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Lionel Messi or the Re-enchantment of the World

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By Michel Hajji Georgiou
Published Sep 6, 2026 - 13:31
The Argentine player, who brought his international career to an end on August 31, 2026, was nothing less than a magician of the stadiums. His journey, made of wonders, falls and redemption, may tell us something about our undiminished need for enchantment in a world that nevertheless claims to have rid itself of it. Announced a few weeks after the 2026 World Cup final lost to Spain, Lionel Messi’s international retirement inevitably stirred an emotion for which it is difficult to find many equivalents in the recent history of football. One would probably have to go back to Maradona, or perhaps to Cruyff or Pelé, to recover that sense that, with the retirement of a player, something disappears that extends far beyond the sport itself, as though a certain way of inhabiting football, perhaps even of believing in it, were also coming to an end. Far from the glacis of reason Enough of the endless statistics and the unbearable, tedious and sterile quarrels over “who is the greatest of all time.” The author of these lines has never been a fanatic of the round ball, nor, for that matter, of vertical rankings or hierarchies of merit in general, and consequently appreciates the talent of each player with the same sense of wonder as an eleven-year-old child. Besides, this particularly contemporary obsession with numbers ruins all the pleasure of the spectacle. And with good reason: the approach that consists in adding up goals, assists, Ballons d’Or, Champions Leagues, Copa América titles, World Cups… can only be reductive. On another register, it is not entirely unrelated to German-American philosopher Eric Voegelin’s critique of the modern Gnostic temptation: that of a form of knowledge convinced that it can imprison reality within a system and abolish whatever resists it. Records are probably one indicator of Lionel Messi’s genius. Yet so many other great players who made stadiums and hearts tremble, without achieving half of what he did, nevertheless remain eternal in our memories. What made them truly singular lies elsewhere, far from the glacis of reason. Something else was at work around them. Something belonging to a certain profound sense of transcendence that understanding can never fully grasp. This has been true of Lionel Messi for more than twenty years, since the day when, under the gaze of the “icon” Diego Maradona, he made his first appearance, in June 2006, on the World Cup stage in the colors of the Albiceleste against Serbia and Montenegro. That ineffable element that constitutes Messi’s genius, as it does that of others, may indeed touch upon one of modernity’s strangest paradoxes: the persistence of magic in a world that has constructed itself precisely against it. The disenchanted world Max Weber used the expression “disenchantment of the world” to describe the slow process by which Western modernity gradually subjected existence to rationalization, calculation, predictability and causal explanation. The world was no longer supposed to be traversed by obscure powers, signs, supernatural interventions or invisible wills; it was, at least in principle, to become intelligible. Unfortunately, modern sport, and more broadly the modern world inherited from globalization, fits perfectly within this dynamic. Today’s football, and not football alone, is probably one of the most quantified objects imaginable. The slightest gesture is measured, and everything is carefully calculated and modeled. From mathematics to artificial intelligence, raw talent now depends more on science than on enchantment. What is human in its spontaneous, even wild, relationship with the invisible that springs from the heart is disappearing before our eyes, in favor of the squaring of the VAR circle. It is, in a sense, the murder of sport in the name of greater rigor and fairness… even though the euthanasia of this share of sublime spontaneity ultimately produces glaring injustices of its own. One need only revisit some of the controversial decisions of the 2026 World Cup to see it. Paradox of paradoxes, Lionel Messi was himself, at the outset, a child of this technical modernity, to which he certainly owes part of his exceptional career. His body, too small by expected standards, was corrected through hormone treatment. Identified very early, his talent was taken in hand by an institution that organized his training, nutrition, physical development and integration into an already globalized sporting machine. Nothing, in appearance, could have been further removed from the old heroic narrative. At first sight, the story seems closer to dystopias in the vein of Gattaca than to myths and messianic narratives. And yet the old narrative did indeed return, and with an almost embarrassing insistence. Since the beginning of his career, Lionel Messi has been placed under the microscope. But the more people labored to explain and demystify him, the less they succeeded in entirely dissipating the impression produced by some of his gestures. The man simply cannot be circumscribed and reduced to an accumulation of data. At an age when most great players retreat into the shadows, he continues to surprise. To astonish, even, by bringing to sport that element of the senseless which escapes the quasi-robotic hypersystematization of the world. It is probably there that one must seek this elsewhere that characterizes Messi. In the survival of magic at a time when even the spaces that once allowed the positive expression of a humanity made of flesh and blood are gradually being “disciplined” by the hypnotic attraction of a new puritanical Gnosis in the name of modernity. The Messiah made by the machine Although he emerged, in a sense, from the machinery of the Matrix , Lionel Messi constitutes in himself a challenge to this ready-to-wear model. A kind of alter ego of Neo from The Matrix , thrown into a simulation governed by parameters that claim to calculate everything. The Argentine’s destiny gradually took on, almost despite himself, the form of a messianic narrative. The pun on his name would be too easy had it not been ceaselessly revived by his own story: that of the fragile child whose body seemed intent on denying him the fulfillment to which his talent destined him. Then that of exile at a very young age to Barcelona, adoption by a foreign city, an almost unreal ascent, worldwide recognition, followed by this strange difficulty in being recognized by his own… For a long time, Argentina maintained a relationship of hainamoration with its prodigal child. His results, his talent, his brilliance mattered little… he still had to answer one merciless question: why wasn’t he Maradona? The comparison was admittedly inevitable, but it was also profoundly unfair. Everything separated the two men in their way of being in the world. Maradona carried Argentina with everything in it that was passionate, contradictory, excessive and theatrical. He spoke, provoked, fought, fell, returned, mingled football with his private life, his anger, his political commitments… all the way to his own destruction. His very body seemed to become one of the places where the contradictions of his country were played out. Maradona was the very incarnation of what the world expected from football: a rebellious soul, sometimes pushing the game to the point of immorality, but within a kind of footballing gigantomachy. Maradona was epic. And, above all, he had placed his country at the summit of world football in 1986. Messi offered none of that. He was silent, at times almost absent from the story others were constructing around him, an absence long interpreted as a flaw. Almost erased, devoid of personality. That, moreover, was what the two giants Maradona and Pelé reproached him for: a lack of leadership, being too smooth. A kind of miracle test-tube baby of the stadiums. The boy from Rosario was also criticized for not singing the anthem loudly enough, for not being Argentine enough, for having been “manufactured” by Barcelona, and then, naturally, for failing to win with the national team what he won almost continuously with his club. The unfulfilled prophecy The dramatic loss to Germany in the 2014 World Cup final, followed by the Copa América finals of 2015 and 2016, had gradually transformed that suspicion into an accusation. When he missed his penalty against Chile in 2016 and subsequently announced that he was leaving the national team, he was nevertheless already one of the greatest players in football history. Yet his story remained strangely unfinished. The sense of incompletion had little to do with his honors. It concerned instead that quasi-archaic necessity continually imposed upon modern heroes: to bring their initiatory journey to completion. In Argentina’s colors, Messi shone, then fell heavily. But he did not rise again. He did not fulfill the prophecy. And, in the eyes of his people, this reinforced the sense of hainamoration: a fallen god remains a god, after all. But with the added burden of what his worshippers regard as an intolerable substratum of humanity and, therefore, something perfectly detestable: his flaws, his weaknesses. Argentines loved Maradona despite his spectacular downfall and his fallible humanity. But that was because he had “earned” the right to such a downfall, because it had somehow become acceptable after Mexico 1986. Messi, by contrast, did not yet have the right to fall, because he had not yet reached the summit. No, the prophecy had not been fulfilled. It was even becoming a caricature. So Messi returned. But he still had to wait for his redemption. It took the 2021 Copa América at the Maracanã for this relationship of suspicion, expectation and disappointment with his public and his people truly to begin changing. And above all it took the 2022 World Cup for the story to acquire that almost excessively perfect form that no one would have dared write without appearing to indulge in a screenwriter’s contrivance. Strangely, Maradona had died in 2020. It was as though a kind of oppressive national curse had been lifted. At the same time, the Argentine people needed a substitute father figure, and the pressure was thereby only redoubled. But perhaps mixed with a little tenderness this time? What happened in Qatar in 2022 is all the more interesting because Messi himself appeared slightly different. He protested more, answered provocations, lost his temper, spoke with a violence of which few had thought him capable, and even let slip that now famous “¿Qué mirás, bobo?” at the Dutch, to Argentina’s amusement. Buenos Aires finally discovered, belatedly, what it had always expected from him. A little Maradona in a great deal of Messi. But Messi did not become Maradona. And perhaps that was precisely where the true reconciliation occurred: Argentina stopped asking him to be. From 2022 onward, Messi no longer needed to embody another model of national genius. For his country too, he could finally become what he had already been everywhere else: Messi. Simply. The final act of the prophecy Granted, the triumph of 2022 could have constituted a perfect ending. But, as with Maradona, the final act of heroic prophecy is the fall. No one really expected anything extraordinary from Messi anymore in 2026. At 39, he was widely regarded as one of the “tired heroes.” The fall from the Capitol had come with the bitter episode of his departure from FC Barcelona and his misadventure at PSG. He was now playing only in the American league, in Miami’s colors… on the periphery of the footballing world, in the distant lands of soccer . And the new generation was already there, ready to send its ancestors off to Bicêtre. Yet this 2026 World Cup, which seemed destined to be nothing more than an epilogue, turned into one last sensational blaze of glory. Argentina reached the final once again, with Messi, at 39, restored as its “historic leader” and its recourse in decisive moments, achieving something not unlike what Roberto Baggio had done for Italy in 1994, at… 27: a perpetual deus ex machina . Baggio failed at the gates of triumph against Brazil after practically carrying Italy all the way to Pasadena. His penalty, sent over the crossbar, would leave behind one of the cruelest images in World Cup history: a man standing motionless, head bowed, hands on his hips, while Brazil celebrated its victory. The man who had “died standing.” The Italian imp never knew apotheosis. Yet this symbolic death, far from erasing his tournament, eventually became part of his legend. History was kinder to Messi, despite a campaign of hatred directed at him, mixed with accusations of cheating and favoritism, against a backdrop of controversial refereeing decisions and acts of unsporting conduct by his team, just as it had once been with Maradona. Kinder still, in fact. A final in a sixth World Cup on the verge of retirement, capped by an outstanding individual performance? That is precisely where the magic of the Messi phenomenon lies, and where it defies reason and its avalanche of statistics. Genius cannot be imprisoned within a sum of parameters and variables. Even optimal physical condition cannot by itself explain what the entire world witnessed. And what does it matter if his story reminds us that the hero, however mythical, cannot abolish the sinister influence of Saturn. The re-enchantment of the world For beyond the prophecy fulfilled, from ascent to fall, with its share of happiness and misfortune, the Argentine offered the world one final lap that belongs to art, if not to a form of Homeric poetry. With Lionel Messi’s withdrawal from the international stage, a little of the world’s magic disappears… until another providential hero returns to enchant the stadiums. For more than twenty years, Messi embodied the coexistence of two worlds we had thought incompatible: that of the extreme rationalization of modern sport and that, far older, of the hero, the sign, expectation and enchantment. When Messi leaves, something of this contradiction suddenly becomes visible. Other prodigies have already emerged, but perhaps, at the very moment when one of its last great representatives leaves the stage, we discover just how much we continue to need transcendence. The modern world has therefore probably not abolished enchantment. It has merely displaced it. For ninety minutes at a time, this man called Lionel Messi, who embodied it on football pitches, now leaves after having accomplished everything. And even more.
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Have We Become Stupider?

