Analyze

The war in Ukraine continues to be at the center of a wide-ranging debate, fueled in part by near-daily bombardments targeting key nerve centers on both sides, and more specifically the Russian and Ukrainian capitals. In order to better understand the various dimensions of this long-standing conflict, it is necessary to revisit the background and origins of what led to this (fratricidal?) war—by examining the motivations and aspirations of the different parties involved, including the West (the United States and Europe, extended to all NATO member states with the exception of Turkey), and by also recalling the early stages of the Russian offensive and the failed attempts to reach peace, or at least to open negotiations, bearing in mind that responsibility in this context is shared by many. To fully grasp the ins and outs of the various aspects of the war in Ukraine, some fundamental questions should be raised from the outset. What do Russia and Ukraine represent for the West? What could be the concrete implications of a clear-cut victory by either of the two protagonists? And by the same token, what would the consequences be for the West and the Middle East? In a series of five articles, Jean-Patrick Dayras , a rear admiral in the French Navy, sets out his vision and analysis of the issue. Ukraine could have been a state associated with Europe without being a member, or a candidate for membership, let alone belonging to NATO. In this regard, blame can be directed at the United States and Europe, not forgetting Great Britain. At the Ukrainian level, regrettable mistakes were made toward the Russian-speaking population and in the eastern regions. A firm stance that demonstrated a constructive approach toward Russia, along with a desire to maintain close ties with a country where many Ukrainians live, could have smoothed things over and led to a partnership with both Europe and Russia. This is not certain, but it should have been attempted. Europeans, the United States, Russia, and Ukraine all bear a share of the responsibility—and all have lost. Why could such an agreement not have succeeded? For the West, its posture has strengthened the BRICS+ and all the countries turning toward that association of states rather than toward the democracies seeking to forcibly impose their way of governing—and of governing the world. Over time, three points deserve to be highlighted on the list of faults (not mistakes, but faults—implying culpability): The Minsk 1 and 2 agreements, which were never implemented Angela Merkel and François Hollande bear a significant share of responsibility in this regard. Following the Russian invasion, both Angela Merkel and François Hollande stated in interviews that the Minsk agreements were never, in their view, intended to be implemented, but rather served to buy Ukraine time to strengthen its military. . These statements sparked considerable controversy. For Russia, they were presented as proof that the agreements had never been negotiated in good faith. Merkel and Hollande responded that their goal had been to prevent a broader war in 2014–2015, and that the strengthening of Ukrainian capabilities had become a consequence of the absence of a lasting settlement, not the sole purpose of the agreements. It is difficult to attribute the failure to implement Minsk solely to Hollande or Merkel. Their responsibility is generally analyzed as that of mediators who failed to ensure the agreements were upheld, rather than as primary decision-makers. The responsibilities most frequently highlighted concern the parties directly involved in the conflict—Ukraine, Russia, and the separatist authorities—who held incompatible interpretations of the order in which commitments were to be implemented. Historians and specialists do not all agree on the interpretation of these statements. However, they generally agree that the Minsk agreements were extremely difficult to get off the ground , because the two sides disagreed on the sequence of their implementation: Ukraine wanted security and border control first, while Russia insisted on political reforms and the status of Donbass first. Boris Johnson's conduct was not honorable Reassuring Ukrainians by guaranteeing them full support along with the supply of weapons and ammunition ensuring a swift victory is a culpable act — even a deadly one. Negotiation is far preferable to war, less costly in human lives, shattered lives, destruction, financial cost, and the fierce hatred that lingers between two closely connected peoples. This was foreseeable, as these consequences had already been clearly visible in the Balkans. Russia's strategic blunders . Russia clearly made what is known in geostrategic or war colleges as assumptions about the enemy — erroneous assumptions, in this case. The entry into Ukraine, without a declaration of war, rallied the entire Ukrainian people, whose response stands as an example to be admired. Putin presumably believed the government would be overthrown or collapse on its own, allowing him to turn Ukraine into another Belarus subservient to Moscow. Putin misread the nature of this war. It did not follow any sound military strategy. It was a political strategy — and a poor one — built on false assumptions: that a supposedly weak government, led by a man of communication with no great stature, would fall. Subsequent events proved that Zelensky was indeed firmly in American hands. On a tactical level, it was no more impressive. The massive deployment of tanks required fuel and ammunition resupply. Clearly, those needs were not met. This is the classic case of 'logistics will follow.' No — logistics must at least keep pace, and ideally lead the way. The United States understood this well and demonstrated it, notably during the liberation of Kuwait. The drone threat was underestimated, if not outright ignored. The Russians were fighting against a country that, though invaded, was highly industrialized, with skilled and resourceful people — as they proved. This was no longer the Great Patriotic War that had been widely publicized for decades and instilled in young Russians from the earliest age. It was a different kind of war, with nothing patriotic about it. For the Ukrainians, however, it was exactly that — a patriotic war: their country was invaded, their land occupied, their homes and cities destroyed, their women raped, wounded, or killed, as were their children. They were fighting on their own soil, for their homeland, their country, and their loved ones. The government did not fall; it is still in place, even if it is not best positioned to enter into peace negotiations. It may be time to consider bringing in a new leader and a new team for Ukraine, with a different vision for their future, while remaining firmly determined to negotiate hard against Putin. Preconditions for entering negotiations are very often guaranteed roadblocks leading to failure. This is indeed the case here. Other responsibilities contributing to the prolongation of the war : The highly (overly) active political maneuvering of the Baltic states and Poland in particular — even though the latter has recently been revising its position — directed at European countries and the European Commission under the "orders" of a woman who does not live up to expectations in her role: Mrs. Von der Leyen. The funding of Ukraine by the United States and Europe — some of which may be diverted from its intended purpose — and increasingly by Europe alone as the US steps back from resolving this conflict, is fueling the continuation of the war and Ukrainian resistance, and therefore Ukrainian demands. Mr. Zelensky tugs at European heads of state and government by the sleeve, sometimes in a threatening tone, to secure ever more costly handouts for Europe and for France. What is not being addressed: Politicians, in Europe as elsewhere, do not particularly appreciate having their weaknesses or their abuses of power and influence over their constituents' conscience called out. From Maidan onward, one was expected to support Ukraine — those poor Ukrainians suffering under the Russian yoke, especially the young. What a convenient sales pitch: to claim that young people are oppressed by a regime, as if being young automatically conferred intelligence