling of capabilities that could enable annihilation. Regional Arab States For Gulf monarchies and regional Arab states, the priority is stability. Their economies depend on uninterrupted energy exports and secure maritime trade through the Strait of Hormuz. War would endanger critical infrastructure – oil terminals, desalination plants, financial hubs. Their objective is simple: avoid systemic fire. China and Russia Beijing and Moscow have more nuanced objectives. They do not want the United States to control Iran’s energy reserves outright. Nor do they want Iran completely neutralized and folded into a Western sphere. Iran functions as a geopolitical node: – It absorbs U.S. military attention. – It supplies discounted crude to China. – It anchors multipolar leverage in the region. A fully pacified, Western-aligned Iran would allow the U.S. to pivot decisively toward the Indo-Pacific – an outcome Beijing seeks to avoid. The Iranian Regime and the IRGC For the Mullah regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the objective is survival. The nuclear program and missile capabilities are not merely strategic tools – they are legitimacy assets. They justify the IRGC’s monopolization of domestic resources and political authority. An unconditional surrender would fracture the internal power structure and risk mutiny within the Guard. Regional Proxies Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other aligned groups face a harsher reality: survival under attrition. Without sustained logistical and weapons support, they degrade from semi-conventional forces into fragmented militias. Their strategic leverage diminishes rapidly without supply chain continuity. Why a “Grand Compromise” Does Not Exist On the surface, one could imagine a clean formula: Disarmament in exchange for economic normalization. But once we model the incentives properly, frictionless consensus becomes implausible. – Khamenei cannot sign a document that “pulls out all the teeth” without triggering internal instability. – China and Russia do not benefit from a fully pacified Iran that frees U.S. forces for Asia. – The IRGC cannot accept disarmament without compensation. Therefore, equilibrium cannot be absolute peace. It must be calibrated. The Customized Equilibrium The most plausible convergent state is not total surrender, but a high-precision strategic excision – a controlled amputation of specific capabilities while preserving others. The system stabilizes along three parameters. 1 - Zeroing Nuclear Threshold Capability No ambiguity. No “59.9% enrichment” Schrödinger scenario. High-grade centrifuges are dismantled. Enriched stockpiles are removed. Verification is intrusive and irreversible. Israel and the United States obtain physical security. Iran retains the narrative of peaceful nuclear use. 2 - Locking Down Strategic Missile Ranges Medium- and long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel and Europe are destroyed. However, coastal anti-ship cruise missiles remain. This preserves Iran’s tactical defensive leverage over the Strait of Hormuz – and ensures the U.S. Fifth Fleet cannot simply exit the theater. China and Russia thereby maintain a strategic anchor that keeps American attention partially tied to the Gulf. 3 - Downgrading Proxy Networks Precision-guided munitions supply chains and financial ties are severed. Hezbollah and other actors degrade from quasi-strategic strike forces into localized, lower-intensity entities. Israel gains substantive border security. Tehran maintains rhetorical influence through the “Axis of Resistance” narrative. Why Would the IRGC Accept This? The answer lies in internal interest substitution. Authoritarian regimes operate through compensation mechanisms. When external expansion is forcibly curtailed, internal rent extraction expands. In exchange for surrendering nuclear and proxy ambitions, the IRGC could receive: – Control over unfrozen funds. – Allocation rights on crude export quotas. – Expanded domestic economic monopolies. The transformation would be clear: From geopolitical warlord to internal oligarchic guardian. Sanctions relief and energy revenues would buy compliance at the top. The Zombie Equilibrium The final settlement of this crisis may not resemble victory or defeat. It would resemble a structurally stable, morally ambiguous arrangement – a Zombie Equilibrium. – The U.S. and Israel eliminate existential nuclear risk. – China and Russia preserve a non-Western energy node. – The Iranian regime survives, inward-focused and economically transactional. Iran ceases to be a revisionist chess player and becomes a calibrated energy plug in a multipolar system. Its “teeth” – nuclear threshold, strategic missiles, proxy strike networks – are removed. Its “claws” – internal security apparatus and maritime denial capacity – remain. The systemic game has reached bedrock. At this stage, fighter jets taking off from carrier decks may be less about altering the outcome and more about shaping negotiating leverage. The central question is not whether pressure will force structural change. It is whether ideology will be traded for survival, bearing in mind that Iran’s current economic and financial situation will ultimately lead to the demise of the regime in the longer term. And that is why negotiations are long, tense, and delicately staged. Because in this game, equilibrium is already mathematically visible – even if politically unspoken.