Or Are We Experiencing a Transformation in the Structure of Knowledge?
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By Mona Fayad - Published Sep 5, 2026 - 20:01
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The question “Has the world become stupider?” frequently returns in contemporary debates about digital media, search engines, and social networks. On the surface, it seems simple. Yet behind it lies a deeper issue concerning the very nature of knowledge: how it is produced, how it is transmitted, and how it is consumed. Perhaps “Have we become stupider?” is not the most accurate question. A better one might be: Is knowledge still being transmitted in a way that allows it to be understood and made productive? Do most readers still go back to the original texts? Or do they turn instead to summaries and to what is said about those texts through material circulating among readers? One key to understanding this phenomenon lies in the work of British psychologist Frederic Bartlett, who conducted a series of experiments in the 1930s on what he called “serial reproduction.” In these experiments, one person would be asked to hear a story and then retell it to someone else, who would in turn retell it to a third person, and so on. The results were striking: with each new transmission, the story was not conveyed as it had originally been told, but was reformulated. Some details were omitted, others were exaggerated, and still others were replaced by elements that better suited the recipient’s background, experience, and culture. By the time the chain had passed through enough people, the original story had become something entirely different. This simple model reveals a fundamental truth: memory is not a neutral container, but a mechanism of reconstruction. When knowledge passes through multiple intermediaries, it is not “preserved” but “reproduced.” Here we begin to see the resemblance to our contemporary world, and with it the fear that we may be becoming stupider. In the age of digital media, knowledge no longer travels through oral transmission, but through chains of mediation: an article is summarized, then quoted, then reposted as a short post, before being further reduced to a sentence or a headline. In this context, we might borrow a metaphor that appeared in a journalistic text: a library whose books are gradually replaced by summaries, then by summaries of summaries, until the reader is left facing layer upon layer of reduction. We might call this the “raccoon chain”: the raccoon does not read the original, but rummages through what remains of it. It is worth clarifying that the choice of the “raccoon” is not arbitrary. The metaphor symbolically condenses a cognitive condition that is becoming increasingly entrenched. This animal, which lives on the fringes of cities and rummages through garbage bins, does not produce its own food but feeds on the leftovers of what others have produced. Despite its practical intelligence and its ability to pry things apart, pick through them, and seize what is useful, it does not understand what lies before it. It treats things simply as material available for immediate use. This is what knowledge begins to look like in an age of serial reduction: texts are shortened, then shortened again, until all that remains are scraps of meaning, rearranged and circulated without any genuine connection to their source. At that point, we have not merely moved away from the original. We have entered a new phase in the production of information or knowledge, in which the cognitive actor is no longer a reader or a thinker, but a collector of fragments of meaning who redistributes them in forms designed for rapid consumption. “Raccoon culture,” then, is not merely a description of superficiality. It is an accurate description of the degradation of the knowledge chain itself: from creation to summary, from understanding to formal processing, from ideas to something resembling only their faded trace. Yet this phenomenon cannot be understood apart from the technological structure that governs it. Here Marshall McLuhan becomes relevant, with his famous formulation: “The medium is the message.” The problem lies not only in content, but also in the form through which that content is transmitted. Contemporary digital media do not simply convey information. They reshape it according to the logic of speed, condensation, and fragmentation. Long texts become unsuitable for consumption, while an idea becomes acceptable only if it can be compressed into a few shareable lines. This transformation produces a striking paradox: we live in a time when access to knowledge is no longer difficult. It is excessively easy. And with that excessive ease comes what might be called a “cognitive illusion”: reading a brief passage or a quick summary can be enough to make a person feel that they have grasped an idea. Yet this feeling of possession is not necessarily accompanied by deep understanding, or by the ability to reconstruct or critique that knowledge. This is where we encounter what might be called the “semi-educated”: people who possess the signs of knowledge but not its structure, its vocabulary but not its internal logic. The problem becomes even more complex when viewed through the lens of attention. Instead of remaining in a state of sustained concentration, as in traditional reading or prolonged reflection, the mind now exists under continuous informational bombardment: notifications, clips, headlines, and successive waves of content. This does not merely fragment attention. It reshapes it according to a logic of constant jumping between short units of meaning, rather than the gradual and cumulative construction of an idea. I am reminded here of a joke that we used to tell and that was widely circulated during the days of popular demonstrations. It vividly illustrates the process of reduction and reshaping of content. After the occupation of Palestine, many popular demonstrations took to the streets chanting, “Down with the Balfour Declaration!” The joke was that by the end of the demonstration, the slogan had become, in Arabic, “Let one fall from above,” a completely different phrase that retained something of the original slogan’s rhythm and sound. This image may help bring us closer to what happens in everyday language when knowledge is transformed into short messages that are collectively repeated. A demonstration begins with a precise political slogan. Through repetition, collective immersion, and sonic rhythm, it gradually turns into a completely different formula. The new version may preserve the rhythm and emotional charge of the original, while losing its meaning and original significance. What remains is no longer the meaning, but the emotional energy of the phrase. Here, in another form, we encounter what Bartlett observed: what matters is not merely what was said, but how it was retold and how it was reinterpreted within a changing social context. If we bring these strands together, we might say that what we are experiencing today is not so much a “collapse of intelligence” as a transformation in the conditions under which intelligence operates. The human mind has not changed radically, but the environment in which it functions has changed profoundly: from an environment that allowed slow accumulation to one that imposes the rapid and fragmented reproduction of knowledge. This transformation creates a permanent tension between two kinds of thinking: reflective thought, which requires time, and rapid thought, which demands an immediate response. Seen in this light, the question “Have we become stupider?” is partly misleading. It may be more accurate to say that we are increasingly exposed to conditions that make deep thinking less stable, or less possible, and knowledge more vulnerable to fragmentation and recycling. As for stupidity, if the term can be used, it may not be a quality of the mind at all, but rather a side effect and a characteristic of the cultural structure that has emerged. It is a technology that reshapes our relationship with the world. Thus, rather than seeing this as a decline in human capacities, we might understand it as a transformation in the “knowledge environment”: an environment in which it has become easy to know something, but harder to truly understand it in depth.
Opinion