and a clear understanding of the world. In France, we might recall the sorry and disheartening episode of May 1968, so heavy with consequences that persist to this day: the beginning of the erosion of the state, of authority — especially paternal authority — then of the family; of the school system, inevitably, and of the work ethic. Unfortunately, Western politicians, particularly in Western Europe, appeal to emotion and sentimentality. Everything that happens must be interpreted, seen, and judged through the lens of feelings. In 2014, even more so in 2022, and today more than ever, the mantra must be: 'I love Ukraine; I love Ukrainians. Russians are savages, rapists, killers.' As if all wars and all armies did not share similar traits, to varying degrees, of course. Are the French supposed to love Zelensky? They do, apparently. Politicians, television studio strategists, and mainstream media say so and repeat it endlessly. What exactly is so lovable about Mr. Zelensky? More so than Putin? No — one should love neither Mr. Putin (obviously) nor the Russians (but why are they to be shunned?). They are all corrupt. Need we be reminded that in 2014, Ukraine was considered one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and that this problem is far from having been eradicated? So we are supposed to love those whom the West enables to survive, yet who divert a portion of the aid. Others have emigrated to Europe and are waiting for hostilities to end before returning to Ukraine once peace is secured. The West conducts geopolitics through emotion — at least through the emotions of its population. But that is not a sound mode of reasoning, reflection, or analysis. That is not how relations between nations should be shaped. Countries have no friends, only interests. It is by that measure that our leaders must determine their positions and their relationships with their counterparts. The West conducts geopolitics through emotion. Putin certainly does not — nor, for that matter, does Zelensky. The latter has frequently behaved in an authoritarian and demanding manner toward Europe and its member states, who are expected to meet his every demand. Next article The impact of a Ukrainian or Russian victory (4/5) Also worth reading on the same topic How the West chose Ukraine (1/5) War in Ukraine: the failure of the first peace efforts (2/5)

The scene was impeccably choreographed in the Oval Office on Tuesday, July 21, 2026. On one side, Donald Trump, promising military aid and offering a spectacular economic opening by lifting a forty-year-old aviation embargo. On the other, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, brandishing an official document presented as the definitive roadmap for disarming Hezbollah. To Western observers, the trade-off looked perfect: an extension of Lebanese state sovereignty in exchange for American sponsorship to permanently drive Iranian influence out of the Levant. Yet behind the obligatory smiles, handshakes, embraces, and witty remarks, this summit — however promising — risks becoming yet another diplomatic illusion. The enthusiasm on display in Washington deliberately glosses over three structural blind spots that temper this optimism: the limits of American pressure on Israel; the Lebanese state's lack of credibility when it comes to touching the pro-Iranian militia's weapons; and the Iranian factor itself. The equation put forward by Joseph Aoun rests on a principle of strict conditionality — namely, that Hezbollah's disarmament is contingent on a full and permanent withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon. This is a classic stance, one Aoun has announced on several occasions already, and making it at the White House helped calm the political storm in Beirut that preceded the summit — but Washington has limited leverage when it comes to Israeli security as seen through Israel's own lens. Donald Trump stated that Israel is "in the process of withdrawing," reflecting a flexible attitude toward both Tel Aviv and Beirut, yet no binding timeline was announced. The Israeli military answers only to its own national security doctrine, which demands the immediate right to monitor and intervene militarily in response to any perceived threat. This requirement for shared or violated sovereignty is fundamentally incompatible with the plan championed by the Lebanese presidency. The warning shots fired by Israeli forces at our army in Zawtar al-Gharbiya, just hours before the summit, served as a reminder that on the Blue Line, it is the Israeli military that sets the tempo — not State Department communiqués. Donald Trump, whose support for Israel remains the cornerstone of his Middle East policy, will never risk a frontal break with his ally. Without an absolute guarantee that Hezbollah's weapons will be eliminated, American pressure will remain superficial and the Israeli withdrawal will stall. On this same point, serious doubts hang over the credibility of the Lebanese executive. The international community places little faith in a disarmament plan that is essentially a repeat of the one drawn up in August 2025, when Israel withdrew from Lebanese territory except for five points adjacent to the border. Moreover, given the past twenty years, the universal political memory demands skepticism. From the hollow promises of the 2006 national dialogue to the Doha Accords of 2008, through the Baabda Declaration of 2012, and spanning the Israeli withdrawals of 2006 and 2025 under Resolution 1701 — every text ostensibly designed to place weapons under exclusive state control has ended up in the dustbin of history. The plan Aoun presented to Trump seems unlikely to escape that fate: it appears to have been drafted without the consent of the Shia armed factions — Hezbollah and Amal — which hold a significant share of political decision-making power in Beirut. Furthermore, President Aoun implied at the White House that Berri supports an end to the war — a statement that only deepens the diplomatic ambiguity. That said, this summit was more than necessary, not least because it keeps a process alive — the only one currently capable of maintaining a minimum of calm in the South. The Lebanese army, which Washington sees as a potential replacement force, is a respected institution — but it will not engage in a direct confrontation to seize Hezbollah's missiles north of the Litani River. This is clearly the intention of President Joseph Aoun, since his team's calculations suggest that such a move risks spiraling into socio-political instability — even though residents of the south are generally eager to see troops deployed in their villages, and even though Hezbollah is showing clear signs of weakening. As such, this Hezbollah disarmament plan leaked in Washington looks more like a communications strategy than a solid plan — or one that actually contributes to maintaining stability. Hezbollah, for its part, retains a capacity for disruption that it will not hesitate to exploit, despite its weakened state. The pro-Iranian militia, together with its ally Nabih Berri, can paralyze the state from within or engineer calculated armed incidents in the so-called "pilot zones" of the South — or beyond them — to provoke an Israeli response, thereby demonstrating to the world the impotence of the Lebanese army. Beyond the optimism generated by this summit — centered on Washington's support for the army and pressure to restore stability — and despite the significant obstacles facing Joseph Aoun's plan, the real surprise lies in the reopening of direct air routes with the United States. While the move offers an undeniable economic and psychological boost to the diaspora and the tourism sector, it should also be read as a political signal that Beirut's airport is now firmly under Lebanese army oversight — which is an extremely positive development. As for the rest, in the medium term, Lebanon's horizon through the end of 2026 is far from one of peaceful normalization or an orderly disarmament process. It is, rather, one of an armed status quo under international surveillance, with cautious hope that the pilot zones will serve as a springboard for broader measures. Lebanon will thus continue to navigate by sight, in a geopolitical environment undergoing profound change.

