Articles

“Baytuna al-khataru”, (peril is our dwelling), an expression borrowed from Saïd Akl. Michel Chiha was not fooled by our superficial national unity! Besides, who would have been? This essayist feared, above all, the demons of division and violence that haunted our Lebanese memory. His Lebanon was: “ a country that tradition must defend against force… ” National fragmentation and the historical legacy The confrontation, which has been ongoing before our eyes since October 2023, may appear to be an international or regional confrontation between Israel and Iran, but it is also, as far as we are concerned, the continuation of an ancestral domestic conflict between Lebanese factions.

In a recent interview given to an English-language television channel, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did not mince his words in describing the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — and, by extension, the mullah regime in general — as the “new Hitler of the Middle East”… Offering a particularly lucid reading of the geopolitical context of the current conflict, the Crown Prince noted without circumlocution that the Iranian regime clearly adopts an expansionist posture and seeks to extend “its own project in the Middle East, in the same way that Hitler had done” in Europe. “Several countries had not realized how dangerous Hitler was until it was too late,” MBS emphasized, adding — touching the nerve: “I would not want that to happen here.”

From the rubble of March 14, 2005, nothing emerged but further rubble, embodied most symbolically in the debris of the atomized port of Beirut on August 4, 2020. Hollowed out by wars, occupations and relentless waves of corruption, the Lebanese state has been transformed into a platform, its sovereign power usurped in turn by various de facto forces. With the state structure — even in the bygone time of its glory and splendor — Lebanon’s communities have all maintained a phantasmatic, almost libidinal relationship, shot through simultaneously with contempt, violence, something approaching BDSM. The Shiites, or the Journey to the End of De-statization

At a time when large swaths of Lebanese society are plunging into the hateful pitfalls of the friend-enemy divide, there is more reason than ever to reread Michel Seurat. The Barbarian State — his posthumous collection of articles devoted to the deconstruction of Assad's Syria — remains the most rigorous analytical landmark for anyone seeking to understand the deep structure of Arab politics, Lebanon's included. Drawing on Ibn Khaldun, recast here within a Deleuzian tradition, Seurat evokes the zaamat-state (the state of chiefs) and the jamaat-state (the state of communities) as constructions intrinsic to the Syrian stato-national model.

The war in the Middle East, triggered on February 28 by an Israeli-American attack against the Iranian Mullahs' regime, seems to be settling in for the long haul, and as a result, the fate of potential negotiations between Iran and the United States remains unknown. Following a verbal escalation by the Iranians, who stated their refusal of the fifteen-point plan proposed this week by Washington, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul contradicted the official statements. He told the German press on Friday that the United States and Iran are preparing for direct talks in Pakistan. In parallel, US President Donald Trump extended his ultimatum (threatening to destroy Iran's energy facilities) until April 6, seemingly to give a chance to the ongoing negotiations.

Less than 24 hours before the expiration of the deadline given by US President Donald Trump to Tehran to respond to the 15 points of an American plan to end the ongoing war, diplomatic contacts aimed at fostering the start of a dialogue are intensifying, while the dynamic on the ground remains one of increasing pressure: violent Israeli-American strikes against Iranian military targets continue, while Tehran continues to target civilian and military infrastructure in Israel and the Gulf countries. More than ever today, the risk of a total large-scale regional conflagration seems high if Tehran continues its prevarications regarding its nuclear and ballistic program or its «sponsorship» of militias that destabilize countries like Lebanon, Iraq, or Yemen, or even Gulf countries where terrorist cells, notably linked to Hezbollah, are regularly dismantled.