Portents of an Israeli-Turkish Clash in Syria

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By Youssef Mouawad - Published Sep 5, 2026 - 13:25
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In 2010, Israel violently intercepted the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship chartered by a humanitarian NGO to bring aid to the Gaza Strip, which was under Israeli blockade at the time. This was the last straw, and the incident brought the simmering hostility between Erdogan's government and the Jewish state out into the open. (AFP)
The war has not yet ceased in our south, and already it threatens to break out among our neighbors. In other words, we live on borrowed time, lurching from one conflict to the next. And for good reason! The bombing of a Syrian base very nearly escalated into an all-out clash between Ankara and Tel Aviv. That was on August 18, and Benjamin Netanyahu didn't mince his words: his country would not tolerate a Turkish military foothold that could spread into southern Syria. The warning was all the more forceful given that eight strikes had targeted the Abu al-Dhuhur air base, just 70 kilometers from the Turkish border. It's worth recalling, too, that since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Erdogan has become the chief mentor of the new Syria under Ahmed al-Sharaa, helping rebuild its armed forces and turning it into a strategic partner. This is no longer Hafez al-Assad's Syria Was it this renewed tension between Ankara and Tel Aviv that prompted a meeting between Syria's top diplomat, Assaad Chaibani, and Mossad chief Roman Gofman, in Jordan on August 23? Yet this quiet parley did not spark outrage across the Arab world the way Anwar al-Sadat's surprise visit to Israel did in 1977. A taboo was officially broken—and indeed, who would have imagined such talks taking place under the Baathist regime? Israel might have been expected to welcome this, but contrary to expectations, it halted neither its airstrikes nor its territorial incursions, as seen on August 27 in Quneitra. The fact is, things have changed. Under Hafez al-Assad, Syria was a regional power that, while not exactly formidable, was feared by its immediate neighbors, Arab or otherwise. No one wanted to pick a fight with it, which allowed it to pursue, within certain limits, an assertive foreign policy that often bordered on provocation. As a result, thanks to the autonomy it exercised and the room to maneuver it granted itself, Syria had become, at least geographically, a buffer zone between an "Erdoganist" Turkey flaunting its unabashed brand of Islam on one side, and Israel, a state Jewish to its core, on the other. But now, in a country worn down by Baathist mismanagement and ravaged by years of civil war, Turkey has begun staking its claims—and will inevitably find itself face to face with an Israel that occupies part of Syrian territory. What can we expect? Given the outsized egos of both Netanyahu and Erdogan, and assuming both leaders remain in power, we should brace for an epic showdown across Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian, or even other territories. This will be a fight of feints and dodges, of underhanded tactics as well as head-on attacks, close combat, and rising tensions right up to the breaking point. And this despite a September 2025 report from the Congressional Research Service concluding that direct confrontation between Turkey and Israel remains unlikely, precisely because both states are well aware of the cost such a war would entail. Still, in the realm of conflict studies, leaders and other elites don't always act rationally! All the more so since, in the eyes of Israeli observers, the slogan now popular in Anatolia—"Make Turkey great again"—hardly reassures the Zionist state. Washington will find it increasingly difficult to contain or keep apart two adversaries already gearing up for battle. Turkey, the new Iran? Yes, that's one hypothesis, but only in a face-off with Israel, since Syria has overnight become a zone where 'two security perimeters overlap' — the Turkish and the Israeli, the Muslim and the Jewish. And it can't be ruled out that Shiite militancy, that mobilizer of "proxies," might end up allying itself, even if only temporarily, with a 'Muslim Brotherhood version' of political Islam championed by Ankara! So we would have, against all odds, a Hezbollah backed by its former enemy, Ahmad al-Sharaa, an Islamist who emerged from Jabhat al-Nusra and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham! Against a common adversary, a reversal of alliances is always legitimate and opportune. But this would only be a tactical alliance, dictated by the exigencies of the moment, one that couldn't presume anything about the future. With Arab nationalism now out of the picture, Turkey won't settle for economically capturing the Syrian market of 25 million consumers: it will want to wield political influence in Damascus, and to that end will deploy its military and security apparatus. Since the shaky power of the Syrian president can't fulfill certain sovereign functions or oversee the various branches of the state, it will inevitably turn to the expertise of its northern neighbor. Does this mean Turkey will get sucked into the spiral of 'announced belligerence'? Everything points that way, and we can already see the early signs of a spiral reminiscent of the US involvement in Vietnam under Lyndon Johnson. Indeed, if the Syrian state intends to rebuild itself, it will first need an army capable of quelling the centrifugal tendencies of the Alawites, the Druze, and other factions calling for the country's breakup. And it's up to Ankara to provide that and to bolster the central authority based in Damascus. But Israel, which has gotten into bad habits in Syria and intends to keep its freedom of aerial action there, cannot tolerate an army built along NATO lines that could serve as a proxy for a neo-Ottoman venture. And Lebanon, from primary stage to secondary stage? A new stage is now set for a new script that will define new rules of the game! What will become of Hezbollah, caught in a trap? Well, in that scenario, it could benefit, even if only partly, from Damascus's logistical support — support it has sorely lacked since the fall of Bashar al-Assad. And perhaps, through a shift in the tectonic plates, Lebanon would move from being the initial stage to being merely a secondary stage of a regional conflict. But frankly, that would do us a lot of good!
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The Encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas” by Leo XIV, a foundational text on AI (1/3)

The Encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas” by Leo XIV, a foundational text on AI (1/3)

By
Fady Noun
Published

In the first encyclical of his pontificate, Leo XIV addresses both the immense benefits and the present and potential dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) , a technological advance without precedent in human history, but also a formidable tool capable of enslaving humanity and distorting what it means to be human. He argues for “the possibility of peace” in an age convinced that “war is inevitably part of human nature.” The parallel between Magnificent Humanity and Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum novarum (1891) is evident, down to its very form: Leo XIV symbolically signed his text on 15 May 2026, the 135th anniversary of the foundational encyclical of Catholic social teaching. The pope had already explained that he chose his regnal name to honour Leo XIII, drawing a direct parallel between the upheavals of the first industrial revolution and those of artificial intelligence. In 1891, the encyclical Rerum novarum , which was to inspire the whole of the Church’s social doctrine in the 20th century, set out a number of principles emphasizing that the economy and technical progress in general, then undergoing profound transformation, must remain at the service of the human person and not the reverse. At the height of the industrial revolution, Pope Leo XIII sought to warn against the danger posed to humanity, on the one hand by the rise of unrestrained capitalism, and on the other by the socialist project of a state-controlled economy. Among these major principles were the dignity of the worker; the duty of the state to care for the common good; the universal destination of goods, as opposed to their appropriation by a few; subsidiarity, according to which a higher authority should only undertake what lower levels cannot accomplish on their own; the legitimacy of both trade unionism and private property; and the need for a preferential option for the poor. An “Augmented” Legacy The encyclical Magnifica humanitas has been widely regarded as a foundational text for the digital age, comparable to Rerum novarum for the industrial revolution. It builds on this legacy and adapts it to the new digital environment, as “artificial intelligence must be understood not as a peripheral theme, nor as an emergency to be managed, but as a transformation that challenges from within the categories of social doctrine” (§17). For many intellectuals, Leo XIV emerges, thanks to this document, as the man of the moment. Thus, the encyclical extends the universal destination of goods to digital data: “Patents, algorithms, digital infrastructures are goods that cannot remain concentrated in the hands of a few” (§67). Another example: the encyclical redefines subsidiarity, as the “higher level” is no longer embodied by the state but by the major technological platforms that shape access to public life (§71). The Whole of Society Addressed Like the great social encyclicals of the Catholic tradition, Magnifica humanitas addresses society as a whole. It is a universal appeal directed as much to algorithm designers and political leaders as to ordinary citizens, believers or not, to place the inalienable dignity of the human person back at the center of innovation. The encyclical is marked by a strong doctrinal fidelity. It draws on the concepts of John Paul II concerning the dignity of human work ( Laborem exercens ), of Benedict XVI on integral human development in the face of technology ( Caritas in veritate ), and of Francis on the universal destination of goods and the critique of the technocratic paradigm ( Laudato si’ ) and on the promotion of fraternity against the digital individualism transmitted through screens ( Fratelli tutti ). Theological Relevance “Humanity must be restored to the awareness that it is something great,” Pope Benedict XVI once wrote. By its title alone, Leo XIV’s encyclical directly echoes this aspiration. “Magnificent Humanity” is one that must be seen “in the face of the Son,” the American pope states (§133). A Son “through whom and for whom all things were created” (Col 1:16), but who presented himself to his contemporaries and to the world as “the Son of Man,” the brother of all ( Fratelli tutti ). In this sense, Magnificent Humanity is a strongly “personalist” encyclical that places the human person “at the center,” not at the periphery of human activity. It is also deeply moral in tone. But it is not a question of personal morality; rather, it concerns morality as shaped by the advent and use of this extraordinary tool that is AI – in particular the morality of its modes of production, of relations between rich and poor nations, of the relationship between capital and labor, of the concentration of cognitive, economic and political power in the hands of multinational corporations or individuals. It is also the morality of the use of digital power in the field of education,whether for civilian or military purposes, or for the common good or for criminal intent. A Great Spiritual Blindness The encyclical is also moral in its judgment of our time, marked, according to the pope, by “a great spiritual and cultural blindness.” §204 reads: “We live in an age of great spiritual and cultural blindness. A false pragmatism invites us to sever the roots of memory, as if one could inaugurate a kind of ‘new creation’ severed from the past; even those who invoke great moral principles can fall into this historical nihilism, lulled by the illusion that the atrocities of the twentieth century (ed. note: those of the two World Wars and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet Gulag, the Shoah, and the rice fields of Cambodia…) can no longer be repeated. In reality, the same dynamics resurface in new forms.” As we can see today in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and even in old Europe. Next article: Tower of Babel or Holy City (2/3)