For the first time since 2009, a Lebanese president walked through the doors of the White House this week not as a supplicant coming to beg for attention, but as the bearer of a plan. On Tuesday, President Joseph Aoun sat across from Donald Trump and handed him a written proposal: a roadmap to dismantle Hezbollah's arsenal, consolidate all weapons in the country under the exclusive authority of the Lebanese state, and in return, secure an Israeli withdrawal from the territory the Israeli army still occupies in the south. Trump, for his part, struck an almost paternal tone. "We feel very good about Lebanon," he told reporters, adding that the country had been "very badly treated" and deserved to be "treated with the respect it deserves." He acknowledged in the same breath that "there is a Hezbollah problem" — as if he were diagnosing, in a single phrase, both Lebanon's tragedy and its opportunity. It would be easy to see this visit as nothing more than symbolism dressed up as substance — a communications exercise for a president eager to show both Lebanese voters and Gulf donors that Beirut has friends in Washington again. It would be equally easy to see it as just another chapter in the long history of American envoys and framework agreements that promised much and delivered little. But that reading would miss what is genuinely new here — and what is genuinely at stake. For the first time in decades, it is the Lebanese state — not a militia, not a foreign patron, not a sectarian warlord — that is coming to the table with a plan of its own. Whether that plan succeeds or fails will determine whether Lebanon spends the next generation as a sovereign country, or remains, as it has for fifty years, a battlefield rented out for other people's wars. A president without a militia, but with an army Joseph Aoun's biography itself is inseparable from the moment now unfolding in Washington. He was elected president on January 9, 2025, ending a paralyzing two-year vacancy during which parliament had failed twelve times to elect a head of state. He arrived at the Baabda Palace not as a party leader or dynastic heir, but as the outgoing commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces — a choice engineered in large part by intense lobbying from Washington and Riyadh, both of which saw in Aoun a rare figure who enjoyed the trust of Lebanon's various communities and was untainted by the militia politics that had hollowed out the Lebanese state since the civil war. His election was itself a symptom of Hezbollah's diminished power: bloodied by fifteen months of war with Israel, deprived of Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and much of its leadership, and with its Iranian patron consumed by its own troubles, the party could no longer do what it had done for two years — block a president it did not fully control. This context matters enormously for understanding what happened this week. Aoun did not go to Washington as a mediator shuttling between Hezbollah and Israel. He went as the elected head of state of a country that, for the first time in two generations, is attempting to act like one — asserting a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, a principle so fundamental to the very notion of statehood that it had scarcely needed to be stated in Lebanon for fifty years, its absence being taken for granted; and whose reassertion is today so remarkable that it has become the central fact of Lebanese political life. The trilateral framework agreement and the hidden clauses of sovereignty This visit did not take place in a vacuum. On June 26, following five rounds of indirect and direct talks held under Washington's auspices, Lebanese and Israeli representatives signed what is now known as the Trilateral Framework Agreement — the first agreement of any kind between the two states since the short-lived 1983 peace accord, which collapsed under Syrian and domestic pressure less than a year after it was signed. Signed by the two countries' ambassadors in Washington in the presence of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the fourteen-point agreement commits both parties, "with the full support of the United States," to work toward ending their state of conflict, to guarantee each other's sovereignty and security, and ultimately to normalize their relations. Lebanese officials were careful — and caution was warranted, given that the word "normalization" remains politically explosive in Lebanon — to frame it as a security and sovereignty framework rather than a peace treaty. But its logic points in only one direction. It is the agreement's mechanisms that deserve Beirut's closest attention, as they reveal both its promises and its limitations. The agreement does not require Israel to withdraw from the strip of Lebanese territory it has occupied since the ceasefire that ended the war in November 2024. Instead, it creates what are called "pilot zones": two limited perimeters — one south of the Litani River but outside Israel's initial security zone, the other a narrow strip north of the Litani, within that zone — from which Israeli forces would withdraw in exchange for a verified deployment of the Lebanese army and the dismantlement of any Hezbollah military infrastructure found there. It was into one of these pilot zones, the locality of Zawtar el-Gharbiyeh, that Lebanese troops entered on the very day of the Aoun-Trump meeting, alongside Froun and Srifa, the two other villages covered by this first phase. The deliberately calculated message was clear: the state moves when it says it will, and the army — not any armed faction — is its instrument. This is the plan Aoun brought to the Oval Office: a proposal aimed at accelerating and expanding this model, backed by a written proposal on dismantling Hezbollah's remaining arsenal, in exchange for Trump pressuring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend the withdrawal beyond the two symbolic pilot zones and fully honor the original terms of the ceasefire. Trump notably indicated that he would be willing to engage directly with Hezbollah if Aoun asked him to — an offer that, whatever its practical value, signals a White House more invested in stabilizing Lebanon than it has been since the presidency of George W. Bush. Netanyahu's red line, and why it must not dictate Lebanon's terms If Lebanon's state ambitions have a ceiling, it is currently set in Israel. Visiting troops stationed in the occupied strip of southern Lebanon just weeks before Aoun's trip, Netanyahu left no room for ambiguity: Israeli forces "will not leave southern Lebanon until the threat is eliminated" — a formulation that ties withdrawal neither to a timeline nor to Lebanese sovereignty, but solely to Israel's unilateral judgment about when Hezbollah has been sufficiently disarmed. It has continued to authorize near-daily strikes on Lebanese territory, which Beirut regards as a blatant violation of the ceasefire, and Israeli forces continue to occupy what are now known as the "five hills" — heights located just inside Lebanese territory — which Hezbollah, and increasingly the Lebanese government itself, cite as the most concrete proof that it is Israel, not Hezbollah, that is today violating the very heart of the deal struck by the November 2024 ceasefire. That observation deserves careful scrutiny, because it exposes the uncomfortable asymmetry running through the entire disarmament project. The Lebanese state is being asked to carry out a concrete, verifiable, and sequenced task — collecting and destroying an entire non-state arsenal built up over four decades — on a fixed political timeline, while Israel's reciprocal obligation, withdrawal, remains hostage to an Israeli threat assessment that is subjective and indefinitely revisable. Amnesty International's assessment of the framework agreement was blunt on this point, describing it as a deal that "betrays the victims of war crimes" by failing to attach any accountability mechanism to the continued Israeli strikes on Lebanese civilians, even as it demands unilateral disarmament on the Lebanese side. None of this argues against disarmament — quite the contrary. It argues for the Lebanese state, and its friends abroad, to insist that the obligations of the framework agreement run in both directions, and that the leverage Washington holds over Netanyahu — which Trump proved this week he is willing to use — be generously employed to secure the withdrawal from the "five hills" and an end to the strikes, rather than simply lecturing Beirut about deadlines. The formulation Aoun used with his American counterparts — that only Trump has the leverage needed to move Netanyahu — is not a rhetorical flourish. It is an accurate assessment of where real power lies in this equation, and an implicit way of demanding that Washington use it. Hezbollah's refusal, and the ground shifting beneath its feet Unsurprisingly, Hezbollah has accepted none of this. In the days before Aoun's departure for Washington, Secretary-General Naim Qassem delivered one of his sharpest public statements, calling the June framework agreement "null and void," an "humiliation," and a deal written "entirely in Israel's favor." He urged Aoun to abandon it outright and pursue only indirect negotiations, insisting that "the priority is to restore sovereignty and end the Israeli presence" — a formulation that inverts the very sequencing the government has adopted, and that would, in practice, grant Hezbollah an indefinite veto over the state's monopoly on arms, by conditioning disarmament on an Israeli withdrawal that the very maintenance of its own weaponry gives Israel every pretext to delay. The double trap Hezbollah is attempting to construct here must be named, because it is the true rhetorical battleground of the entire disarmament debate. The party says it will not disarm as long as Israeli troops remain on Lebanese soil. Israel says it will not withdraw as long as Hezbollah remains armed. Both positions may be sincerely held, and both conveniently serve to indefinitely postpone the true test of sovereignty that Lebanon has been awaiting ever since the 1989 Taif Agreement promised — but never delivered — the dissolution of all militias. The Lebanese government's task — and it is to Aoun's credit that his government has begun to grasp this — is to break that cycle rather than referee it, by demonstrating through deployments in pilot zones that the state can extend its authority in good faith independently of Hezbollah's cooperation, and by using that