Articles

In this fifth week of the Iran war, President Trump's statements are equivocal. So are those of Iranian leaders. Only the Israeli position is clear: priority to military and security imperatives. Information from the theater of operations, and sociopolitical analyses in the three belligerent states, come mainly from the press. The sources cited are often biased, and highlight only a part of the facts that serve the theses of their authors. It must be noted that the majority of the Western print media and audiovisual media insist more on the costs of the war than on its strategic outcome, which cannot be purely political or purely military, but must constitute a unique strategic synthesis. The military implements its own strategy to serve national objectives. Decision-makers do the same at the political level. An assessment of this campaign should take all of this into account. Some analysts neglect that the course of the war depends closely on the military and economic resources of each belligerent. These constitute the major determinant of success or failure. Ideology, willingness to fight, motivation and internal solidarity of each side come next. The American citizen believes that the ongoing military conflict weighs on his wallet. Some American companies complain about losses. Others, on the contrary, are making or will make profits. It is certain that after the war, the American economy, which is increasingly focused on the American continent and on a resumption of trade with China, will recover easily, as Trump bets. It should be noted, in this context, that the upcoming meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping, postponed for a few months, would be followed by the signing of huge contracts. Beijing could notably buy 600 Boeing planes from Washington for an amount of 140 billion dollars, soybeans for 20 billion, not to mention American oil and gas, and the lifting of restrictions on Beijing's purchase of electronic chips from the American company Nvidia. In return, the United States could import 'Rare Earths' from China, essential for the manufacture of computer hardware and AI, on which Xi Jinping has imposed severe restrictions, not forgetting low-cost Chinese products intended for American consumers. Militarily, Washington carefully avoids and will avoid any entanglement or war of attrition, mentioned notably by Trump's opponents, like the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, where the United States had tried, without success, to change regimes. American human and military equipment losses are so far relatively minimal, and military and economic resources are far from exhausted. The Pentagon had also set itself four to six weeks to achieve its objectives, and this deadline is still within the initially announced limits. Iran, for its part, is in a disastrous socioeconomic situation. This worsened in 2025 when Washington increased the sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic, which further strangles the Iranian economy and considerably reduced the flow of dollars from Iraqi banks. This situation risks deteriorating further after the conflict. Furthermore, the evident hegemony of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) over the mullahs and key figures of the regime exacerbates the discontent of the Artesh (the Iranian regular army), so far spared from Israeli-American bombings, of reformers like President Masoud Pezeshkian, and of Kurdish, Baluch, Arab and Azeri minorities, who are only asking to act militarily. These dissensions would lead to a radicalization of the IRGC inside the country. Iran would need at least two decades to recover. In short, the failure of the IRGC's regional strategy over the last two decades is evident: it has cost hundreds of billions of dollars for nothing. Iran is in ruins. Before the outbreak of the conflict, the Islamic Republic possessed the largest and most diversified missile and drone arsenal in the Middle East, characterized by a shift towards solid-fuel ballistic missiles, therefore rapidly deployable and highly accurate, and massive stocks of long-range loitering munitions. According to estimates, Iran had a stock of approximately 2000 to 3000 long-range (2000 km) and short-range (300 km) ballistic missiles, including hypersonic Fattah , capable of reaching speeds exceeding Mach 10, and long-range Khorramshahr with a payload of over one ton, capable of multiple warheads and which have demonstrated their effectiveness. It also had approximately 480 mobile missile launchers. Iran has also mass-produced tens of thousands of suicide drones, especially the famous Shahed-136, with an operational range of 1500 to 2500 kilometers. It had equipped this arsenal with Chinese precision capabilities, allowing it to strike American radar antennas, which enabled the destruction of about seven sophisticated American radars and opened a breach in anti-missile defenses. Finally, Iran has massively invested in underground production and storage facilities to secure its arsenal, making its total destruction from the air more difficult. The IRGC's strategy aimed at a target saturation capability, in order to overwhelm defense systems, which was very partially successful given that the success rate on target demonstrated a success of 5 to 10%. These capabilities have been reduced by two-thirds after a month of conflict, according to Americans and Israelis. They continue to decrease. The Pentagon is preparing in the coming days for a prolonged ground campaign, with the deployment of thousands of additional American soldiers, as reported by the Washington Post and CBS. American elite units are preparing, including Navy SEALs, Rangers, Marines, and the 83rd Airborne Division, and are providing Washington with flexible options for eventual operations inside Iran, aimed at annihilating what remains of Iranian missiles and drones, and also the nuclear program. The Tehran Times warned that the American plan would begin with targeted assassinations of high-ranking officials, as at the start of the military conflict, followed by strikes against strategic infrastructure. The ground phase would subsequently involve thousands of local fighters, Iranian and non-Iranian, coming from the northwest, probably Kurds, supported by 5000 American soldiers distributed between Bahrain and the maritime axes, with the deployment of the 3rd aircraft carrier. Still according to the same source, marines and paratroopers would storm airports in the port city of Bandar Abbas and other cities, to facilitate airlifts, while airborne teams will strike sites related to missiles and the nuclear program. These assertions by the Tehran Times mean that Iran is preparing to oppose this plan. Meanwhile, American and Israeli strikes continue thanks to air superiority, and continue to degrade the Iranian arsenal. In view of all this, the observation is as follows: the Iranians, despite their military setbacks and considerable losses, demonstrate no flexibility or willingness for strategic concessions. American victory would therefore be limited to the military plane, while neutralizing, in the long term, Iran's capacity for harm. In return, and despite Trump's assertions, the IRGC continues to hold out, which makes a breakthrough in negotiations highly unlikely. Conclusions therefore remain premature pending the implementation or non-implementation of the American ground option.