Nothing reveals the beginning of the end of the regime in Iran more clearly than the situation in Iraq. In Iraq, the “Islamic Republic” has failed to impose a loyal figure in the position of Prime Minister. It was enough for President Donald Trump to place a veto on Nouri al-Maliki’s return to office for Maliki’s fate to become suspended. It was from Iraq that Iran’s expansionist project found new momentum after the administration of George W. Bush overthrew Saddam Hussein’s Baathist, family-based regime. And it is from Iraq that this same project now appears to be nearing its end. More importantly, Iran’s inability to reinstall Maliki as Prime Minister exposes the deep crisis afflicting the Iraqi system established after 2003. Gradually, it becomes evident that Iraq is facing a systemic crisis, a system that cannot endure. What is built on false foundations cannot last, particularly in a country marked by religious, sectarian, and ethnic diversity. The “Islamic Republic” in Iran sought to export its own failed model to Iraq. If the system based on the doctrine of wilayat al-faqih has failed within Iran itself, how could it succeed in neighboring Iraq? The U.S. war on Iraq followed directly from the war in Afghanistan after the catastrophe of September 11, 2001. On that day, the terrorist organization “Al-Qaeda,” led by Osama bin Laden, carried out its twin assaults on Washington and New York. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which sheltered bin Laden and his network, had first to be removed. The Bush administration, dominated by the neoconservatives, toppled the Taliban. Yet it remains unclear why the U.S. president then chose to proceed against Saddam Hussein while American forces were still deeply engaged in Afghanistan. The Americans went into Iraq without a clear plan and without a genuine regional ally other than the “Islamic Republic” of Iran, which played a central role in unifying the Iraqi opposition to topple and inherit the Baghdad regime. They arrived with naïve assumptions, such as the belief that Iraq’s Shiites were primarily Arabs whose religious authority lay in Najaf rather than Qom. There was no real American understanding of the weight of Iraqi Shiite militias that the Iranians brought into Baghdad on the tanks of the American occupier. I witnessed firsthand the U.S.–Iranian coordination during the London conference of the Iraqi opposition in December 2002. Most opposition leaders, Shiites and Kurds alike, flew to London together from Tehran. Iranian instructions to Shiite leaders, represented by the late Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, were explicit: endorse the American proposal at the conference. The conference’s final communiqué, for the first time, referred to the “Shiite majority” in Iraq and described the future state as “federal.” The inclusion of the term “federal,” open to multiple interpretations, aimed to reassure the Kurds, particularly Massoud Barzani, who was observing developments with caution. Barzani participated in the conference and declared that the train to remove Saddam Hussein had “already departed,” and there would be no place in the new Iraq for those who failed to board it. His speech was the most compelling, warning against “revenge” while recalling the crimes of Saddam’s regime against the Kurds and his own family. Iran alone benefited from what has unfolded in Iraq since 2003. It was an earthquake that altered the regional balance of power, placing Iraq in the pocket of the “Islamic Republic.” Khomeini had failed over eight years, from 1980 to 1988, to swallow Iraq. The Americans fulfilled his dream in 2003, effectively waging a war that served Iranian interests. President Donald Trump now seeks, through his warnings to Iraqi leaders, to correct a strategic error nearly a quarter of a century old. The error began with the decision to wage war in Iraq before concluding the Afghan campaign and with the belief that there was a distinction between Sunni terrorism and the terrorism represented by pro-Iranian Shiite organizations spread throughout the region, including Iraq. Practice has shown the failure of the regime established in Iraq in 2003. Baghdad lacks the capacity to impose Nouri al-Maliki as Prime Minister, especially under the threat of U.S. sanctions in the event of defying Donald Trump’s wishes. Moreover, nothing suggests that a new president can be elected any time soon. As for “federalism,” it remains subject to divergent interpretations. Iraq must now seek a new political system free from Iranian hegemony. Much will depend on the outcome of the confrontation between the “Islamic Republic” on one side and the United States and Israel on the other. Yet the central question concerns Iran itself, whose regional expansion began in Iraq—an Iraq that now symbolizes the waning of the “Islamic Republic’s” expansionist project.