demonstrated good faith to secure, through Washington rather than through Hezbollah's arsenal, real and verifiable Israeli reciprocity. There are signs that this cycle is already beginning to crack, and that Hezbollah knows it. When Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Beirut earlier this year reportedly carrying cash for the party, Lebanese authorities are said to have blocked the funds from entering the country — a minor but telling episode that would have been unthinkable in Lebanese political economy just three years ago, when the channels linking Hezbollah to Tehran operated with complete impunity. Araghchi has since stated diplomatically that Iran "supports whatever decision the party makes" but "does not interfere" — a calculated retreat from the days when Iranian officials presented Hezbollah's arsenal as a non-negotiable pillar of regional deterrence. Aoun, for his part, has been unusually candid in return, telling interlocutors that Hezbollah's decisions ultimately lie with Tehran, and declaring — in terms that would have been politically dangerous for any Lebanese president to utter a decade ago — that "no one negotiates on our behalf." The Axis of Resistance, weakened by the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, by Israel's decapitation of Hezbollah's leadership, and by Iran's own preoccupations with its domestic conflicts, is simply no longer the force it was when the last disarmament attempt collapsed in 2006. There is no guarantee of success this time. But the balance of constraints has shifted, for the first time in decades, in favor of the state. Hezbollah and its Iranian patron find themselves, more broadly, in a significantly weakened position across the region. The American-Iranian confrontation in the Gulf is straining the financial and military resources Tehran can direct toward its regional proxies, while the Syrian army has tightened its surveillance along the border, expanding its presence in frontier areas and shutting down the illegal crossings and smuggling tunnels that once served to resupply Hezbollah. This effort is squeezing the party from another angle: its stockpile of missiles, drones, and ammunition has already been substantially depleted by Israeli strikes and months of fighting, and the closure of the Syrian corridor is complicating efforts to replenish what has been lost, while also cutting off the financing pipelines that once ran through Damascus. Finally, the destruction visited upon southern Lebanon, and the hundreds of thousands of people it has displaced, has eroded support for Hezbollah within the very communities it claims to defend — a political and moral cost that may prove harder to reverse than any military loss. Gulf money, and the leverage it buys If Washington provides the diplomatic engine of this process, the Gulf provides its economic logic — with a directness that Lebanese elites of an earlier generation, accustomed to Gulf patronage that came with few strings attached, have found unsettling. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait have told Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam directly that reconstruction and investment funds will be contingent on a disarmament plan with a concrete timeline — not merely a vague aspiration. Tom Barrack, the Trump administration's envoy for the region, described this arrangement in nearly transactional terms: Gulf governments, he said, had signaled to Beirut that "if you do these things, we will come to southern Lebanon and finance an industrial zone, reconstruction, and jobs." Under this logic, Saudi Arabia and Qatar would invest directly in the south once Hezbollah's weapons are gone, turning the very territory that housed a militia's infrastructure for four decades into a showcase of what a disarmed, state-controlled Lebanon could look like economically. The scale of what is being held in reserve pending disarmament is not trivial. The World Bank's rapid damage and needs assessment puts Lebanon's total reconstruction and recovery needs from the 2024 war at roughly $11 billion, including $4.6 billion in damage to the housing sector alone and $3.4 billion in additional losses to trade, industry, and tourism. Lebanon's economy, already hollowed out since the financial collapse of 2019, contracted by a further 7.1% in 2024 as a result of the war. Washington is reported to have approved a $230 million package specifically intended to support disarmament operations carried out by the Lebanese army, and a broader international conference on support for the Lebanese armed forces — expected in the coming months — is meant to coordinate funding that will give the army the means to genuinely enforce the state's monopoly on weapons, rather than merely proclaiming it. This, in short, is the incentive package the Lebanese state has never had at its disposal before: a credible, well-resourced international coalition ready to concretely fund the benefits of disarmament, rather than simply demanding it in words. It gives Beirut something to offer the skeptical communities of the south — the Shia towns and villages that have hosted Hezbollah's infrastructure for a generation — who will need to see tangible development, not just foreign lectures on sovereignty, for the state's presence to be seen as a genuine improvement rather than occupation by another name. Money alone will not dissolve eighty years of sectarian mistrust. But without it, no Lebanese government could reasonably ask the south to trade a familiar armed patron for a promise of state protection that has never yet been tested. The UN steps back as the state steps forward Another structural shift deserves attention, as it will reshape the security architecture of southern Lebanon regardless of how the disarmament talks unfold: the United Nations Security Council has voted to end UNIFIL, the peacekeeping mission that has patrolled the Lebanese-Israeli border since 1978, with its mandate and operations set to conclude at the end of 2026. For nearly fifty years, UNIFIL has been both indispensable and insufficient — an observer presence without the mandate or firepower to actually disarm Hezbollah, yet one whose blue helmets provided a diplomatic buffer and an internationally recognized eye on a volatile border. Its withdrawal removes that buffer at precisely the moment the Lebanese army is being asked to take full responsibility for territory that UNIFIL once helped monitor. Read cynically, the decision could look like the international community washing its hands of a problem it managed without solving for half a century, leaving Beirut alone to face Israeli military superiority and Hezbollah's residual capabilities. Read with greater optimism — and it is this optimism that the Aoun government appears to have embraced — the UNIFIL withdrawal acts as a notice mechanism, a firm deadline that no longer allows the Lebanese army the option of remaining a subordinate partner in the south of its own country. Which of these two readings proves correct will depend almost entirely on whether the international funding and training promised alongside disarmament materializes on the timeline the army needs, rather than on the one that suits foreign budgetary cycles. What Restoring the State Actually Requires It is worth clarifying what "restoring the Lebanese state" means in this context, since the phrase is invoked by every faction in Beirut for different — and often contradictory — purposes. It does not simply mean deploying soldiers to villages once controlled by Hezbollah, even if that is a necessary first step — the very one currently underway in the pilot zones. More fundamentally, it means reestablishing the constitutional principle — enshrined in the Taif Agreement thirty-six years ago and never enforced — that the Lebanese state alone holds the legitimate monopoly on organized violence within its territory. Every other unresolved crisis in Lebanese governance — from the paralysis of successive governments to the country's inability to conduct an independent foreign policy, to the collapse of its banking sector — traces back in one way or another to the existence of a non-state armed actor more powerful than the army that is supposed to answer to elected civilian authority. The Aoun government, along with Prime Minister Salam's cabinet standing beside it, has made a calculated bet that the moment has finally come to enforce this principle — not through the kind of confrontation that plunged Lebanon into civil war in 1975 or brought Hezbollah's armed men into the streets of Beirut in May 2008, but through a negotiated, internationally guaranteed, and economically incentivized sequence that offers what remains of Hezbollah's base an honorable way out, and the Shia communities of the south a tangible stake in the state's success. It is a bet grounded in an honest reading of the regional balance of power: a Hezbollah stripped of its top commanders and much of its arsenal by the 2024 Israeli campaign; an Iran consumed by its own confrontations and unable to resupply or reconstitute the party as it once did; a Syrian regime that no longer provides Hezbollah with the logistical corridor it relied on for decades; and a US-Gulf bloc more willing than at any point since 2006 to invest genuine diplomatic and financial capital in building the Lebanese state, rather than simply managing Lebanese chaos. None of this makes success inevitable. Hezbollah retains a still-considerable arsenal, a devoted political base, and demonstrated in 2008 its willingness to turn its weapons on other Lebanese when it judged its position to be existentially threatened. Israel's own conduct — its continued occupation of the five hills, its near-daily strikes, and Netanyahu's open-ended conditions on withdrawal — lends Hezbollah's argument, that Lebanon is being asked to disarm unilaterally into a vacuum, genuine grounding rather than merely rhetorical traction, even among Lebanese who might otherwise support the state-building project. And the Lebanese army, however professional it may be and however much trust it commands across sectarian divides, remains underequipped and underfunded to simultaneously secure the south, hold the line against Israeli incursions, and maintain internal order — which is precisely why the donor conference and the American package of $230 million matter just as much as any statement coming out of the Oval Office. The Bet That Must Be Made on Beirut What must not be lost sight of, amid these very real obstacles, is how rare this kind of