The debate over state monopoly on arms in Lebanon has ceased to be a simple question of sovereignty or legality; it has become a genuine test of the state's capacity to fulfil its fundamental functions. The problem has moved beyond the principle itself, which enjoys a near-unanimous theoretical consensus: what is lacking are the internal leverage and the national strategic vision capable of making it applicable, against a backdrop of deep regional entanglements and unprecedented economic and institutional fragility. The absence of a clear trajectory, the persistence of a policy of procrastination, and the erosion of the time factor could well constitute, in and of themselves, the gravest threat to Lebanon's stability and the future of its state. The debate over state monopoly on arms in Lebanon has ceased to be a classic sovereigntist discussion about applying the Constitution or implementing Resolution 1701. It has become an existential test of the state's capacity to exercise its essential functions. The central question today concerns the immense gap that separates the sovereign decision from the real capacity to translate it into practice within the framework of a national vision and an encompassing societal consensus — not the validity of a principle on which theoretical consensus is near-general. This shift in the question reveals the full gravity of the present moment. Political will no longer suffices — it is structural capacity that is now at issue. The Lebanese state finds itself in an unprecedented situation of leverage deficit: it has neither a decisive internal lever against the Party, nor favourable regional support, nor sufficient international solidarity, whether political, security, economic or financial. Beyond a mere cyclical weakening, this situation reveals that the decision to monopolise arms, however just it may be in principle, is now trapped within a triangle of incapacity: an inability to impose it, an inability to negotiate it from a position of strength, and an inability to bear the cost of its failure. The persistence of arms outside the state's framework is only the visible face of the problem; more insidious still is the fact that the gap between decision and capacity has itself become a factor of instability. A government, presidency included, that proclaims a sovereign and strategic objective without possessing the real tools to achieve it ventures into perilous territory, to the point where its very credibility is placed in jeopardy, in the manner of a secondary and non-sovereign actor. The real challenge thus extends beyond the question of arms alone: it lies in the capacity to realign sovereign ambition with actual capability, while guaranteeing social stability at home. Restoring the primacy of the State To understand this moment, one must return to the context in which the question of arms monopoly took its current form. This dossier is the product of a long accumulative process that traced back to the Taif Accords, but which remained suspended for decades by virtue of the balances inherited from the civil war. What is new today is that this process has left the domain of political discourse and entered that of executive decisions, notably after the 2024 support war and the binding security arrangements that accompanied it, arrangements that Hezbollah accepted and helped to design, in its capacity as principal and sovereign actor, through its ally, the president of the Amal movement and of the Lebanese Parliament, in place of the Lebanese state or government, within the framework of the declaration of cessation of hostilities between Lebanon and Israel of 26-27 November 2024, accompanied by the renewed push for implementation of Resolution 1701. If the transition to implementation did indeed reveal the limits of capacity, the relative success achieved in deploying the Lebanese army south of the Litani resulted less from an internal political settlement than from field circumstances imposed by the outcomes of the support war and the pressures it generated. By contrast, the transition to the rest of the territory exposed the structural complexities of the Lebanese system, where considerations of sovereignty are intertwined with imperatives of stability, and where internal calculations intersect with regional ones, leaving the state exposed to accusations of insufficient seriousness in fulfilling its commitments under the agreement. Thus the arms monopoly dossier appeared to enter a phase that might be described as “strategic procrastination”, comparable to that of other equally sensitive and important dossiers, such as the financial gap, the Beirut port explosion case and others, and characterised by the fact that neither the state can advance decisively, nor the Party is ready to retreat, nor the international community is able to impose a solution, nor the internal structure has reached agreement on an option, nor the regional environment permits a swift resolution. This observation alone suffices to reveal that state governance is profoundly impeded by the inherited structure of balances, and that the problem is no longer technical or security-related, but expresses a far deeper dysfunction within the relationship between the Lebanese state and society as a whole. The obsolescence of the notion of "Resistance" In this context, it is impossible to disregard the most significant transformation to have occurred in the Lebanese political environment: the progressive erosion of the national legitimacy of the concept of “Resistance”. Before the year 2000, this concept bore little resemblance to what it would become afterwards, for the three pillars on which the legitimacy of the Resistance rested began to crack and erode gradually: the liberation of territory, the deterrence of Israel, and action within the framework of a unifying national project. To begin with, the Party gradually concentrated its base within its 'social environment' at the expense of the state, mobilising the resources offered by the rentier economy, whether in its own name or by delegation, as a substitute for the then-failing rentier state, thereby reinforcing its hold over the popular and political representation of that environment and imposing internal mechanisms that guaranteed its own continuity and that of its role, at the expense of its ally but within the framework of a long-forged equation. The arms, moreover, were never integrated into an agreed national defence strategy, but remained outside the institutional framework, constituting a military apparatus with regional ramifications, far more than an actor confined to Lebanon. Engagement in regional conflicts, in Syria above all, then helped transform the image of the weapons from an instrument of resistance and defence, as they were commonly presented, into a tool of broader regional influence. Finally, successive economic collapses and repeated wars added an unprecedented factor: the heavy social cost now borne by broad swathes of the Lebanese population as a consequence of choices in which they played no part. Assigning a