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Lebanese people often repeat a formula that has become almost axiomatic in describing their crisis: Lebanon is trapped between an "extremist" triad, doctrinal and religious in nature, embodied by Israel, Iran and the United States of America. This expression condenses a profound sense of siege and pressure, and reflects a popular awareness that the country's fate is no longer shaped from within alone. Yet the strength of this narrative lies in its simplicity, while its weakness lies in the risk of concealing the complexity of reality and the multiplicity of its layers. In practice, these three powers cannot be placed in the same category under the heading of "religious extremism" without falling into oversimplification. Religion does play a varying role in the policies of these actors, but it is neither the sole factor nor, in some cases, even the primary one. The more appropriate approach is to understand each party within its own structure, and then to read how these structures intersect on the Lebanese scene.

President Donald Trump's various statements and U-turns will alter relations with the Europeans, NATO, and US allies. They will trigger reactions from Pacific and Middle Eastern countries. Westerners are advocating moderation and want to assume a role in securing the Strait of Hormuz after the cessation of hostilities. Will the United States be sidelined in the region? On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched a military operation against Iran without prior notification to the heads of state and government of Western countries and NATO members. In the aftermath, however, US President Donald Trump requested their support, notably for securing the Strait of Hormuz, but also to provide direct backing to American operations.

Nazi Germany was indeed defeated, but the victory of the Allied armies does not correspond to the victory of their states, with the sole exception of the United States. This is what the experience of the Suez War demonstrated, which ended with a single statement by the American president, to cite but one example among many. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was perhaps realistic in accepting the American nuclear security umbrella and the arrangements that came with it, while General Charles de Gaulle chose to bear the burden of an independent course for French policy, a course that reflected the suffering he had endured at the hands of the Allies during the war, namely the marginalisation to which he was subjected despite his exceptional politico-military role. Washington, for its part, offered no resistance to the French ambition and simply regarded it as a state wishing to exercise self-governance in the nuclear domain, nothing more.

The negotiations between Iranians and Americans, which are in limbo after this long week of back-and-forth in Islamabad, were overshadowed Sunday morning (Levant time) by the news of a failed assassination attempt on US President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. President Trump, in an initial gut reaction, indicated he did not know whether the war in Iran is linked to this assassination attempt. The White House Correspondents' Association dinner, an annual tradition, was expected to unfold peacefully in the presence of President Donald Trump, members of his administration, and numerous political figures. But a (new) assassination attempt against the most powerful man in the world took place in this prestigious, highly secure environment of the Washington Hilton. A man armed with 'multiple weapons', according to initial reports, was able to bypass all security barriers to approach the hall where practically all the country's top leaders were gathered, and open fire.

Editor's note: The following study is not meant to be read in one sitting, but in segments. The author apologizes in advance to the reader, but the academic approach followed could not allow for a split into several articles or a summary that would weaken its substance and nuances. Mea maxima culpa, therefore. In early April 2026, Israel circulated a “new” map of southern Lebanon, highlighting a zone of approximately ten kilometres north of the border inside Lebanese territory, coloured in yellow, representing the geographic space that its army has occupied since the beginning of its military offensive in March.

Lebanon and the Lebanese cannot confront the challenges facing the country while divided to this degree over the great strategic choices, especially the question of how to deal with the Israeli occupation and resolve the issue of confining weapons to the state, a legitimate, self-evident demand recognized in every country in the world, for there is no state that accepts the existence of an armed faction beyond its control, capable of igniting a major war not merely without its consent but without so much as consulting it. The lines of vertical fracture in Lebanon keep widening, and the rift among the Lebanese deepens by the day, until Lebanese political discourse finds itself confined between two poles: one racing toward a peace whose conditions have not yet ripened, and another retreating into the field without reading the exceptional transformations the region has witnessed over the past three years, from uncontested Israeli supremacy to the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria to the American-Israeli-Iranian war.