alignment is in Lebanon's contemporary history. It is difficult to identify another moment, since the Taif Agreement, when a Lebanese head of state traveled to Washington carrying his own written plan rather than receiving one dictated to him; when Gulf capitals made their aid contingent on sovereignty rather than simply bankrolling rival sectarian patrons, as they did throughout the 1990s and 2000s; when Hezbollah's regional backer was this constrained; and when an American administration proved willing, as Trump did this week by offering to engage personally with Hezbollah and committing to press Netanyahu, to invest political capital on behalf of the Lebanese state rather than treating Lebanon as a sideshow in the Israeli-Iranian confrontation. Our conviction is that Lebanon's friends — in Washington, in the Gulf, and among ordinary Lebanese exhausted by fifty years of living inside other people's wars — should treat this alignment for what it is: not a guarantee, but a genuine window of opportunity, and one that will not stay open indefinitely. Iran's regional position could stabilize. Gulf attention could shift to other priorities. American administrations change, and with them the personal investment any given president is willing to make in a small Mediterranean country of six million people. The Netanyahu government could decide that an indefinite occupation carries a lower domestic political cost than a negotiated withdrawal. Any one of these shifts could close the window that, for now, remains open. What Lebanese state institutions need most right now is neither a new framework document nor a new photographed handshake, welcome as both may be. They need the Lebanese army to be properly equipped to extend the pilot-zone model across the entire south of the Litani, on a timeline measured in months rather than years. They need Washington to treat Israeli reciprocity — a real withdrawal from the five hills, an end to strikes on Lebanese territory, genuine compliance with the terms of the ceasefire — as just as urgent an objective as Hezbollah's disarmament, not as a secondary consideration to be negotiated once Beirut has already surrendered its main point of leverage. They need the reconstruction funding promised by the Gulf to reach the south quickly enough that the communities living there experience the return of the state as a tangible improvement in their daily lives, not merely the substitution of one group of armed men for another. They need what remains of Hezbollah's base to be offered, consistently and credibly, a place within a functioning Lebanese state, rather than being treated solely as a security problem to be solved by force. And, finally, they need a radical reform of Lebanon's confessional political and legal system — a system that has failed them — a reform that plants the seeds of a nation placing national identity above the sectarian allegiances and divisions enshrined in its constitutional order since 1943, and that allows for the emergence of a new political class committed to making Lebanon a functional state at home and a reliable partner abroad. None of this is guaranteed by a handshake in the Oval Office. But for a country that has spent half a century being told its sovereignty was hostage to others' agendas — Syrian, Israeli, Iranian, and often those of its own factions — seeing a Lebanese president walk through the doors of the White House with his own plan, rather than waiting to be handed one, is no small thing. This is the first genuine test in a generation of whether the Lebanese state can finally become the sole armed actor in its own home. Lebanon, and the region watching it, will spend the coming months finding out whether the state is at last capable of passing that test.

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. In other words, the strategy has shifted from destroying military capabilities to preventing their reconstitution. This is the context in which what might be described as “structural erosion” should be understood: a process affecting five interconnected dimensions simultaneously, namely territory, weaponry, the social base, state institutions, and regional depth. First: The Loss of Territory as a Military Environment The villages of southern Lebanon were never merely places where Hezbollah fighters were stationed. They formed part of a sophisticated military infrastructure comprising tunnels, weapons depots, command centers, and fortified launch positions. The latest war targeted that infrastructure on an unprecedented scale. At the same time, the deployment of the Lebanese Army and international monitoring mechanisms have made any attempt to rebuild it far more difficult and far more vulnerable to detection and attack. Control of territory is no longer simply a matter of physical presence. It is measured by the ability to exploit that territory for military purposes. That ability is now eroding rapidly. Second: The Erosion of Military Capability Hezbollah still possesses weapons and retains the ability to carry out limited operations should it choose to do so. But there is a fundamental difference between possessing the capacity to conduct tactical harassment and being capable of sustaining a prolonged strategic war. Its arsenal of precision-guided missiles has suffered significant losses. Its command-and-control structures have become more vulnerable, while its supply lines no longer function as they once did. At the same time, the transfer of weapons through Syria and Iraq has become considerably more complex as a result of political and security developments in both countries, compounded by increasingly stringent regional and international monitoring. As a result, Hezbollah now appears more capable of using what remains of its arsenal than of replacing what it has lost. Third: Hezbollah’s Constituency Is Changing This may well be the most sensitive factor. Southern Lebanon has emerged from the war burdened by widespread destruction, displacement, and severe economic losses. Faced with the urgent need for reconstruction, growing segments of the population have become increasingly dependent on the Lebanese state, as well as on Arab and international assistance. At the same time, Hezbollah’s social and financial institutions no longer appear capable of playing the role they assumed after the 2006 war, whether because of mounting economic pressures, logistical constraints, or the changing regional environment. This does not necessarily point to a political shift within the Shiite community. It does, however, suggest that priorities are beginning to change. The desire for stability and the restoration of normal life is gradually taking precedence over the logic of open-ended confrontation. As this transformation unfolds, securing the social support necessary to rebuild Hezbollah’s military infrastructure becomes more difficult than ever before. Fourth: The State Is Reclaiming Its Role For the first time in many years, the Lebanese state, backed by clear international support, is moving to reassert its security role in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese Army is no longer viewed simply as another force deployed alongside other actors. It is increasingly regarded as the only legitimate institution entitled to exercise the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of force. In this light, the ongoing negotiations appear to be more than temporary security arrangements. They represent an effort to consolidate a new reality in which areas under the Army’s deployment fall exclusively under state authority, with reconstruction assistance and international aid conditioned on preserving that reality. Consequently, Hezbollah’s military freedom of action is gradually shrinking, not only on the battlefield, but also in legal and political terms. Fifth: Regional Depth Is No Longer What It Once Was Since its founding, Hezbollah has relied on a regional support network provided by Iran through Syria and, later, through Iraq. Today, however, that network faces mounting challenges. Borders are subject to tighter surveillance, the political landscapes in both Damascus and Baghdad have evolved, and the United States is seeking to embed these constraints within a long-term regional security architecture designed to prevent the reconstitution of military capabilities in exchange for reconstruction and stability. In other words, the objective is no longer to eliminate every weapon, but to make any future rearmament project politically, economically, and militarily prohibitive. Beyond Weapons: The Battle for Regeneration The significance of these developments lies in the fact that they do not target a single component. Rather, they undermine the entire ecosystem that once enabled Hezbollah to regenerate its strength. The territory is no longer as secure as it once was. Supply lines have become more fragile. The social fabric has grown increasingly strained. The Lebanese state is steadily reasserting its presence. And international backing for this process has become clearer than ever. The central question, therefore, is no longer whether Hezbollah still possesses missiles. It is whether, five years from now, it will still be capable of recovering the level of strength it enjoyed before the war. The answer to that question, far more than the number of missiles remaining today, will shape Lebanon’s future. Toward a New Model If Washington, together with its regional and international partners, succeeds in consolidating the gains achieved through the Rome process in the coming months, Lebanon may be on the threshold of a historic transition, moving from the balance of arms to the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Such a transition will neither be swift nor free of obstacles or attempts at obstruction. Yet current indicators suggest that the international strategy is no longer centered on defeating Hezbollah militarily, but rather on gradually containing it within Lebanon’s political system while, step by step, stripping it of the foundations that enabled it to emerge as a regional military power over the past decades. This is where the concept of structural erosion acquires its full meaning. History teaches that armed organizations do not disappear when they lose a battle, but when they lose the ability to replace their losses and regenerate their strength. That may well be the greatest challenge confronting Hezbollah today. It is also, perhaps, the defining challenge of the new phase now opening for both Lebanon and the wider region.