sovereign role to the army This evolution did not bring about the total collapse of the concept of “Resistance”, but provoked its shift from an encompassing national legitimacy to a partial legitimacy, tied to a specific political and social environment. Here lies the burning challenge of today: if the Resistance model has lost part, or even all, of its legitimacy, is the state genuinely capable of filling that void? This question brings the debate back to a fundamental point, too often sidestepped through repetition, yet impossible to ignore. For the problem exceeds the weapons themselves: it touches on the absence of a strategy and the foundations of an alternative national defence worthy of the Lebanese people's trust. The Lebanese state, despite its juridical legitimacy, does not yet possess the military capabilities or the deterrence doctrine needed to confront Israeli aggression, particularly since both countries remain under the terms of an armistice exposed to recurring violations. Insufficient resources, certainly — but also, and more fundamentally, the very nature of the military doctrine inherited from Taif, which privileged internal stability over preparation for a conventional external confrontation, as well as the nature of international support, which has reinforced the army's role as a force for internal order rather than a conventional fighting force. This is why the debate on arms monopoly remains incomplete unless it is tied to the construction of a viable national defence strategy. In this context, the Lebanese debate can be organised around three principal approaches. The first is the sovereigntist approach, which identifies the duality of power as the fundamental problem and sees the imposition of state monopoly on arms, in accordance with the Taif Accords and international resolutions, as the starting point of any settlement. This approach is sound in its principles and predominates in the discourse of the Lebanese presidency and government, but it tends to overlook the material conditions for its implementation. Reclaiming the monopoly on arms The second is the realist approach, which holds that any solution must pass through a gradual settlement, an understanding and a political agreement involving trade-offs, which explains its own hesitations and absence from the negotiating table, and which refuses direct confrontation, because the confessional fragility and the economic and security precariousness of the Lebanese context would make any frontal clash a risk of internal conflagration. If it appears more realistic, it is nonetheless permanently present in discussions without ever producing a solution, more often transforming into crisis management than crisis resolution. As for the third, the critical approach, it argues that the timing of this dossier is more closely tied to external pressures, particularly to post-war balances and American-Israeli pressures, than it is the product of a completed Lebanese consensus; it doubts the possibility of full implementation, so long as Israel continues its violations and occupation on one side, and Hezbollah maintains its monopoly over decisions of war and peace on the other, and it warns against the risks of imposition without appropriate political conditions. It offers, however, no coherent alternative solution. In the final analysis, these three approaches reflect a fundamental divergence in the conception of the very nature of the desired state: is Lebanon a state capable of reclaiming its monopoly on arms and defence? A system of fragile internal balances to be preserved or transformed from within through constitutional tools? Or a terrain of regional rivalries to be neutralised? The absence of a unified answer to this question, perhaps born of the lack of confidence in the first option, the failure of the second in the wake of the 2019 revolution, and the manifest shortcomings of the third, explains why the debate on arms is transformed time and again into a questioning of the nature of the state and the means of its reconstruction or restoration. The demons of past divisions All of this leads to the most complex dimension of the problem: the regional dimension. Reality shows that the decision on arms in Lebanon has never been a purely Lebanese decision. The organic links between Hezbollah and Iran, the tying of the arms dossier to the ceasefire arrangements with Israel, its transformation into a component of American-Iranian negotiations — all factors that have placed this decision beyond the reach of the Lebanese state, reduced to the role of a supporting negotiator, without mastery of the stakes and without real capacity for action. There then emerges the paradox of a vicious circle, where sovereignty becomes a responsibility without tools: Lebanon is called upon to execute a sovereign decision, while a large part of the conditions for its success is determined outside its borders. What further aggravates the present contradiction is the growing international pressure on Lebanon to take internal measures, against the limited capacity of the international community to impose the conditions of regional stability necessary for the success of those very measures. It is worth noting here the deadlock on the regional horizon. The wager on decoupling between Hezbollah and Iran, two actors subjected to unprecedented military and security pressures, remains uncertain, if not less probable than ever. For in moments of existential siege, allied networks and their proxies tend to close ranks rather than fragment. The logic of “maximum pressure” may in fact produce two contradictory outcomes: either pushing the Party towards a tactical withdrawal, if it perceives that its environment is giving way beneath it, seeking then to preserve what remains of its gains and to spare its constituency heavier internal costs; or pushing it towards a heightened rigidity, because it sees in its weapons the last guarantee of its political, organisational and psychological survival, as well as an additional negotiating card for its original principal. The weapons thus become far more than a simple military tool, turning into a mechanism of political, psychological and organisational survival. This further undermines the official Lebanese approach, which demands that the Party reduce its influence at the precise moment when the Party feels that this influence is what protects it from total submission. At the heart of this impasse lies the reality of the Lebanese state itself. For the state that is asked to monopolise arms suffers from unprecedented financial fragility, deep institutional weakness, internal political fractures and major security constraints. The economy is slow to recover, the institutions struggle to regain the confidence of citizens, and the capacity to manage crises remains limited. To which must be added the unprecedented economic, social and security pressures generated by the massive displacement of populations from the South: with figures reaching eight hundred thousand people and beyond, this displacement reaches far beyond the