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Mali has been traversing a multidimensional crisis since 2012, one whose roots plunge into the Libyan collapse, which flooded the Sahel with weapons and fighters, durably transforming the entire region’s security balance. That year, Tuareg rebels had proclaimed the independence of the country’s north before being rapidly supplanted by their Islamist allies linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. France then intervened militarily in 2013 to contain the jihadist advance, without ever managing to eradicate it. The following decade was, for Mali, one of continuous deterioration. The 2015 Algiers peace accords between Bamako and the northern armed movements were never fully implemented. Terrorism spread into the centre and south of the country, and intercommunal violence intensified. In 2020 and again in 2021, two successive coups brought Colonel Assimi Goïta to power, whose military junta named itself the “Transition” — pending a return to constitutional order — yet this supposedly provisional arrangement has now persisted for five years without any credible electoral horizon in sight.

The standoff between the Lebanese presidency and Hezbollah – and President Joseph Aoun’s resolve to press ahead with direct negotiations with Israel under Washington’s auspices – is reportedly placing his life at risk. The warning surfaced over the past 24 hours from an unlikely source: Israeli intelligence services. A report aired by Israel’s Channel 12 cited a military intelligence briefing indicating that “the involvement of the Lebanese president in direct negotiations with Israel could endanger his life.” According to local broadcaster MTV Lebanon, the information is being taken seriously at Baabda Palace, the seat of the presidency. Even so, Aoun appears unwilling to back down from his commitment to pursuing an agreement with Tel Aviv aimed at ending the conflict into which Hezbollah has drawn the country.

A growing number of Western analysts contend that the United States has failed to achieve its objectives in the war with Iran. This assessment is largely driven by the surge in global oil prices, which has rippled through the global economy and is being felt acutely in the rising cost of everyday goods in the United States – a recurring theme in the American press. For these same observers, Iran appears to hold the stronger hand in ongoing negotiations. But how accurate is that view? A Closer Look at the War’s Underlying Motives George Friedman, a geopolitical analyst, says he is not convinced that Benjamin Netanyahu was able to draw Donald Trump into the war. Not only, he argues, is the latter difficult to persuade, but Iran’s nuclear program is of far greater concern to the United States than to Israel.

The philosophical question of what comes first, the chicken or the egg, appears almost simple when set against the issue the country now faces: a (peace) agreement whose signing is made conditional on the disarmament of Hezbollah. This condition – set by our government, imposed by Israel, and desired by a growing majority of the Lebanese population – cannot, however, be met within a set timeframe. Moreover, whether through the Lebanese army or through strikes on Hezbollah positions, the militia’s arsenal remains operational. The problem is not only the presence of weapons, but also the infiltration of the militia into certain segments of the state apparatus. The militia paralyzes any measures taken against it and, worse, triggers internal unrest, while also raising the specter of mutiny aboard a drifting vessel that has already begun to sink.

Tuesday, April 28 in Lebanon was still shaped by the starkly opposing speeches delivered a day earlier by President Joseph Aoun on the one hand, and Hezbollah secretary-general Naïm Qassem on the other. The former’s address was, in effect, a response to the latter. The president argued that the real “treason” of which he has been accused by the pro-Iranian camp since the launch of direct negotiations with Israel – aimed at ending the war triggered by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon – should instead be attributed to those driving the country into a spiral of destruction and violence. Unsurprisingly, the unprecedented response of a sitting president to the leader of a militia – one that, until the end of 2024, maintained a firm grip on the Lebanese state – has divided the country along its familiar political fault lines.

The break seems complete, at least at the current stage, between President of the Republic Joseph Aoun and Hezbollah. In response to the smear campaign waged against him by pro-Iranian party circles, who practically treat him as a “traitor” due to the direct negotiations initiated with Israel, the Head of State responded directly to his detractors on Monday, in front of a delegation from Arkoub and Hasbaya. He thus stated, quite aptly and with complete frankness, in a clear allusion to Hezbollah, that “true treason is that of which those who drag the country into war to serve foreign interests are guilty.”