For more than 11 consecutive days, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been subjected every night to intensive U.S. strikes and raids targeting Revolutionary Guard positions, military infrastructure, and communication routes across several parts of the country. At the same time, the maritime blockade imposed by the U.S. military on Iranian ports is severely choking an economy that was already in an especially critical condition. To top it all off, the regime itself appears to be beset by deep internal divisions that threaten its very survival. Faced with such an increasingly entropic situation – one in which it has become mired as a direct result of its own expansionist and hegemonic policies, which recognized no limits – the authorities in Tehran are now seeking to “export” the conflict by extending it across the region, while carefully avoiding Israel. At the same time, they are attempting to exploit to the fullest a card they wield through methods characteristic of militias and organized crime: the threat of paralyzing international shipping lanes, thereby placing a substantial portion of the global economy at risk. This strategy of exporting its own crisis has translated into drone and missile attacks not only against the Gulf states, as has been the case since the conflict began in June 2025, but increasingly against Jordan, Iraq – where Iranian opposition groups have been targeted – and, most recently, Syria. The latest move by the mullahs’ regime in this campaign has been to reactivate the Houthi card. The Tehran-controlled Yemeni militia has, in recent days, renewed and escalated its threats against Saudi Arabia. It has also claimed to have imposed a maritime blockade on Saudi ports. Tehran’s maneuver is clear: to extend its campaign of blackmail and intimidation to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea in an effort to relieve the U.S. military pressure on Revolutionary Guard infrastructure. Except that Wednesday saw a series of forceful statements likely to neutralize Iran’s Houthi card. President Donald Trump first reiterated Wednesday – as he had during his meeting with President Joseph Aoun – that the United States would not stand idly by if the Houthis were to threaten freedom of navigation in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea. Echoing that position, Syria and, unsurprisingly, the secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council on Wednesday strongly condemned the Houthis’ threats against Saudi Arabia. But the most significant reaction undoubtedly came from Pakistan, despite its role as the principal mediator between Iran and the United States and, above all, as one of the Islamic Republic’s principal allies, at least to a certain extent. Islamabad sharply denounced the Houthi attacks against the Saudi kingdom, stressing its commitment to Saudi Arabia’s security and sovereignty – a reminder that the two countries are bound by a defense and security pact. The Pakistani government further warned that it would respond forcefully – “if necessary by the use of force,” it specified – to any attack against a Pakistani vessel transiting the waterway in question. In parallel with the neutralization of Iran’s Houthi card, President Trump raised the stakes on Wednesday in his efforts to ensure freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. He declared unequivocally that, from now on, any Iranian attack – whether by drone, missile, or any other means – against a vessel transiting the Strait of Hormuz would prompt the U.S. military to immediately destroy a bridge or power plant inside Iranian territory, including in Tehran or its outskirts. This stern warning builds on the neutralization of the Houthi card and should, at least in principle, temper the Revolutionary Guards’ belligerent posture regarding the Strait of Hormuz. Even so, Iran’s chief negotiator said Wednesday that “the situation in the Strait of Hormuz will not return to what it was before the war,” confirming the Islamic Republic’s determination to assert control over the waterway and collect transit fees there, despite the categorical rejection of such a move by the United States, the European Union, the Gulf states, and even China. The steadily mounting tensions point to the possibility of a large-scale U.S. attack against the Iranian regime. Two developments, among others, are indicative of such a course of action: the new British prime minister’s decision to authorize U.S. aircraft to be stationed at British military bases, and the Bulgarian Parliament’s approval on Wednesday evening, by a large majority, of a government request authorizing U.S. combat aircraft to refuel in Bulgaria. Iran had warned the Bulgarian authorities against such a decision. To conclude this regional chapter, it should be noted that Iraq’s new prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi, is due to visit Tehran shortly. Under the present circumstances, the visit carries particular significance in light of the policies pursued by the current Iraqi government, which has multiplied initiatives and measures aimed at countering Iranian influence in Iraq. This new direction in Iraqi policy was at the heart of Mr. al-Zaidi’s visit to Washington a few days ago, where he signed a series of economic agreements with U.S. officials. Those agreements were viewed with great suspicion by the Iranian regime, which denounced a strategic shift in Baghdad, one that is moving toward closer ties with the West, at the expense of the Islamic Republic’s influence. The Lebanese Chapter The strategic shift aimed at curbing Iranian expansionism is clearly visible as well on the Lebanese chessboard. It has been further consolidated in the wake of President Joseph Aoun’s official visit to Washington at the beginning of the week and his widely covered meeting with President Trump at the White House. This strategic option, which could be described as sovereigntist and pro-Western, is particularly evident in the beginning of the implementation of the framework agreement signed by Lebanon and Israel on June 26. Under the terms of this U.S.-sponsored agreement, the Israeli army withdrew on Tuesday morning from Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, where the Lebanese army immediately deployed and began its mission of ensuring that Hezbollah was no longer present in the area. And, in order to underscore the significance of the process initiated by the signing of the Lebanese-Israeli framework agreement, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam sought to lend the process a solemn character by making an unannounced visit to Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh. The implementation of the Lebanese-Israeli agreement and the prospects for its next phase will be the subject of a new round of talks between the two countries, scheduled to take place on August 4 in Rome, once again under U.S. auspices. Much to the dismay of the Iranian camp...