humanitarian frame, bearing directly on local balances, services, rents, municipal resources and already fragile solidarity networks. Reports indicate the risk that the persistence of this displacement, for lack of adequate support, may open the way to tensions and to a politicisation of the question of hospitality. One is beginning to perceive how this friction can transform itself, in a politically and confessionally divided country, into fuel for a deep latent tension, especially when the displaced are associated with military choices that the host communities did not make. As for the Lebanese army, supposed to be the instrument for carrying out this decision, it acts with extreme caution. It succeeded, relatively, in establishing itself south of the Litani within the framework of rules laid down by the Party and its regional backers despite the painful losses this deployment entailed, and announced in January 2026 that it held the zone operationally. But the transition north of the Litani demonstrated that the situation there is fundamentally different, since it touches on internal balances. This caution conveys, beyond mere military capability limitations, a deep awareness that any large-scale internal confrontation would risk threatening the cohesion of the institution itself, reawakening the memory of earlier fractures from the civil war. The posture may appear passive from the outside; it amounts in reality to a strategy of institutional survival, and to the awareness that any ill-considered step could shatter the last national institution that still retains a degree of cohesion. The State suffers from a very narrow margin of maneuver This caution is further heightened by the financial, judicial and security fragility of the state, for even assuming a resolute political decision existed, its execution would require apparatuses capable of deployment, control, investigation, seizure, dismantling, surveillance and protection of populations, together with judicial and administrative capacities able to manage the repercussions. Yet reality shows that the institutions, in their entirety, are exhausted by the financial collapse since 2019 and struggle painfully to maintain a bare minimum of operations through precarious arrangements to ensure the payment of salaries and basic services, relying on external financing that has remained insufficient. To which must be added the structural weakness of the state's position, government and presidency alike. It has neither cards to play, nor decisive alliances, nor security guarantees, being perceived as a non-sovereign third party in the negotiations. Even when the state demands a complete ceasefire as a prerequisite for any dialogue, the limits of its influence become transparent: it does not possess the levers that would make this condition binding upon any party, incapable as it is of deterring Israel just as much as of bringing pressure to bear on Hezbollah. Recent data have moreover shown that France itself considered it unreasonable to demand that Lebanon disarm Hezbollah while Israel continues to bombard it and the Party lends itself to procrastination. This indicates that some Western capitals are beginning to acknowledge the gap between the expectations imposed on the Lebanese state and its actual capacity. But this acknowledgement does not necessarily translate into political protection for Lebanon; it risks being no more than a recognition of powerlessness without consequence. Lebanon thus finds itself confronting an implacable equation: called upon to make major sovereign decisions without the negotiating weight that would allow it to impose its own rhythm or priorities, and without the real capacity to contain the choices and pace of the Party, whose ties to regional dynamics have grown tighter than ever. In any event, it does not possess the political, economic or military tools necessary to implement these decisions or to circumscribe their repercussions. In the final analysis, the Lebanese state is living through an unprecedented situation of leverage deficit, internal and external alike. It confronts simultaneously a continuing occupation and aggression, growing regional pressures, a persistent economic and social collapse, mounting security fragility and a narrow international margin for manoeuvre. The real peril Lebanon faces today lies less in the weapons themselves than in the near-total absence of a realistic national vision and strategy that define the starting point of the trajectory, the conditions for ending the aggression and surrendering the arms, the timeline of each stage, their respective costs and the guarantees capable of preventing an escalation of the aggression or an explosion of the weapons in the hands of a failing state. For what is most dangerous would be to persevere in the politics of procrastination, to let time slip away and to press forward without a trajectory, since to temporise ultimately becomes more perilous in itself than to decide.

Once again, public opinion and the populations of the Levant, and the Middle East in general, are confronted with a cascade of contradictory statements and indiscretions leaked to the media, concerning the evolution of the war launched on February 28 in the region. President Donald Trump thus reaffirmed this Wednesday, April 1 st , the existence in Tehran of a «new regime», indicating that the «president of this new power has just asked us for a ceasefire». « We will decide on the expediency of this ceasefire when the Strait of Hormuz is reopened to free maritime circulation, President Trump declared. Otherwise, we will continue to bomb the infrastructure in order to bring Iran back to the Stone Age ». The optimistic remarks of the White House chief about the positive attitude of the « president of the new Iranian regime » that has emerged in Iran « and who proves to be smarter than his predecessors » were, however, denied by official sources in Tehran. A statement attributed to the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs thus categorically denied any request for a ceasefire that would have been presented to President Trump. For his part, the Vice-President of the Iranian Parliament affirmed that « the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed, and no negotiations are underway on this matter ». These contradictory positions raise several questions: is President Trump displaying measured optimism to make the Iranian regime assume responsibility for a forthcoming escalation in military operations, which would take the form of a landing or targeted, punctual commando operations? Does a « more Cartesian new regime » truly exist that would have emerged in Tehran? Is the current power in Tehran seriously shaken by a deep divide between a pragmatic wing and a radical current represented by the Pasdaran? Only tangible facts and developments in military operations will provide fragments of answers to these questions. It remains that some parameters are far from supporting the thesis of the emergence of a « new regime in Tehran », as demonstrated by the