One Hundred Days of War

One Hundred Days of War

By
Hisham Dibsi
Published

The debate over whether to link or separate the various files and tracks is in full swing. Reality shows that political dossiers are by nature interconnected, reflecting the complexity of economic and political life, yet their respective weights differ and their mutual influences are far from equal. Treating any one dossier in isolation is a matter of choice, governed by priorities, the gravity of the stakes, and their sensitivity. In this respect, Barack Obama held that the strength of American foreign policy lay in the art of ordering priorities — an art that allows one to manage how quickly solutions advance in the most complex affairs, with the ability to revise that ordering daily in light of desired outcomes. Having failed to secure the funds needed to sell the agreement with Washington domestically, the Iranian leadership fell back on its familiar refrain: linking the Lebanese dossier to the ongoing negotiations, and firing missiles towards northern Israel to signal its resolve in imposing the unity of tracks against the Lebanese-Israeli negotiations. Tehran had meanwhile understood that the White House was managing, with relative equanimity, the coexistence of a continuing truce, a maintained calm, and a sustained naval blockade — an equation that drains the Iranian economy for as long as the relative quiet holds and the blockade endures. This is the deeper reason behind the belated solicitude Tehran displayed for Hezbollah and its constituency, at the very moment when it had obtained no tangible result from its aggression against Kuwait, Bahrain, and the Emirates — having failed to compel those states to revise their containment policies or relinquish their rights, including the right to retaliate and seek compensation. The situation can be summarized as follows: the fundamental demands — the nuclear file and the rest — are not the heart of the dispute; the disagreement bears on the declared financial claims, and it is this disagreement that provoked the escalation and the return to coupling the Lebanese dossier with the comprehensive agreement, without this necessarily presaging any capitulation on Washington's part. It is also worth noting that the White House's continued restraint of the Israeli response reflects its desire to prolong the truce and the blockade until the Iranian leadership yields to American financial conditions. As for the Israeli reaction, if it begins by sealing off the Gaza Strip under a declaration of a state of war — as Netanyahu has done today, while negotiations between Hamas and its affiliated factions intensify in Cairo — this Palestinian dossier is unlikely to trouble Washington, provided the Israeli Prime Minister maintains discipline on the Lebanese front, which seems the most plausible scenario for the days ahead. A War Fought for Nothing Yahya Sinwar launched the October 7 operation without a declared political objective, beyond what the name of the operation itself — "Al-Aqsa Flood" — suggests of religious zeal for the Al-Aqsa Mosque. He waited long days for Tehran to mobilize in support against the "lesser Satan," just as he awaited the backing of the axis operations room in Damascus — the Assad regime and Beirut's southern suburb — along with the Iraqi Hachd al-Shaabi and the Houthis in Yemen. When the support war for the "Flood" got underway according to the Revolutionary Guards' criteria, the military effort deployed did not convince the leaders and cadres of Hamas and the Qassam Brigades in the thick of the fiercest fighting — it was plain that this effort fell short of what had been agreed. The declarations of the Qassam commanders were thus not free of formulas and appeals that supported this assessment, until disillusionment with the axis reached the point where it could no longer be left unspoken. Once the American-Israeli command had finished annihilating Gaza and its population, we witnessed the disastrous and lightning-swift effects of the Israeli offensive on Hezbollah's fighting capabilities in Lebanon, striking the movement at its Achilles' heel — its offensive as well as its defensive power. And since the declared support war had assigned itself no political objective beyond backing the "Al-Aqsa Flood," the military effort of Hamas and Hezbollah found itself swallowed by a political vacuum, while Israel proclaimed its successive objectives, articulated to multiple agendas — local, regional, and international — not to mention the personal agenda of Netanyahu and his government allies. Thus the confrontation between the resistance and moumanaa (rejectionist) axis on one side, and Israel on the other, laid bare a twofold deficiency: political first, operational second, from the moment each party was isolated and neutralised separately. Anyone familiar with the nature of relations between states and the organizations allied to them understands that the equation runs in one direction only: the vocation of vassals does not extend beyond serving the centre, whatever indulgence the centre displays and however carefully it tends the narrative of the alliance. There is therefore no justification for framing a war waged to avenge the death of Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei as a defence of Lebanese sovereignty or resistance to aggression against the lands and people of South Lebanon. The massive human losses and destruction suffered in Lebanon and Palestine alike cannot be linked to any political objective bearing on the interests of either people. The fighting of extremists deserves no other name than a war fought for nothing. The First Litani Operation Tel Aviv awoke on March 11, 1978, to fighting in its streets for control of a bus in which a group of fedayeen — led by the young Dalal Mughrabi — and several Israeli civilians had become trapped. The fighting continued until all the occupants were eliminated, in accordance with orders issued to General Ehud Barak. This event was the direct cause of the invasion of South Lebanon up to the Litani River. At the same time, President Elias Sarkis succeeded in internationalizing the question of South Lebanon, and Lebanese diplomacy wrested Resolutions 425 and 426 from the UN Security Council, intended to guarantee the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and enable the establishment of UNIFIL. But one must look beyond the immediate event to read the impasse in the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations and their stalling, after the conclusion of the first and second disengagements, and the refusal of Menahem Begin's government to meet President Anwar Sadat's demands — despite his peace initiatives, his speech before the Knesset, and his proclamation of the fall of the psychological barrier. The Israeli military leadership wanted to test Egyptian behaviour in the event of a confrontation with the Syrian army and with PLO forces in Lebanon. Buoyed by the success of this trial by fire following the first Litani Operation, American President Jimmy Carter was able to bring the Camp David negotiations to a successful conclusion, six months after the Lebanese event. Those negotiations led to the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in March 1979. Within the span of a single year, the politico-military dynamic in Lebanon had been transformed by the direct results of this test, with South Lebanon now established as an international cause in its own right. The Israeli military "rehearsal" thus provided the operational reference that would guide the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, aimed at finishing off the PLO forces and clipping then controlling the Syrian political, military, and security role in Lebanon. Israel had become a direct actor, through its own forces and through the South Lebanon Army it had created, alongside the Hafez el-Assad regime as a second actor, and the local actors positioned on the fault line between the Lebanese National Movement and its ally the PLO on one side, and the Lebanese Front with its ties to the West and Israel on the other. It was in this soil that something new began to germinate in the depths of Lebanon, carrying within it an organic bond with the Islamic Revolution in Tehran — and which would take shape after the Israeli invasion. Prova d'orchestra In those days, more than half a century ago, the Clemenceau cinema in West Beirut was showing a film hard to forget, by the Italian director Federico Fellini: Orchestra Rehearsal or Prova d'orchestra — at the time of the Italian left's rise and the proliferation of armed groups of every stripe, when gunshots were a daily and familiar sound in Rome and across Italy's cities. The film laid bare the relationship between the maestro and his musicians, building to the moment when a heavy steel wrecking ball appeared on screen to strike the building and threaten it with collapse. In those days, the conversation turned around a single question: where was Lebanon heading? What were the prospects? What hammer would rouse the bearers of the competing projects? In those days I was waiting for the fall of imperialism and the destruction of the State of Israel, and my answer was ready: it was the Vietnamese hammer, not the Russian or the Chinese, that would accomplish the tasks of national liberation and bring about historical determinism. It never crossed my mind that President Elias Sarkis was right. Yet there he was, confined to his gilded cell in the Baabda Palace, awaiting the day he would leave it with great serenity and dignity. Fellini had known how to pose his discomfiting questions in this Prova that continues to this day, to the rhythm of the steel ball's blows levelling men and stone across the expanse of Lebanon and Palestine, spilling over to the far reaches of the Greater Middle East. Yesterday, for the first time in the history of contemporary Lebanon, the legitimate authorities took the helm, broke through the prevailing consciousness and through years of waiting and irresolution, to carry forward a rescue initiative for Lebanon and its people — an initiative capable of stopping the steel ball in its furious course and preventing the collapse of the Lebanese edifice in all that it holds of the human, the political, the cultural, and the historical. The missions that call for such commitment in the service of rescue do not require decisions designed to please everyone, nor do they need the blessing of those who are enamored of death, destruction, and self-immolation. Their one and only condition is the courage to defend, against all odds, the wellbeing and interests of the people.