Let us set aside, if only for a moment, the objections raised by the framework agreement, the political divisions it has generated, and the conflicting positions it has provoked. Instead, let us ask a different question, one that may prove even more important than the agreement itself because it concerns what comes next. If we assume that Lebanon is moving, sooner or later, toward bringing its state of conflict with its regional environment to an end, and that the Middle East is gradually entering a new phase in relations among states, does the Lebanese state have a clear vision of what it wants from this new chapter? Has anyone even begun to consider Lebanon’s future economic and political position should the regional order that has shaped the country for decades begin to change? What is striking is that the Lebanese debate remains almost entirely confined to the agreements themselves: their terms, their guarantees, their implementation mechanisms, and the objections they provoke. Yet the question that ought to precede all the others remains conspicuously absent: what do we, as a country, actually want from this transformation? States do not view the end of war merely as a political or security achievement. They see it as a pivotal moment to redefine their economic priorities, reassess their regional position, and rethink the role they intend to play within their wider region. That is why they do not simply negotiate agreements designed to end conflicts. At the same time, they commission studies, develop scenarios, and formulate policies capable of turning stability into economic growth, investment, job creation, and regional influence. Yet in Lebanon, this conversation does not appear to have begun at all. There has been no national study assessing the potential impact such a transformation could have on the Lebanese economy, no comprehensive vision identifying the sectors that could become the engines of future growth, and no serious debate over the role Lebanon should seek to play in the Eastern Mediterranean if the region’s political landscape were to evolve. It is as though we assume that any agreement, once reached, will automatically usher in prosperity, even though the experience of nations shows precisely the opposite. Stability does not create development. It merely provides the conditions in which development can be achieved by those who know how to seize the opportunity. More importantly, Lebanon is not facing the prospect of redefining a single relationship, but rather of managing distinct relationships with two states whose economic structures differ profoundly. That reality calls for two entirely different approaches. The relationship with Syria, if it is ultimately built on clear foundations that fully respect the sovereignty of both states, would bring together two economies facing broadly similar challenges. Both countries are seeking to rebuild their economies, restore confidence, modernize their infrastructure, and revive their productive sectors. This opens the door to discussions about reorganizing transit routes, developing legitimate border crossings, connecting transport and energy networks, and taking part in any future reconstruction process within a transparent framework that safeguards Lebanese interests and prevents a return to the patterns of dependency and interference for which Lebanon paid such a heavy price over the course of decades. Fundamentally, this would be a relationship built on the search for complementarities between two economies striving to recover side by side. The relationship with Israel, by contrast, begins from an entirely different reality. Here, we are not dealing with two broadly comparable economies, but with a vast disparity in economic size, technological sophistication, innovation capacity, industrial strength, access to global markets, and ability to attract investment. Consequently, the question takes on a different dimension. The real challenge is not the volume of direct trade between the two countries, but how Lebanon positions itself within a regional economic environment shaped by the presence of such an advanced economy. In circumstances like these, smaller states cannot build their strategy on competing directly with larger economies in the same sectors. Instead, they must identify the areas in which they can create distinctive added value, whether through services, education, the digital economy, creative industries, finance, healthcare, or any other sector capable of giving them a unique role within the region. This inevitably leads to the question that should lie at the heart of any national debate in the years ahead: What role does Lebanon want to play in the Middle East over the coming decades? Since independence, Lebanon has never consciously chosen that role. At certain moments, geography made it a financial hub. At others, wars turned it into a battleground. Regional transformations then compelled it to survive by assuming temporary roles dictated more by circumstance than by deliberate national choice. But if the region is indeed entering a fundamentally different era, Lebanon will no longer be able to wait for external developments to determine its purpose. For the first time in decades, the Lebanese themselves will have to decide what kind of economy they want to build, what model of development they wish to pursue, and what place they aspire to occupy within the region. What Lebanon needs, therefore, is probably not yet another debate over the provisions of various agreements, but the launch of a broad national effort to develop a comprehensive vision for the post-conflict era. Such an effort should begin with the economy before politics, and with defining Lebanon’s future identity before addressing the details of its relationships with its regional environment. Agreements do not, by themselves, shape the future of nations. They merely open new opportunities. A country’s future ultimately depends on its ability to seize those opportunities and transform them into a coherent national project. Perhaps the greatest irony is that Lebanon has spent so many years debating war without ever seriously debating how it wants to live once the wars are over. If the regional transformation now taking shape does indeed become a reality, the real question will not be whether we support or oppose this agreement or that one. It will be whether, for the first time, we possess a clear vision of the Lebanon we wish to build once the region around us has been transformed.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun's official visit to Washington — and more specifically, his scheduled meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump this Tuesday, July 21 — could, or rather should, give a major boost to the clearly sovereigntist direction the Lebanese leadership has taken. This direction — echoing the March 14 movement's slogan of "Lebanon First" — has been most openly and unequivocally expressed since March 2, when Hezbollah unilaterally dragged the country (despite warnings from the government) into yet another futile war, solely to support the Iranian regime and ostensibly "avenge" the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the early hours of the American-Israeli strike on Iran on February 28. In order to gauge the real strategic impact that the Washington meetings could have on Lebanon's fate in the short and medium term, it would be useful to step back and take a broader view — to soberly assess the multiple upheavals that the Levant region has witnessed since the fateful October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched its deadly attack on Israeli territory from Gaza. That operation marked a turning point for the region. It was the starting point of a long series of major political and military developments that have unfolded at a rapid pace, continuing to this day, with the cumulative effect of accelerating the decline of the so-called "rejectionist" camp (the mou'mana'ah). This decline began, right from the outset, with the destruction of Gaza and the dismantling of Hamas. It quickly continued with the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the decapitation of Hezbollah's political and military leadership, the resulting drastic weakening of the pro-Iranian party, the fall of the Assad regime (which stripped the Islamic Republic of its vital strategic corridor), and most recently the rise to power in Iraq of a leadership team waging an all-out struggle against Iranian influence in the country. The new direction emerging in Baghdad over recent weeks was further consolidated during the recent visit of new Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi to Washington, where he was received by President Trump, who emphasized his firm support for the new Iraqi leadership in its fight against Iranian influence. The Islamic Republic is thus losing yet another vital sphere of influence that had served it well on multiple levels. It is against this broader regional backdrop — defined by the strong and inexorable progressive decline of the mullahs' regime — that these "Lebanese days in Washington" are taking place. President Aoun's talks with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday, and with President Trump on Tuesday the 21st, should significantly consolidate and cement the government's sovereigntist orientation, which fits squarely within the broader framework of weakening — or even dismantling — the expansionism of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The direction taken by the Lebanese leadership in this regard is, moreover, openly framed as freeing Lebanon from Iranian tutelage. American officials have not failed to underscore the strategic importance of this guiding principle, which is shaping ongoing developments across the region — going so far as to speak of an "alliance" between Beirut and Baghdad against Iranian influence. And