savage repression targeting Iranian opponents and the executions of political prisoners that continue without respite. Furthermore, new American reinforcements have been sent to the region, including several thousand Marines and paratroopers, which tends to highlight the fact that the general climate among the real decision-makers in Iran remains largely bellicose. Military operations In any event, raids, bombardments (by naval units) and missile launches continued on a large scale on Wednesday. American and Israeli air forces resumed their intensive raids in the areas of Tehran and Isfahan, targeting strategic, military and industrial infrastructure. In the late afternoon on Wednesday, unconfirmed reports even mentioned the deployment of large American B-52 bombers. On Tuesday night to Wednesday morning, a significant Israeli attack, by sea, hit a convoy of cars in the Jnah suburb, a neighborhood not usually targeted by raids. The toll of this strike is particularly heavy, no less than seven killed and more than 25 wounded according to the latest assessment from the Ministry of Health. The identity of the targeted person was only communicated at midday by the Israeli army, specifying that it was Youssef Hachem, a senior Hezbollah official, responsible for the Southern front and for launching rockets and drones towards northern Israel. Hezbollah only confirmed the information several hours later. This seasoned fighter, who has some forty years of militia activities to his credit in the ranks of the party of God, played an essential role in the restructuring of the party's armed wing, following the 2024 debacle. Hezbollah also announced the death of another of its officials, Mohammad Baqer al-Naboulsi, in the same strike. He is probably the other « high-ranking fighter » in the pro-Iranian militia, whom the Israeli army announced it had killed in the same convoy. The other assassination of the day (related to Lebanon), announced by the Israeli army on its X account on Wednesday, is that of « Mahdi Vafaei, head of the engineering branch of the Lebanese Quds Force in the Mahallat region, Iran ». « Vafaei carried out underground projects (tunnels) in Lebanon and Syria, leading efforts to set up and manage underground terrorist infrastructure sites for Hezbollah and the Assad regime », the former Damascus regime having fallen in December 2024, an Israeli statement indicates. The IDF claimed another strike south of Beirut, in the locality of Khalde, at dawn, which left two dead and three wounded. The Hadeth neighborhood in the southern suburbs of the capital was also targeted by powerful strikes at dawn on Wednesday. Meanwhile, in South Lebanon, fighting continues to rage and Israeli advances are ongoing, while the Israeli army and Defense Minister, Israel Katz, continue to threaten Lebanon with a broader occupation. On the ground, the only villages not yet fully evacuated, mainly Christian, are more than ever caught up in the war following the « redeployment » of the Lebanese army, criticized for having withdrawn in the face of Israeli advances and for having abandoned the residents who are resisting in their villages. In response to these criticisms on Wednesday, the Lebanese army explained that its repositioning aimed to avoid any encirclement and isolation of its supply routes, assuring that it maintained patrols in the villages concerned. A measure that could reassure populations living in growing anguish, cut off from the outside world. European statement on UNIFIL On the other hand, the targeting of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) continues to cause waves among European countries, which contribute to the peacekeeping force. A statement from the European Union « strongly condemns the recent attacks against UNIFIL contingents, which inexplicably caused casualties among peacekeepers ». The statement calls for calm, expresses solidarity with Lebanon, and holds Hezbollah responsible for this new war. For her part, the Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Armed Forces and Veterans Alice Rufo went to Lebanon to « express her solidarity and support for Lebanese sovereignty ». She also testified to « France's solidarity with the Indonesian UNIFIL soldiers, who lost three of their own during attacks on March 29 and 30, 2026 ». No mention of the attacker's identity, the Israeli army. From Khamenei to Qassem And it is in this tense climate, both on the Lebanese and Iranian fronts, that a statement attributed to Iran's Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, invisible since the start of the conflict, reaffirms the Islamic Republic's support for Hezbollah and its Secretary-General, Naïm Qassem, who is just as invisible as the former as he preferred to communicate these last two speeches in writing. Amidst the Israeli advance in South Lebanon, and against the backdrop of a toll of over 1300 deaths since the beginning of this conflict opened to avenge his father's death - to use Hezbollah's terms - Mojtaba Khamenei congratulated Qassem's party for its actions, assuring it of Iran's continued support and asking it to continue thwarting Israeli plans. Other allies of Iran, the Houthis of Yemen, are increasingly involved in the war, and announced on Wednesday missile launches in coordination with Iran and Hezbollah, against Israel. According to Israeli emergency services, 14 wounded fell on Wednesday in the Tel Aviv region. A serious development was recorded in Iraq, related to another Iranian ally, Iraqi Hezbollah: an American journalist, Shelly Kittleson, was kidnapped by this group in Baghdad, which was confirmed by the US State Department, through Dylan Johnston, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, on his X account. In Iran On the Iranian front, Israeli-American strikes continue, hitting, in recent hours, several steel production sites. Strong explosions shook Tehran during the night, and it turned out that one of them targeted the vicinity of the former headquarters of the American embassy in the Iranian capital. A highly symbolic place for Americans and Iranians: it was there that the 1979 hostage crisis took place, after the Iranian revolution. The embassy, which never reopened its doors, had become a museum of the revolution. Two days ago, US President Donald Trump swore that he « would avenge everything the Revolutionary Guards had inflicted on Marines and American nationals for 47 years ». It is in this context that relations are further deteriorating between the United States and its European allies, who still refuse to enter a war « that is not theirs », as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer reiterated on Wednesday. According to remarks reported by AFP, Donald Trump thundered that « if France or another country wants to have its oil or gas, it should buy it from the United States or go directly to the Strait of Hormuz (...) to get it ». For its part, the European Union called on Iran to « guarantee freedom of navigation » in the strait, at a time when Tehran is talking about imposing a right of passage on ships.