It was February 4, 2021, on a bleak winter morning. The body of Lokman Slim, the archetype of the committed intellectual, had just been found in his car, riddled with bullets. One more nail in the coffin of a Lebanon rotten and gnawed to the marrow by Hezbollah’s criminal hubris. Lokman’s abduction the previous day and his subsequent assassination followed a pattern long familiar. In Lebanon, for more than half a century, anyone who dares to challenge the prevailing totalitarian order becomes a potential target for elimination. Intellectuals, in particular, have always been expendable. Their disappearance rarely ignites nationalist fervor, communal solidarity, localist reflexes, or clan outrage, because they command no mobs, no militias, no crowds of blind adherents. In that sense, they are easy prey — and therefore preferred prey. By then, Lokman Slim embodied everything that unsettled the pro-Iranian party’s hired killers. From the heart of the southern suburb — which he refused to abandon — he confronted Hezbollah’s omnipotence wielding speech and pen like a sharply pointed rapier. Despite cyclical death threats, he broke the omertà surrounding the Beirut port explosion of August 4, 2020, openly pointing to Hezbollah and the Syrian regime’s responsibility in the crime, at a time when the official version broadcast everywhere claimed it was merely an accident born of mafioso negligence. He paid for that defiance with his life. It was in the midst of that tragedy that the majority of Lebanese discovered Salma Merchak, like a figure stepping out of Euripides’ Trojan Women — a modern Hecuba proclaiming in turn, yet without vengeance and with extraordinary restraint and grace, that “the death of a child has no human measure.” That day, the order and continuity of the world must have shattered for Lokman Slim’s mother, who lost a part of herself in a maternal anguish beyond comprehension. “There are sorrows that do not weep,” Victor Hugo wrote of his daughter Léopoldine. And yet, with exemplary courage, faithful to a cultural heritage of exceptional richness, Salma Merchak — with her disarming blend of English and Egyptian Arabic, and that firm, serene wisdom of noble souls unafraid to look death in the eye and who combat violence through composure — transmuted her grief into intellectual resistance. Like mother, like son. Rarely has the loss of a child — and not just any child — been borne with such modesty and dignity. In the face of the crude, brutal inhumanity of the assassins, Salma Merchak opposed a culture of life, her inner radiance transcending the abyss of the unspeakable. A Model Mother “Iconized” by the force of events into a mater dolorosa, Salma Merchak Slim undoubtedly stood as a model of ethics and knowledge for her children. In that sense, she was a mediator, a transmitter, guardian of a Levantine continuity between two shores, and witness to a Lebanon that, even from the depths of the abyss, persisted in speaking the language of culture, of connection, and of freedom. Born in Egypt to a father of Syrian origin (from Nabk in the Qalamoun region) and a Lebanese mother from Joun in the Chouf, Merchak grew up between two complementary belongings. She later studied journalism at the American University in Cairo, where among her most influential teachers was the writer, journalist, and translator Wadih Filastin. Filastin, a great scholar and self-made man who had been imprisoned under Nasser, stood in many ways as an heir to Nahdawi thought. It was likely he who inoculated the young Salma with the virus of freedom and the taste for culture. During a summer visit to Lebanon, Salma Merchak fell under the spell of Mohsen Slim, a brilliant criminal lawyer engaged within the National Bloc alongside Raymond Eddé, an opponent of Nasserism and a fierce defender of liberties and the Constitution. A courageous, irreducible and irredeemably free man, who multiplied battles against injustice, systematically disdained honors, and refused to be confined within the communal corset of his own community. From that union were born three formidable children, themselves passionate about culture and justice: Hadi, Rasha, and Lokman. Thinking in Order Not to Die While her husband fought on every front — defending Kamel Mroué against Abdul Halim Ghaleb’s grip, standing for Jamil Daaboul and Farouk Mokaddem, engaging in epic duels with Selim al-Laouzi, and resisting Chehabism in Jbeil and Beirut — Salma Merchak became what she fundamentally was: a scholar. As early as 1973, she undertook academic research on the migration of the “Shawam” to Egypt, that Levantine diaspora which, from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, nourished the press, literature, ideas, and an essential part of Arab modernity. Her project as author and researcher crystallized around figures often relegated to the margins of grand narratives: Nicola Haddad and Ibrahim al-Masri, emblematic names of the bond between Egypt and the Levant, and of the capacity of “Shami” intellectuals to build enduring bridges between societies, languages, and sensibilities. She thus became a guardian of the memory of this relationship between two intimately connected worlds, driven by the acute awareness that one must not surrender to the patina of time and oblivion, but continue transmitting the Nahdawi heritage despite the Arab malaise so