Jad Akhawi

History does not remember only the cities where wars came to an end. It remembers the cities where new political orders were born. That is why Rome may one day be remembered not merely as the city that hosted another round of negotiations between Lebanon and Israel, but as the place where the process of reshaping Lebanon’s political and security architecture began after a war that profoundly altered the regional balance of power. The meetings scheduled in Rome are about far more than a ceasefire, an Israeli withdrawal, or a prisoner exchange, important as those issues undoubtedly are. They form part of a broader process aimed at translating the outcome of the war into a new political reality capable of preventing any return to the pre-war status quo.

Since the end of the July 2006 war, Lebanese observers and foreign analysts alike have tended to measure Hezbollah’s strength by the number of missiles it possessed, the size of its arsenal, or its ability to threaten Israel. Today, however, events call for an entirely different yardstick. The question is no longer how many weapons the group still retains, but whether it remains capable of rebuilding the military strength it spent more than four decades constructing. This lies at the heart of the current phase. Following the meeting between Lebanese President General Joseph Aoun and U.S. President Donald Trump, the sustained U.S. diplomatic engagement that preceded and followed it, the negotiations underway in Rome, and the increasingly persistent discussion surrounding the expansion of the Lebanese Army’s deployment and the linkage between reconstruction and the restoration of the Lebanese state’s authority over security decisions, it has become increasingly clear that the international approach no longer seeks simply to disarm Hezbollah through political agreement or military action. Instead, it aims to make the reconstitution of its military capabilities increasingly difficult, if not impossible.

For more than three decades, Lebanese politics has been closely associated with the name of Nabih Berri. Since assuming the speakership of Parliament in 1992, Berri has outlasted presidents, prime ministers, regional wars, international interventions, and profound geopolitical transformations. He has become far more than the head of the legislative branch. He established himself as one of the principal architects of post-Taif Lebanon and the undisputed political leader of the Amal Movement. Yet politics inevitably raises the same question whenever a leader remains in power for so long: what comes next?

During major periods of geopolitical transformation, states are not always the driving force behind events. Yet they can find themselves in a position that allows them to redefine their role. Lebanon, which for decades has served as an arena for regional and international rivalries, may now be facing a rare opportunity to move from being a country shaped by crises to one capable of helping shape a new phase in the region. This prospect comes at a time of profound change across the Middle East, as regional and international powers reassess their priorities after years of open conflict. One of the key questions is whether the difficulties facing the US-Iran understanding process could lead to a reordering of priorities, making the strengthening of the Lebanese state part of a broader regional approach.

At every decisive moment in Lebanon’s history, the same rhetoric resurfaces: threats to bring down the government, warnings of yet another collapse, and an escalating political confrontation. Yet the question is no longer whether Nabih Berri can topple the government. The real question has become far simpler: what comes next? What is the alternative? What vision does he offer for Lebanon? And how is the country expected to emerge from its crisis if it once again slips into the vicious cycle of political and institutional paralysis? If opposition to the framework agreement genuinely stems from a desire to defend Lebanon’s sovereignty, then those who reject it should put forward a clear, realistic and workable alternative. Simply calling for the government’s downfall without presenting the slightest roadmap offers the Lebanese nothing but deeper uncertainty.

Every time Lebanon edges closer to a serious attempt at restructuring its relationship with its surroundings and with itself, a ready-made narrative resurfaces, reducing every negotiation process to a matter of 'surrender.' This label is no longer a simple political disagreement — it has become a tool for systematically blocking any process that could rehabilitate the very notion of statehood. Even more troubling, it is used to strip the state of its own legitimacy whenever it performs its natural role: negotiating and making decisions. The proposed framework agreement is not a surrender. On the contrary: it represents an advanced attempt to reintegrate Lebanon into the circle of states that hold sovereign decision-making power exclusively through their institutions — not through parallel power centers or entities operating outside the state.

Every time Hezbollah faces a political, military, or popular crisis, its leaders return to the same lexicon: resistance, victory, sovereignty, the rejection of any tutelage. Heavy words, charged with strong emotion, yet losing more of their persuasive power among the Lebanese with each passing day, as the gap between the rhetoric and the reality keeps widening. In his latest speech, Hezbollah's secretary general, Sheikh Naim Qassem, claimed that the Party remained faithful to the Taif Agreement and the Lebanese Constitution, that its weapons were aimed at Israel, and that it was facing projects of foreign allegiance and tutelage. A statement that appears coherent at first glance, but collapses the moment it meets the facts.

Amid the political and media clamour surrounding the ongoing negotiations between Lebanon and Israel under American sponsorship, many are absorbed by the traditional question: does Israel want peace? Are we standing before a new phase in relations between the two countries, or merely facing security arrangements imposed by the balance of power that emerged from the war? But the truth is that this question, however important, is not the most important one for Lebanon. The fundamental question today does not concern what Israel wants, but what Lebanon has managed to reclaim for itself after long decades of confiscation of its national decision-making.

Every year, when the second of June comes around, Samir Kassir rises back into memory as though he had never truly left. The years go by, faces change, circumstances and events follow one upon another, yet there are certain people the passing of time cannot reduce to mere remembrance. They remain present in the details of our lives, in the words we write, in the ideas we defend, in the dreams that never had time to be fulfilled. Twenty-one years have passed since the assassination of Samir Kassir, and I still have the feeling that that ill-fated morning has not really ended. Samir was not, for me, a journalist or a writer or a thinker whose articles and ideas I followed from a distance. He was a friend, an exceptional human being who possessed that rare ability to reconcile profound culture with human simplicity, intellectual boldness with personal warmth.

In a moment of acute regional sensitivity, where Lebanon’s security dossiers intersect with the trajectory of regional and international negotiations, three closely intertwined themes impose themselves on the domestic landscape: the threats of Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem, the controversy surrounding attempts to reposition the “Lebanese card” in the regional bargaining game, and the dossier of displaced persons and their encampments within the capital, particularly in densely populated neighborhoods such as Bechara al-Khoury. These themes, despite their apparent divergence, point in their depths to one and the same question: to what extent does Lebanon remain a state capable of asserting control over its own decision-making and controlling its security and social boundaries?