Iran Strikes, Israel Retaliates, Trump Intervenes

Iran Strikes, Israel Retaliates, Trump Intervenes

By
LevantTime .
Published

Just when it seemed Iran had definitively shelved its war machines in their silos, Tehran launched around thirty ballistic missiles against the Jewish state late Sunday evening. Iranian authorities presented this attack as retaliation for an Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, which killed two people and wounded twenty. The message is clear: Iran opposes the Lebanese-Israeli negotiations conducted under Washington's auspices and intends to position itself as a defender of Lebanon "against the Israeli enemy," even at the risk of further escalation. Tehran continues to insist that the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah be addressed within the same framework as the broader confrontation opposing it to Israel and its allies in the Middle East. On Monday at midday, Iran's armed forces command announced "the cessation of the operation," described as a "severe retaliation" against Israel. It warned, however, that "in case of continued aggression and hostilities, including in southern Lebanon, far more severe and punitive actions than before will be undertaken." "We have broken the equation of concluding a ceasefire on paper and systematically violating it on the ground," commented Iran's chief negotiator, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Tel Aviv was quick to react by destroying several Iranian defense systems. Against all expectations, however, Israeli retaliation was heavily restrained by its main ally, the United States. While President Trump had thrown himself wholeheartedly into the conflict when strikes against Iran were launched on February 28, he explicitly asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday and Monday to show restraint, lamenting that the negotiation process was hampered by "ignorance or stupidity." In recent days, Donald Trump has not hidden his disagreements with Benjamin Netanyahu. According to the White House, the two leaders spoke by phone on Monday, with the American president this time taking a firm stance to impose a suspension of hostilities. As midterm elections approach, the occupant of the White House is seeking an end to a conflict that has become particularly unpopular in the United States. His Monday intervention, as well as his repeated statements affirming that he remains the sole final decision-maker, have fueled speculation about the circumstances that led to the launching of attacks against Iran in February, even as negotiations were still ongoing. Several American analysts and elected officials thus accuse Benjamin Netanyahu of precipitating the United States into war, shortly after the first strikes by Israeli aviation. In an interview given to media outlet Axios on Sunday, the American president warned the Israeli prime minister against any retaliation following the Iranian missile strikes: "I'm going to call Bibi (Netanyahu's nickname, ed.) right now to tell him not to retaliate. Israel had its strike and Iran had its strike. We don't need another one." Netanyahu, at the risk of irritating his closest international ally, nonetheless gave the green light for new strikes. Since the ceasefire that took effect on April 8, this is the first time Tehran has directly targeted Israeli territory and Israel has bombed Iranian soil. On the Israeli side, the Prime Minister is also under strong domestic pressure to maintain a hardline stance toward Iran. In an interview given to the Financial Times on Sunday, Donald Trump argued that the Israeli leader should accept any agreement negotiated by Washington. "He won't have a choice," the American president told the business newspaper. "It's me who decides. It's me who decides everything. He doesn't decide…" Responding to remarks from the White House resident, Netanyahu assured that his country would retaliate "with force" against any new Iranian attack. The man who had ordered strikes against Iran despite the American president's objections also responded to him, "with respect," that Israel would exercise its right to defend itself "whenever necessary." Earlier in the day, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz stated that his country "would continue to act" against Hezbollah. He promised that "any Iranian attempt to create a link between Lebanon and Iran to attack Israel would receive a response of great force." In an interview broadcast Sunday night on NBC, Donald Trump called for more "surgical" strikes against Hezbollah, saying he wanted "a better life" for Lebanon. Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into the war by attacking Israel to avenge the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, killed in an Israeli-American offensive. In another interview published last Wednesday by the New York Post, the American president confirmed having had a particularly tense exchange with Benjamin Netanyahu two days earlier. During this phone conversation, he reportedly reprimanded his close ally about the Israeli offensive being conducted in Lebanon. When asked about a possible integration of Lebanon into an agreement with Iran, the Republican leader responded: "no, no." "Not at all. I don't demand anything. I think they would like that, but I don't demand anything," he said. The risks of escalation were high Monday, with the intervention of Yemeni Houthi rebels, allies of Iran, which fueled fears of a new widening of the conflict. The Yemeni militia claimed an attack against Israel from its territory. It also decreed a ban on Israeli navigation in the Red Sea, another major strategic maritime axis along with the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Hezbollah denies any contact with Washington Moreover, Hezbollah official Mahmoud Qomati indicated Monday, in response to a question from AFP, that his party had had "no direct" contact with Donald Trump, despite the American president's statements to that effect. "We spoke with Hezbollah for the first time," the American president said on June 3 to journalists. Two days earlier, when Israel was threatening to strike the southern suburbs of Beirut, the stronghold of the Islamist movement, he had claimed to have had "a conversation with representatives of Hezbollah leaders," who "agreed to stop firing on Israel and its soldiers." President Trump "may have been referring to the fact that the advisor to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri communicates with the American ambassador and conveys messages," explained the Hezbollah official. "These allegations show how ready the American administration is to abandon Lebanese power as soon as the slightest indication of contact with the strong and influential parties in Lebanon appears," Qomati assessed. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, for his part, reiterated Monday that "only the Lebanese state negotiates on behalf of Lebanon, and no one else." In Tyre, deaths and threatened heritage On the ground, Israeli strikes fell Monday on more than a dozen locations in southern Lebanon, particularly in Tyre, where 14 people were killed and 20 others injured. One of the strikes targeted a car near a Lebanese Red Crescent building in this coastal city. Four first responders were injured in the attack, hit by flying glass. For its part, Hezbollah claimed new attacks against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, but none against northern Israel. The Israeli army, for its part, stated that three projectiles were fired from Lebanon "in the direction of Israeli soldiers operating in southern Lebanon", and that a fourth projectile "landed near troops" without causing any injuries. Tyre is one of the oldest cities in the Mediterranean world and has two Roman sites under "provisional reinforced protection", inscribed on the Unesco World Heritage list. (AFP) Lebanese Culture Minister Ghassan Salamé again "called for avoiding targeting the country's archaeological sites, particularly the ruins of Tyre which are part of humanity's common heritage". The ruins of Tyre, listed as a Unesco World Heritage site, were damaged by Israeli strikes on Sunday. This is the "greatest damage to the site since the start of the war", Ali Badaoui, director of archaeological sites in southern Lebanon, told AFP. "Some archaeological artifacts were damaged when debris hit them, as a shower of rubble fell over a vast area", affecting notably "columns, capitals, column bases, mosaics", he listed. Ghassan Salamé stated that Israel "does not respect" the Hague Convention, which requires the preservation of cultural property during armed conflict, nor the "Blue Shields", a symbolic emblem established by a committee linked to Unesco to protect the Tyre site. Following the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2023-2024, Unesco placed over 70 heritage sites in Lebanon, including Tyre, under "provisional reinforced protection". The city has been targeted by a campaign of Israeli strikes since the start of the war with the pro-Iranian Hezbollah on March 2, and was hit again on Monday. On Sunday, the Israeli military issued a new evacuation order for an area encompassing one of the two archaeological sites, containing Roman remains, before conducting strikes.