powerfully described by Samir Kassir. It is therefore no coincidence that Lokman would later found an outstanding research center dedicated to preserving the memory of the civil war and documenting the abuses suffered by prisoners in Syrian prisons. In that sense, the entirety of Salma Merchak’s work was resistance through thought against death. A death lurking in the shadows, insidiously seeking a way to make her pay for that sacrilege. The Enlightenment and the Night of Haret Hreik Journalistic portraits of Lokman Slim often emphasize his attachment to Enlightenment thought and to the Nahda, and his determination to resist obscurantism from the paternal home in Haret Hreik, at the very heart of Hezbollah’s darkness. Lokman was the worthy heir of his father’s bravery and his mother’s knowledge. The family home thus became a center of political resistance in the broadest sense of the term — resistance to terror and obscurantism. For Salma Merchak, the “house” was conceived as a civic space: a place of debate, reading, discussion, reflection, even when the night grows long and wolves gather ferociously around its walls. Her attachment to her library was particularly revealing in this regard — as a way of invalidating, neutralizing any victory claimed by brutality. As Makram Rabah, a companion of Lokman’s journey, has written, there was in Salma’s figure something that touched the deepest Lebanese symbolism: the house as last bastion, as last State. The country collapses, institutions decay, justice stammers, history is falsified — yet a house inhabited by conscience can become a miniature republic: library, salon, garden, tomb, place of memory, place of speech. It functions metaphorically as an “incubator” of intellectuals and friendships, of networks of thinkers, writers, visitors who pass through that house and its atmosphere. This notion of cultural and intellectual resistance to Night through Enlightenment, to barbarity through civility, recalls the spirit defended by Sélim Abou during the Syrian occupation: that political resistance remains incomplete without a cultural backbone grounded in knowledge, freedom, and human rights. Many of Lokman’s adversaries never grasped this coherence. He was consistent with himself. Not another political Tartuffe negotiating compromises for the sake of survival. He operated according to a clear scale of values — those of universal humanism and the Nahda — inherited from his parents. Thus Lokman carried the torch forward, establishing continuity in the moral and intellectual posture of his rebellious father and his discreet mother, while forging his own path through his own strength and struggles. “Thought Cannot Be Killed by Bullets…” Bitter irony: it was Lokman’s assassination that thrust Salma Merchak into public light. What the Lebanese discovered was not only sorrow, pain, or fury, but a moral stance shaped by wisdom, serenity, peace — and also by will and determination. From the outset, like Ghassan Tueini after the assassination of his son Gebran, Salma Merchak rejected the language of vengeance. She refused the Lebanese injunction to “close ranks” around blood. Instead, almost with biblical sobriety, she asked: What was the purpose? What have they gained? These questions stripped Hezbollah bare — and beyond it, all those for whom violence constitutes a mode of resolving conflict — exposing the impotence at the core of its power. It may sow chaos and annihilate opposition, yet it cannot protect itself from the contagion of knowledge and freedom. It is only a matter of time. The outcome is sealed. Alea jacta est. Civilization ultimately prevails over barbarism. “Thought cannot be killed by bullets,” she repeated. And how right she was. With Lokman’s assassination, the order of the world fractured for his mother — as it had before her for Jean and Laila Kassir, Ghassan Tuéni, Amine and Joyce Gemayel, Mahmoud and Samir Eid, and so many other parents who have seen — or not even been granted that bitter consolation, like Tueini!— the lifeless body of their son. Perhaps Salma Merchak’s strongest act of resistance was her family’s refusal to abandon Haret Hreik after Lokman’s murder. To leave would have meant surrendering the narrative. The only way to honor his memory was to continue: writing, speaking without fear, sustaining the institutions and legacies to which he had devoted his life, particularly the spirit of memory and the perseverance of UMAM. No satisfaction would be granted to the assassins. The garden became the victim’s burial place, erected as a symbol of resistance to oppression. In believing it had triumphed, Hezbollah created an immortal hero whose sanctuary is anchored in the southern suburb. Long after the pro-Iranian militia has faded from history, Lokman’s grave will continue to bloom in that garden. “One does not recover from the death of a child. One only learns to breathe differently,” wrote Françoise Dolto. Despite restrained tears, and in the suffering and humiliations inflicted by a power that denied her truth and justice known to all, Salma Merchak did far more than breathe. She breathed for two. Until her final breath. A breath of resistance, of humanism, of civility, of the culture of connection, of knowledge and of peace. She has already departed through the forest, through the mountain, unable to remain far from Lokman any longer .