Every war leaves behind its share of the forgotten. Yet one group is rarely mentioned – or poorly understood: animals. In a Lebanon, where abandonment is already widespread, war has only deepened a crisis long exacerbated by years of economic crisis. To human suffering is thus added a silent, invisible anguish – one that rarely finds a place in the collective narrative. This phenomenon also reveals a deeper fracture. Abandoning an animal in wartime is not always an act of deliberate cruelty, but sometimes the result of collapse. When everything is scarce – food, medicine, shelter – the hierarchy of needs asserts itself with brutal force. In such circumstances, the animal can come to be seen as an additional burden. For many, animals remain secondary – companions sometimes adopted on a whim, like objects that can just as easily be discarded. And when urgency forces people to flee, some take to the road, leaving behind what suddenly seems to have lost all value. Dogs and cats, but also birds and more exotic animals, are left to fend for themselves, defenseless in environments that have turned hostile. This reality does not arise in a vacuum. It is rooted in a context where animal protection, though theoretically enshrined in law, remains largely ineffective. In the absence of political will and adequate resources, violations proliferate: wildlife trafficking, abuse, the mass killing of migratory birds, even dynamite fishing. It is an entire chain of normalized violence – often pushed to the margins, as though it mattered less because it does not directly concern humans. Yet it is precisely this chain that sustains the balance on which human survival itself depends. Complex Rescues In this deteriorating landscape, it is the most vulnerable who pay the highest price. Associations, already weakened by the financial crisis, struggle to sustain their activities. Like Beta and Animals Lebanon, as well as numerous grassroots groups and anonymous volunteers, they carry on nonetheless – often at the limits of their resources. Their work is sometimes a matter of absolute urgency: intervening in the rubble, responding to distress calls, risking their lives to save animals trapped, injured, or forgotten. Yet the obstacles are many and continue to mount. Rescues are becoming increasingly complex in a context of permanent insecurity. International adoptions, long a possible solution, are becoming rarer. Transport costs have soared, particularly since Middle East Airlines is now the only carrier operating at Rafic Hariri International Airport, making each transfer nearly unaffordable. Added to this is a general exhaustion – that of volunteers, donors, and a system now operating under constant strain. There is another reality as well – more nuanced, often overlooked: that of those who refuse to abandon their animals. Displaced families crowd into already cramped apartments, sometimes with several generations under one roof, and still strive to keep their animals with them. Yet this forced coexistence is not without tension. Limited space, fear, and at times reluctance rooted in religious beliefs – particularly regarding dogs – turn the presence of animals into an added source of strain in an already overwhelmed daily life. Admittedly, certain images circulate, almost reassuring in appearance: a cat in a cage beneath a makeshift tent, a dog pressed against its owner on a mattress laid directly on the floor. They speak to a genuine attachment, to a refusal to abandon at any cost. But as moving as these images may be, they should not obscure the scale of the phenomenon. For every animal saved or protected, how many are left by the roadside – wandering, starving, condemned to survive in indifference? Abandoning animals in times of war is not a mere collateral damage. It reveals, by contrast, our relationship with living beings, with responsibility, and with what we choose to consider essential – or not – when everything is in upheaval. Perhaps it is here that the core is tested: in the ability, even amid chaos, not to entirely forsake what connects us to the rest of the living world. Between Italy, which grants paid leave to care for a sick or injured animal, and Spain, which has passed a law recognizing pets as “sentient beings” rather than mere objects or property – in other words, family members – and France, which is supposed to be advancing on this front but continues to run advertising campaigns encouraging hunting, one can agree that the margin is wide. Lebanon, however, can take some satisfaction in the small steps it is making.

In moments of major crisis, confrontations are not confined to the military field alone; they extend to another arena no less decisive, that of narrative. In the current Lebanese situation, Hezbollah’s behavior is marked by an intensification of its internal threats and a saturation of the media space with a torrent of communiqués sometimes reaching dozens per day. This phenomenon deserves careful reading, free from emotional reflexes, in order to understand its motivations, objectives and consequences. What strikes one immediately is the unprecedented volume of communiqués referring to “special operations” and “battlefield heroics” in the south. This sustained rhythm cannot be explained by purely military facts; it belongs to what is known as “morale management.” Modern wars are not waged with weapons alone, but also through image, information and impression. When any party feels itself under pressure, whether militarily or politically, it resorts to amplifying its achievements in order to preserve the cohesion of its support base and prevent doubt from seeping into it. Tightening the Internal Ranks Hezbollah faces unprecedented internal challenges today. Its social base suffers from harsh economic fallout and from the direct effects of the war on its areas of influence, in the south, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the Bekaa. In such a context, raising the register of mobilizing discourse becomes a necessity for maintaining popular cohesion. The abundance of communiqués goes beyond the mere transmission of information; it constitutes a continuous message addressed to the public: “We are strong, we hold the initiative, the sacrifices have meaning.” This pattern of discourse aims to prevent the erosion of internal legitimacy, particularly as questions multiply within the base itself about the cost and utility of the confrontation. When losses mount or the circle of those affected widens, producing a parallel narrative that justifies and reframes reality becomes imperative. Compensating for the Gap Between Discourse and Reality In many cases, the greater the media amplification, the more it betrays a gap between discourse and fact. Not all communiqués are necessarily inaccurate, but the deluge of daily details and repeated military feats may be an attempt to fill a void, or to mask the limited actual impact on the course of the conflict. This