Why the Iranian Regime's Collapse Would Come From Within (2/2)

Why the Iranian Regime's Collapse Would Come From Within (2/2)

By
Khalil Helou
Published

In a previous article, we analyzed the military and industrial impact of the joint “Epic Fury” and “Lion’s Roar” operations on Iran’s conventional capabilities. In this second and final installment, we examine the possible combined effects of economic strangulation and grassroots mobilization that could lezd to the implosion of the Iranian regime. The naval blockade has taken over from the February and April 2026 strikes. The blockade is a necessary condition for weakening the Iranian regime, but not a sufficient one. Several factors help explain why the economic sanctions imposed over many years – compounded by the ongoing American naval blockade and its consequences, including supply chain disruptions and the halt of oil exports –struggle on their own to bring about the regime’s collapse. The Iranian regime has repeatedly proven its capacity for adaptation and restructured itself following the decapitation strike of last February. Military Restructuring and National Identity The eliminated Iranian command has been replaced by a new one, heavily militarized in character. It is clear that President Masoud Pezeshkian, considered a moderate, has been sidelined, and strategic executive power is now vested in a junta dominated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). At the top, coordination is centralized at the “Khatam al-Anbiya” Headquarters, which, under new leadership figures, is overseeing the rapid reconstitution of missile and drone capabilities. To limit the vulnerability of the decision-making center, the chain of command is no longer pyramidal but flattened: regional commands have been authorized to take the initiative and now enjoy greater tactical autonomy, particularily in conducting naval and aerial ambushes and harassment raids should contact with Tehran be severed. This decentralization aims to multiply decision-making nodes and complicate the targeting of the chain of command. At the same time, the regime is leveraging a sense of national belonging in the face of an external threat by stigmatizing the opposition as a foreign agents and consolidating the loyalty of its hard core. The Weakening of a Still-Resilient Embargo Economy For decades, the Islamic Republic developped parallel trade networks and channels to circumvent Western sanctions imposed since the 1980s. These included black markets, shell companies scattered across the globe, and geopolitical partners such as China, Russia, Turkey and Iraq – all willing to bypass embargoes. As a result, the economic impact of the sanctions was softened, despite their having reduced Iran’s GDP by roughly 23% and caused revenue losses estimated at between $10 and $12 trillion between 2010 and 2022. The current sanctions and blockade continue to target Iran's economy, heightening internal sociopolitical tensions, constraining its regional influence and its ability to fund allies like Hezbollah. As such, sanctions and the blockade act as catalysts rather than triggers of an internal implosion. What factors could accelerate the regime’s collapse? Four factors stemming from a convergence of the current acute economic crisis and internal fractures could constitute tipping points leading to the collapse of the Islamic Republic. The Fracturing of Economic Pillars Iran, despite its outward appearance of resilience and ideological solidity, is under an extremely heavy economic burden. The regime is contending with a sharp devaluation of the rial, runaway inflation, the cost of rebuilding infrastructure, the reconstitution of its military arsenal, and the erosion of Iranian citizens’ purchasing power. Merchants, entrepreneurs and salaried workers had converged in protest last January, signaling that the regime’s economic base was already weakened: falling tax revenues, an inability to subsidize essential goods and supply difficulties. Today, the situation is far more severe, and the regime would be hard-pressed, over time, to contain discontent through repression alone. Divergences Among Elites and Reformist Pressures The Islamic Republic rested on a political architecture centered on Khamenei senior and a network of interconnected elites. But today, it is the IRGC that holds the reins of power. Faced with economic catastrophe, how will it deal with reformist factions? How will it manage elites whose internal divisions are currently masked by a state of war? Will those divisions come to the surface? What will the country’s 8 million Kurds, 3 million Baluch and a fraction of its 18 million Azeris – who have been demanding autonomy for decades – do? This abrupt shift toward decentralized command structures is pushing the regime to over-militarize its peripheries and increase pressure on minorities, justifying this by the “risk of the country’s partition,” which in turn tightens the ranks of the Persian population around the regime. Yet the destruction of economic and industrial infrastructure severely limits the regime’s capacity to buy social peace in these historically neglected provinces. Defections Within the Security Forces The most decisive factor for the regime’s survival will remain the loyalty of its coercive instruments, notably the IRGC, the police and the Basij popular militias. These forces remain, for now, united and disciplined. They are therefore able to contain waves of protest through force and intimidation. Should units or officers refuse orders, defect, or side with protesters – driven, for instance, by interruption in salary payments – popular discontent could turn into insurrection, and possibly revolution. The early warning indicators of such a scenario have not yet been reported, but the moment they do appear, it would indicate a crisis in its terminal phase. In peripheral regions such as Kurdistan or Baluchistan, the combination of deep social discontent and weakened local command structure could facilitate this fragmentation dynamic. The Erosion of Collective Fear Since 1979, the Islamic Republic has drowned five major waves of protest, each of which challenged the foundations of the theocracy: the purges of the early years (1979-1988), marked by the elimination of opponents and minorities and culminating in the clandestine execution of between 3,000 and 5,000 prisoners; the 2009 Green Movement, sparked by the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and crushed by the Basij, leaving between 100 and 150 dead; the 2017-2018 social uprisings, triggered by inflation and corruption, suppressed with roughly 30 deads; the “Bloody November” of 2019, sparked by a fuel price increase and quashed by the killing of at least 1,500 people in ten days; and the Woman, Life, Freedom movement (2022-2023), ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini and crushed through live fire and public executions, leaving more than 550 dead. The bloodiest was the most recent uprising, in January of this year, which served as an indirect trigger for American military intervention. During this revolt, economic grievances quickly turned political, with protesters calling for the overthrow of the regime. The IRGC, police and Basij crushed the uprising, killing 5,000 people according to official authorities and over 40,000 according to the highest estimates. The complete internet blackout, imposed as of January 8, isolated the country and made independent verification of information about ongoing events difficult. Each of these crises illustrated the regime's systematic recourse to disproportionate state violence as an instrument of survival. But collective psychology is not immutable. Younger generations, confronted with recurring state violence and economic hardship, have shown signs of a waning fear. When public perception shifts – under the combined effect of the absence of freedoms, sociopolitical discontent and the inability to meet basic daily needs – mobilization can then reach a critical scale and break the threshold at which collective fear effectively disappears. In the absence of internet and social networks, this would spread rapidly through local solidarities, crystallizing into a sustained protest dynamic. In conclusion, the American blockade functions like a slow pressure cooker: it reduces the resources needed to subsidize the economy, pay public services, and maintain the loyalty of the armed forces. As these capabilities are depleted, the regime loses crucial material levers. But collapse could only occur if, in parallel, the Persian population and peripheral ethnic communities cross certain thresholds, and/or if significant fragments of the security forces break away. In other words, without an internal breaking point – economic collapse combined with mass mobilization, and/or military defections – the blockade will remain a factor of attrition rather than a final instrument of overthrow. Should that breaking point prove distant or unattainable, three alternatives to the outcome of the crisis remain: either Washington blinks, which would mean a weakening of Trump; or Tehran blinks, which would mean a weakening of the regime or its collapse; or a return to war – a contingency for which both the IRGC and the U.S. Navy are preparing. Read also: Dismantled, Yet Still Dangerous: Iran After Operations “Epic Fury” and “Roaring Lion”: (1/2)

