Articles

At this hour in Lebanon's life, the debate is no longer about technical matters — will negotiations with Israel be direct or indirect? Will they precede a ceasefire or follow one? These are secondary questions beside the real one, which imposes itself with irresistible force: why negotiate at all, and what does it mean for a state to refuse to do so? In its most elementary definition, negotiation in international relations is neither a sign of weakness nor a surrender. It is the natural instrument states use to manage conflicts when the cost of war exceeds their capacity to bear it. This is how rational states operate. Wars themselves always end in negotiation — after the bloodshed, after the destruction, after the warring parties discover that force alone neither solves problems nor produces lasting stability.

Between the lessons of history and the pressures of war, the same question recurs: can an exhausted state defer its ultimate defeat through a difficult settlement, or does an agreement concluded under an imbalanced power dynamic end up weighing on sovereignty and stability for years to come? When states enter the hour of existential peril, the question is no longer how to win, but how to prevent total collapse. In this sense, the Lebanese debate currently unfolding around the initiative launched by President Joseph Aoun to open a path toward direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel under international sponsorship goes far beyond the boundaries of ordinary political controversy, and raises a deeper question concerning the limits of what realism can achieve when the state itself is threatened in its cohesion and its capacity to survive.

The elimination by Israel of Ali Larijani – head of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council and one of the Islamic Republic’s key power brokers – along with the commander of the Basij militia, the formidable Iranian police force, Gholamreza Soleimani, will undoubtedly mark a turning point in the war between Iran and the Israel-US axis. Both men were killed in targeted Israeli strikes on the Iranian capital overnight on Monday, Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz, officially announced early Tuesday morning. As of late afternoon, however, Tehran had neither confirmed nor denied the reports. Iranian media merely announced an “imminent televised address” by Ali Larijani – echoing the scenario that preceded Tehran’s official confirmation of the death of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was also killed in Israeli strikes on 28 February 2026 – before broadcasting a handwritten message attributed to Larijani. This was accompanied by a statement from the new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, pledging to “continue the war until the defeat of the United States and Israel.”

The Church in Lebanon is currently caught in the turmoil of three “holy wars”: two distinct forms of Islamic fundamentalism (Shia and Sunni), a Judaic fundamentalism, and an eschatological religious shift – “Christian Zionism.” These competing spiritual visions share a common focal point: Jerusalem, the ultimate city of peace. During his visit to Lebanon, Pope Leo XIV addressed the Lebanese people with the same message he has delivered to the world since his election – particularly to young Eastern Christians: “Be the architects of your own peace; be powerful levers for a peace between religions.” These words are intended for the men and women of a country that is an integral part of the Holy Land, and which, consequently, carries a mission of unity and communion.

The war in Iran has entered its third week and, at the current stage, the two opposing camps, the American-Israeli coalition, on the one hand, and the Iranian Islamic Republic, on the other hand, are engaged in a military-political escalation that seems to be going crescendo. President Donald Trump thus raised the tone with his Western allies to overcome their reluctance concerning the establishment of a vast coalition that would take charge of the security of the maritime route of the Strait of Hormuz. The White House chief went so far as to emphasize that if the United States' allies maintain their refusal to send a military naval force to secure the Strait of Hormuz, the consequences for NATO could be unfortunate.

When we speak of literature in wartime, the questions that tend to crowd our minds concern the capacity of writers to produce, or the ways in which they might transmute battles, death, and destruction into novels, poems, and testimonies. But these questions, for all their importance, conceal a deeper one. War furnishes literature with a new subject, while simultaneously shaking the very conditions that make literature possible. It touches language, memory, the inner rhythm of time, and the capacity to transform experience into a coherent narrative — one that first fulfills a function before it arrives at meaning.