is where the psychological factor asserts itself forcefully: the repetition of “victories” creates a cumulative sense of power, even when the facts on the ground are more complex. This method is well established in the literature on warfare, where media saturation is used to overwhelm the recipient and prevent them from verifying or cross-checking. Deterrence Through Noise One of the functions of this rhetorical escalation is to build psychological deterrence, directed not only at the external enemy but also at Lebanon’s internal actors. By intensifying its threats and presenting itself as a force on permanent standby, Hezbollah sends a dual message: to external adversaries, that it remains capable of taking the initiative; to its internal adversaries, that any attempt to confront it politically or in the streets will prove costly. This explains the tone of certain internal communiqués, which go beyond describing battles to issue direct or indirect threats. It is an attempt to draw internal red lines, at a moment when Hezbollah senses that its position is no longer as fortified as it once was. Managing Political Contradictions Beyond the military apparatus, Hezbollah is a central political actor in Lebanon. It faces a difficult equation today: on one side, it wishes to preserve its role as a “resistance” force; on the other, it faces mounting pressure, internal and external, to return the weapons to the state, particularly now that it is considered to be operating outside the law. In this context, media escalation becomes an instrument for deferring the real debate. Rather than confronting directly the question of its weapons and its role, Hezbollah redirects attention toward the “great battle” in the south and invokes the spectre of the new Syrian regime. The abundance of communiqués helps keep war at the top of the agenda, not internal debate. Influencing Arab and International Opinion The audience for these communiqués extends well beyond Lebanon’s domestic scene. The regional and international dimension is clear. Hezbollah seeks to consolidate the image of an actor that remains influential in the conflict with Israel, despite all the upheavals. By amplifying its operations, it attempts to reclaim its place in Arab consciousness as a force of confrontation, at a time when that image has faded in the eyes of a significant segment of public opinion. This discourse also aims to raise the cost of any escalation against it, by suggesting its capacity to widen the circle of confrontation. Even if this never materializes, it is enough that the possibility lingers in others’ calculations. The Logic of Permanent Mobilization Since its founding, Hezbollah has operated on a model of “permanent mobilization.” The state of emergency is not an exceptional circumstance but a near-continuous condition. Within this model, intensive media output forms an integral part of the organizational structure, rather than a mere situational reaction. The problem, however, is that this pattern, when carried to excess, gradually loses its credibility. The overabundance of claims can produce the opposite effect: rather than reinforcing trust, it sows doubt, particularly among a wider public beyond the partisan base. The Attendant Risks This rhetorical escalation carries serious dangers. Credibility erodes when the narrative no longer matches what people see or hear from other sources. Repeated threats risk deepening divisions and resentments. The higher the ceiling of discourse rises, the harder any retreat becomes, narrowing the margin for political manoeuvre. Hardline rhetoric can also be invoked as a pretext for a counter-escalation, exposing Lebanon to additional risks. What This Means for Lebanon Lebanon today stands at a delicate juncture, where economic crisis intersects with security tension and political fracture. In such a context, the country needs a discourse that eases tensions rather than inflames them, and transparency that rebuilds trust between the state and society. What we are witnessing, however, is the reverse: a surplus of rhetoric and a deficit of trust. This is what makes Hezbollah’s media behavior a component of the crisis, not merely a reflection of it. It is clear that the intensification of threats and the inundation of the public sphere with communiqués are not random phenomena. They reflect a strategy founded on morale management, the tightening of internal ranks and the construction of psychological deterrence, in response to mounting challenges on the domestic as much as the external front. Yet this strategy, however effective it may prove in the short term within a specific environment, carries serious risks over the medium and long term, both for Hezbollah itself and for Lebanon as a whole. Ultimately, the most important truth remains that the strength of any party is measured not only by what it says, but by the degree to which its words accord with reality. In an era of proliferating information sources, preserving credibility is the greatest challenge and the most demanding trial.

The feast of Saint Joseph (March 19), patron of the university that bears his name, brought to the mind of its new rector, Father François Boëdec, SJ, the memory of Alban de Jerphanion, the first Jesuit martyr of the seemingly endless war that erupted in Lebanon in 1975 – whose latest chapter, hoped to be the last, began unfolding in early March. Five other martyrs of that conflict fell after Father de Jerphanion. In tribute to their sacrifice, and with the publication of a new biography devoted to one of their holiest figures – the Dutch priest Nicolas Kluiters, whose cause for beatification is under way – this work is presented here, revealing previously unpublished details about the motivations of those who killed Father Nicolas. At the same time, it sheds light on the broader meaning of the gift he made to Lebanon, so that the country might endure as a model of “freedom and pluralism” for both East and West, at a moment when a heavily militarized nation threatens to strip it of a vital part of its territory, marked by the memory of Christ’s passage. The offering of love made by Nicolas Kluiters, SJ, found an unexpected echo in that of a fellow seminarian – Ghassibé Keyrouz, a young man from the neighboring village of Nabha. Ten years his junior, Ghassibé had shown remarkable gifts as a catechist, and Nicolas had taken him under his wing, guiding him toward the priesthood. Ghassibé was killed in 1975, around Christmas, as he was on his way home to spend the holidays with his mother and sister. The day before, prompted by a mysterious premonition, he wrote and left on his desk, in his room at Notre-Dame de Jamhour College, a testamentary letter in which, sensing he might be abducted and killed, he forgave his future assailants in advance. This remarkable letter quickly spread around the world. Here are its essential passages: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: “When I began writing this testament, it was as though another voice were speaking through me. These days, everyone – Lebanese and residents of Lebanon alike – lives in danger. As one of them, I see myself being kidnapped and killed on the road leading to my village of Nabha. And if this intuition proves true, I leave these words to my family, to the people of my village, and to my country. To my mother and my sisters, I say with full confidence: do not be sad or at least do not weep or grieve excessively. This absence, however long it may seem, is in truth short: We shall meet again, we shall surely meet again in the eternal dwelling of heaven. There is joy there, and sorrow if we are separated. Do not be afraid: God’s mercy will bring us all together again. “I have only one request to make of you: forgive, with all your heart, those who have killed me. Pray with me that my blood – even if it is that of a sinner – may serve as a ransom ( fidya ) for Lebanon’s sin; that it may be united with that of all the victims who have fallen, from every side and every religious community, and offered as the price of peace, love, and concord, which have vanished from this country and even from the world. May my death teach people charity; may God comfort you, watch over you, and guide you through life. Do not be afraid; I do not regret this world at all. What grieves me is that you will be sad. Pray, pray, pray, and love your enemies. “And to my country, I say: ‘The inhabitants of one house may hold different views; they do not hate one another. They may grow angry with each other, without becoming enemies; they may argue, without killing one another. Remember the days of harmony and charity; let go of those of anger and discord. Together we have eaten, drunk, and worked; together we have raised our prayers to the one God; together, we must also die. My father was the partner of a Metouali (Shiite) whom I called ‘Uncle Hussein’, a name I was found of using. They remained partners for seventy-five years without ever breaking their agreement or settling accounts. Remember this: one often cannot borrow a hundred pounds from one’s own brother; yet it is enough to turn to someone in the village – whether Metouali, Maronite, Sunni, or Druze – for them to come to one’s aid. Everyone knows this, yet sin blinds us. Each person must return to prayer, according to his belief and conscience, so that God may dispel anger and reduce to dust the schemes of the powerful of this world, on the soil of this country, which should not have to pay for their machinations with its blood…’ “In heaven, I will not rest as long as this situation in Lebanon endures. “Let my funeral be a day of ordination, not of burial or sorrow. “For my burial, let Father Boutros celebrate Mass, without a large gathering of priests or an official notice. If Abou-Khalil can fashion my coffin from a few old crates, that will suffice. No funeral meal. Let people forgive me… without gunfire. I am dust, yet by God’s power, I will partake in divine life. This is how it should be done. “People will talk, but do not let that concern you. If only they had a shred of pity, they would not kill one another, nor allow the wolves to triumph over us… How deeply mistaken they are!” An Olive Tree Watered with Blood Nicolas was profoundly shaken by the violent death of Ghassibé Keyrouz, which occurred while he was temporarily in Europe. Keyrouz’s death would foreshadow Nicolas’s own fate, as well as that of five other Jesuits serving in Lebanon. According to Christian Taoutel, archivist at USJ and head of its history department, the civil war also claimed the lives of Father Louis Dumas, who celebrated morning Mass and was shot by a sniper on October 25, 1975; Father Michel Allard, killed on January 15, 1976, when a shell destroyed his room; Father Alban de Jerphanion, kidnapped and murdered in March 1976 while escorting a visitor to the airport; and Father Finnegan, an American Jesuit, struck by a shell on February 26, 1984, while traveling from the Jesuit residence in Achrafieh to the Hôtel-Dieu de France to celebrate Mass. Father Finnegan treasured being with patients, insisting – even under bombardment – on visiting the sick in their rooms and sharing in their suffering. The war also claimed Father André Masse, director of the Saint Joseph University campus in Saida, who was shot on September 24, 1987, by two intruders who had entered his office, open to all. Father Joseph Nassar, SJ, who discovered André’s body bathed in blood, cleaned the floor after the initial aid and watered an olive tree he had planted with the mixture of water and blood. Without seeking to confront the Syrian dictatorship or the monolithic Islamist ideology, even as Israel occupied part of Lebanon, Father Kluiters – an apostle of Jesus, of development, and of diversity – continued to move freely throughout the Bekaa. Indifferent to his own safety, he refused to confine himself to Barqa or accept any form of isolation that might distort Jesus’ message or render it exclusive. He was not merely serving Lebanon’s Christians, but the very principle of their “coexistence.” For this, he came to be regarded as a spy for Samir Geagea and was ultimately eliminated from a land that was no longer meant to be “a model of freedom and pluralism for East and West,” but had instead become a penal universe, a prison of thought, and a model of intolerance. His death made Nicolas Kluiters a champion of kenosis of which the Jesuit provincial, Father Dany Younès, would speak during a ceremony honoring Father André Masse, who fell two years later. Echoing Christ’s words, “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord,” Dany Younès said, “Father André Masse relinquished his life to serve a country at war.” He added, “André did not come to die in Lebanon. Yes, his choice cost him his life. But that choice embodies a core value of the Society of Jesus and of Saint Joseph University. Education is always a form of emancipation, a pursuit of peace within a society at war. Remembering André Masse today urges us to nurture the same passion that animated him – the passion for humanity that challenges structures of oppression.” No – neither André Masse, nor Nicolas Kluiters, nor any of the Society of Jesus’ members who fell victim to the war – “came to Lebanon to die.” On the contrary, they came to give life. They came so that the Lebanese – all Lebanese, without distinction of religion – might “have life and have it abundantly.” This truth must be underscored today, as a belligerent nation threatens to excise from Lebanon a territory sanctified by the passage of Christ, one that is dearer still than the Holy Valley, the Cedars, the Sea Castle, the Temple of Baalbek, and the Palace of Beiteddine combined. Read More on the Same Topic: – “He Died So That Lebanon Might Live,” the Ultimate Sacrifice of Father Nicolas Kluiters, SJ – The Martyrdom of Nicolas Kluiters SJ, in Lebanon: Confronting Evil