Lebanon: The Enemy Within

Lebanon: The Enemy Within

By
Najib Zwein
Published

Lebanese have long repeated the popular saying: “A thousand enemies outside the house are better than one enemy within.” In few words, this proverb has distilled across generations an enduring political and national truth: external dangers, however formidable, remain less devastating than those that seep inward to strike at the unity of the state, paralyze its judgment and undermine its sovereignty. It is through this lens that one can understand much of Lebanon’s suffering over recent decades. Iran has never dealt with the Lebanese state as a sovereign and independent entity possessed of its own constitutional institutions; it has always chosen instead to operate through forces and organizations that owe it political and ideological allegiance. In the regional circumstances following the Khomeinist revolution, under the banner of “exporting the Islamic revolution,” it found a propitious opportunity to build relays of influence extending well beyond its national borders into several Arab countries. Over time, this went as far as a public boast of dominance over four Arab capitals, with Beirut at the top of that list. On the Lebanese domestic scene, Hezbollah successfully wielded the banner of resistance to entrench its political and military position, until its former Secretary-General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, openly declared that the Party’s money, weapons and resources all came from Iran. Yet both parties have fallen into the same error. Iran behaved as though Lebanon had become an integral part of its direct sphere of influence, while Hezbollah conducted itself as though it were the supreme authority, standing above the institutions of the state and its constitutional powers. The facts, however, have demonstrated that Lebanon, despite everything it has endured, has not lost its capacity to rise again and restore its role and its institutions. With the election of General Joseph Aoun to the presidency and the designation of Dr. Nawaf Salam as prime minister, a new political phase has opened, defined by the rehabilitation of the Lebanese state and the concept of national sovereignty. The conditions that had so long permitted projects of tutelage and domination to persist have shifted, and the clouds of occupation and foreign influence have begun to lift gradually from Lebanon’s sky, while many regional projects are revealing themselves for what they truly are. The misfortune is that Hezbollah and Iran have refused to acknowledge these changes. Rather than revisiting their manner of engaging with the Lebanese state, they have continued to address it with the mentality of a past that is no longer. The Lebanese authorities had initially sought a calm and diplomatic language, one that combined respect with firmness, affirming the necessity of dealing with legitimate institutions as the sole authority empowered to express the will of the Lebanese people. But the overreach continued, until the president of the Republic’s unambiguous position cut through it: Lebanese legitimacy, he made clear, resides in the Constitution and in the institutions of the state, and the Lebanese people are the vassal of no foreign state and the subject of no party leadership, whatever its size or influence. Even so, certain Iranian stances continued to disregard these realities, reaching an unprecedented level of political and moral offense when an Iranian newspaper attacked the president of the Republic in terms unworthy of relations between states and disrespectful of national sovereignty. This conduct reveals the depth of the crisis gripping those who have still not grasped that Lebanon belongs to no one, and that the era of diktat and guardianship has begun to wane. Lebanese have regarded Israel as an enemy for long decades, and the dispute with it remains open on fundamental questions of sovereignty, borders and security. But negotiating with adversaries and enemies is neither surrender nor concession — it is a political instrument to which states resort in order to defend their interests and protect their peoples. States negotiate from a position of self-confidence, not from a position of fear or subjugation. By contrast, the wound that comes from within remains the most dangerous of all. Lebanese history is replete with episodes that have shown, time and again, that internal divisions and foreign allegiances have always been the widest gateway to crises and catastrophes. This is why the Lebanese have repeated that betrayal from the inside shakes the very mountains — because it comes from those who were supposed to share the same roof. What Lebanon needs today is neither more transnational loyalties nor more projects that place foreign interests above the interests of Lebanese people. It needs a single state, a single authority, a single national decision. For when the state advances, influence retreats; when the logic of institutions prevails, the illusions of domination collapse of their own accord; and when the Lebanese rally around their constitutional institutions and legitimate authorities, there is no longer any room for a new Brutus to stab Lebanon from within.

On the Illusions of Peace in Lebanon

On the Illusions of Peace in Lebanon

By
Rami Rayess
Published

If the state of dejection that Lebanese people are living through at this stage is understandable, given the successive defeats that have haunted them for years and reached their apex with the two wars of support launched by Hezbollah without consulting anyone — wars that led to the return of Israeli occupation, the displacement of more than a million Lebanese, and the wholesale destruction of southern villages — the excessive enthusiasm of some for peace with Israel, and the headlong rush of others toward normalization, whether media-driven or otherwise, carry no logical justification whatsoever, and the least one can say of them is that they are precipitate and irresponsible. The reason is not that those who harbour reservations about peace necessarily support the war or wish to see it prolonged, nor that those who call for restraint in the face of this artificial and premature media normalization — which the law, at least for the time being, should be prosecuting — are opposed to a ceasefire and the return of stability. The point is rather to make clear that peace with Israel is no leisurely stroll, and that rushing to dream of a beer in Tel Aviv amounts to nothing more than a puerile, premature fantasy. This fracture plays out on two entirely contradictory levels. On one side, there are those prepared not only to turn a blind eye to what Israel has done to the Lebanese — killing them, occupying their land — but to absolve it of those acts, laying the blame exclusively on those who dragged Lebanon into the confrontation, without even alluding to the grossly disproportionate response that Israel has inflicted and continues to inflict: the occupation and levelling of villages, the evacuation orders served on entire localities to empty the regions and create a new reality on the ground, the targeting of hospitals and heritage sites, and much else besides. On the other side, there are those who refuse to read the shifts taking place and persist in tying the Lebanese front to the region's wars — wars they themselves essentially ignited in service of those conflicts and in revenge for their symbols — brandishing threats of retribution at their conclusion, invoking a surplus of power that has partly been broken in the recent period, and rejecting the efforts of the Lebanese state to end the war and recover its long-confiscated sovereignty. Lebanon cannot face this level of danger with such a depth of division, to the point where Lebanese people seem to disagree on almost everything — and at the top of that list of disagreements is the question of who is friend and who is enemy, which is precisely where the greatest peril lies. At the very moment when Israel descends upon Lebanon and kills its sons — civilians, soldiers, journalists, paramedics, and doctors — some persist in absolving it and concentrating all accusation on those who embroiled the country in this war, the very same parties now seeking a ceasefire, as they have always done: igniting the fire, then turning to find ways of extinguishing it. In the period following the Taif Agreement, the Lebanese had already divided over how to confront Israel and repeatedly failed to reach a national defence plan, owing to the lack of cooperation from Hezbollah — and from its regional patrons behind it, naturally. Lebanon was seeking to extend the legitimate authority of the state across its entire territory, which is after all the vocation of any government on earth. Yet it must be said that despite the depth of that disagreement, no one at the time put themselves forward to defend Israel, no one advocated a rushed peace with it, and no one violated the laws that remain in force until further notice by engaging with Israelis or hosting televised or journalistic exchanges with them. If the repeated entanglement of Lebanon in wars from which it gains nothing is something unacceptable — and the overwhelming majority of Lebanese, exhausted by conflict, death, and displacement, reject it without ambiguity — the illusion that peace with Israel would be a pleasant stroll, in a complete vacuum of power, is a fatal error, one liable to deepen the fracture among Lebanese and to aggravate the country's internal fragmentation still further.

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