Articles

The process of rebuilding the Lebanese state appears to have stalled, despite some progress on the technocratic front. After more than a year of the Hezbollah’s so-called “support war” and the party’s waning influence on the regional stage, the election of the President sparked a wave of disproportionate euphoria. The formation of a promising government had raised hopes of restoring the state’s sovereignty. Yet, a year on, that euphoria has given way to disappointment, and hope has all but evaporated. Hezbollah’s refusal, at Iran’s instigation, to bow to the will of the majority of Lebanese and to hand over its weapons to the state, coupled with its violation of UN Resolution 1701, has long served – and continues to serve – as a pretext for Israeli harassment targeting its leaders and infrastructure. This dynamic obstructs any real progress in restoring the Lebanese state.

As the date of the international conference in support of the Lebanese army, scheduled for March 2026 in Paris, approaches, Lebanon finds itself at a critical juncture. This meeting, intended to mobilize the international community in favor of the regular forces, comes at an extremely complex political and regional time. Every decision or lack thereof by the Lebanese state regarding the monopoly of weapons, in particular, will have a direct impact on the effectiveness of international aid to the troops and, more broadly, on the very future of the army and national sovereignty. The chosen date, March 5, 2026, remains conditional, however. According to General Maroun Hitti, the conference could be postponed if a crucial step is not taken by Lebanon by then. This step consists either of a unanimous political decision within the Lebanese government, including Hezbollah and Nabih Berri’s ministers, for the State to take charge of the weapons issue and for Hezbollah to submit to its authority, or of a major regional event. This could be a cataclysm or an armed conflict that would force Iran to comply with the demands of the international community, thus altering the balance of power in the region.

Analytical focus on the war in Sudan which, since 2023, has already resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and millions of displaced people, with a particularly overwhelming human cost in Darfur, where mass violence, sieges, and forced displacement have taken on a dimension that many international actors now qualify as genocidal. The Sudanese war regularly leads to announcements of mediation, imminent ceasefires, and “diplomatic windows.” At almost regular intervals, an international actor thus “rediscovers” the conflict, promises an initiative, or convenes talks. These sequences essentially produce political noise, and sometimes a temporary suspension of fighting on a specific front, but they never alter the structure of the conflict. However, the repetition of the same pattern does not constitute an accidental failure of diplomacy; it is the product of a deeper misunderstanding of the very nature of the ongoing war.

With the Allied victory in World War II, the United States of America emerged as a superpower presiding over the destiny of the Western world. The enormous US industrial machine contributed significantly to the military victory over fascism. In the first part, we saw how the US imposed its model, not only through its military power, but also through a new global economic, financial, and institutional order. In this second part, we will detail the risks currently facing America. The "Make America Great Again" doctrine marks a break in contemporary geopolitics. The greatest casualty of this rupture may be the United States itself, not because it lacks power, but because it has become structurally fragile.

What if Iran were to yield in the face of the massive deployment of American force? What if it chose not to take up the challenge posed by the U.S. fleet now anchoring in what it considers its own waters, those of the Persian Gulf? It would lose face—after having so recently strutted and solemnly proclaimed that it controlled four Arab capitals! Let us not be mistaken: Tehran is now faced with a choice between war and compromise—that is, a retreat that would bring back into fashion the much-criticized gunboat diplomacy, so often denounced in academic circles. This so-called diplomacy, which predates the First World War, consisted of firing from the sea at the coasts of a country deemed to have something to answer for, usually unpaid financial debts.

Analytical focus on the war in Sudan which, since 2023, has already resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and millions of displaced persons, with a particularly devastating human cost in Darfur, where mass violence, sieges and forced displacement have taken on a dimension that many international actors now describe as genocidal. It seems necessary to analyze Iran's role in the Sudanese conflict alone, even though the latter does not present itself in the classic form of an identified sponsor, an overt political support or an assumed alliance. It is more diffuse, more indirect, but, in many respects, more structuring. Tehran is not a central actor in the Sudanese theater; it is a kind of strategic amplifier, inscribing the conflict in a broader regional architecture, dominated by the Red Sea and new forms of asymmetric warfare.