to make Washington's unequivocal support for restoring the authority of the central government unmistakably clear, Secretary Rubio has expressly invited Lebanon and Syria to jointly issue a formal declaration centered on mutual respect for each country's sovereignty. As if anticipating the outcome of President Aoun's visit to Washington, the Secretary of State emphasized on Monday that the head of state will be able to tell the Lebanese people, upon his return to Beirut, that it is he — thanks to his national vision — who has succeeded in putting the country back on the path to recovery. Mr. Rubio was keen to stress that Washington has no interlocutor in Lebanon other than President Aoun and legitimate state institutions — and certainly not the Iranian regime. Launch of the 'pilot zones' implementation It is on the basis of this same commitment to restoring a sovereign and free Lebanon that the Trump administration is throwing its full weight behind the implementation of the framework agreement signed on June 26 between Lebanon and Israel. The establishment of the pilot zones provided for under the Lebanese-Israeli agreement began Monday evening and was expected to continue Tuesday, with the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the first pilot zone — comprising the villages of Froun, Srifa, and Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh — where the Lebanese army is set to deploy on Tuesday and ensure, under American supervision, that the area is free of any Hezbollah militia presence. If this process continues without incident, it will undoubtedly confirm the success of the government's decision to pursue direct negotiations with Israel in order to initiate the withdrawal of Israeli forces and resolve the situation in southern Lebanon. The State Department was quick to note on Monday that the launch of the 'pilot zones' is a direct result of the recent Lebanese-Israeli talks held in Rome just days ago. It is worth recalling that President Aoun and the Nawaf Salam government committed to this path despite pressure and maneuvers from the Iranian regime, which sought to impose 'its' solution to the South in order to claim the right to control the Lebanese card — the better to strengthen its position in its bargaining with the Trump administration. The Lebanese government firmly rejected the Iranian approach, making clear that it is the Lebanese state, and the Lebanese state alone, that has the right to negotiate on Lebanon's behalf. Back to 'negotiations' with Tehran? As Lebanon continues on its path toward restoring its sovereignty, a faint glimmer of hope appeared to emerge on the regional horizon Monday evening. Reports from Islamabad indicated that a ceasefire proposal — yet another one — lasting around ten days was being floated. This pause, which would include freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, would be used to explore ways of resuming talks between Washington and Tehran. At this stage, then, what is being discussed are negotiations aimed at paving the way… for negotiations on the contentious issues themselves. Yet discussions with the Islamic Republic on these very issues — the nuclear program, uranium enrichment, ballistic missiles — have been dragging on for more than twenty years. They began in the early 2000s, and between 2006 and 2010 were even the subject of six UN Security Council resolutions demanding that Iran halt uranium enrichment. To no avail. Over the past twenty-four hours, the Iranian regime expressed its willingness to revive talks with the United States and dispatched its Interior Minister to Islamabad for that purpose, to explore how to restart the ceasefire in the Gulf in line with the memorandum of understanding reached with Washington in June. Iran's Foreign Ministry was expected to issue a statement on Monday underscoring the need to 'remain committed to negotiations with the Americans.' This suddenly "pacifist" approach appeared all the more surprising given that a statement attributed late last week to the mysterious Supreme Guide, Moujtaba Khamenei, declared that "the signature Donald Trump placed on the memorandum of understanding carries no value" — which, in Tehran's eyes, implicitly renders null and void the very same memorandum of understanding that some Iranian leaders are now seeking to revive… Such inconsistency follows, it should be noted, nine consecutive nights of intensive American bombardment targeting positions, military infrastructure, and weapons and ammunition depots belonging to the Revolutionary Guards. Attack on two French diplomats In any case, while emphasizing its desire to resume "dialogue" with the United States, the mullahs' regime simultaneously did not refrain from launching missiles and drones on Monday evening against Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan. At the same time, two new attacks on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz were reported on Monday, even as the Iranian president reaffirmed earlier that day that "Iran's role" in the Strait of Hormuz "is non-negotiable"! A senior Iranian official stressed for his part that this waterway would remain off-limits to any country "cooperating with the United States"! As for the Speaker of Parliament and chief negotiator with Washington, Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, he made highly discourteous remarks toward the Americans, condemning the delivery of military equipment by the US army while the US "claims to want to end the war." He further revealed his combative stance by adding: "They are betting on the fact that our intelligence is as limited as their own IQ"! Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, for their part, announced a "maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia," following an exchange of fire between the two sides last week. More seriously still: France's Foreign Minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, stated on Monday evening that two French diplomats "were detained without cause" in Tehran by security services "for several hours, were interrogated, and one of them was physically assaulted"! Mr. Barrot condemned what he called "an extremely serious act of intimidation." This rapid accumulation of aggressive actions and hostile rhetoric speaks volumes about the true mindset of Iran's power centers and the way in which they have, for more than twenty years, perceived their relationship with the West and the international community at large.

In the exhibition catalogue, Hady Sy presents his project as a search for “a path toward coexistence” between organic intelligence and technological intelligence, between memory and computation, between the hand and the algorithm. These worlds are not placed in opposition but brought into the possibility of an ethical encounter, one in which technology serves humanity while safeguarding its dignity. Yet the works themselves, as they unfold throughout the exhibition space, appear far less confident about the stability of this balance. They do not deny the possibility of coexistence, but they simultaneously reveal just how fragile it is. Hady Sy builds his sculptures from the binary language of zero and one. This is no longer a theoretical metaphor but a tangible, almost unsettling experience: bodies that walk, carry burdens, grow weary, yet are themselves written in a digital language. Here, the catalogue’s assertion that “the human being cannot be reduced to data” encounters its own contradiction within the work itself. For these bodies are indeed digital. Yet they still preserve something that resists such reduction: memory, dignity, or perhaps simply the determination to remain standing. In this sense, Hady Sy’s work does not advance a finished thesis. Rather, it opens up a space of tension between what ought to be, technology placed at the service of humanity, and what already is, a world in which human beings are increasingly reduced to data. It is precisely from this tension that the works derive their strength. Not from providing answers, but from leaving the question unresolved. If the catalogue sketches the horizon of coexistence, the works themselves unfold through a series of stations that may at first appear unrelated, only gradually revealing themselves as chapters of a single narrative: that of the human condition in an age of reduction. That narrative begins at the origin, with the seed, with the “primordial soup” invoked as a metaphor for the emergence of life, not as a moment of purity, but as the point of departure for a long process of transformation. Nature does not appear here as a silent backdrop but as an intelligence that precedes humanity itself, an intelligence embodied in the growth of trees, the flow of water, and the hidden order that governs living beings. Yet this origin is also one of repetition: the same stones are assembled in different ways to give rise to different forms of life. The sculpture of the staircase marks the next stage. Bodies climb upward toward nowhere, suspended in a space without a discernible horizon. There is neither arrival nor return, only the continuity of passage. Migration is presented here not merely as a political event but as an existential condition, a destiny that accompanies modern humanity, for whom the journey itself has become the destination. At the heart of this disorientation, tragedy reaches its fullest expression in works that evoke famine and war, most notably the sculpture depicting figures composed of zeros and ones carrying a plate while walking across corpses. The first paradox, grasped by the eye before it is articulated by the mind, is that these bodies, despite their digital reduction, continue to hold their heads high. Yet the scene soon turns upon itself as the very same forms assume the appearance of soldiers, perhaps standing over the very corpses they had moments earlier seemed to mourn. The form does not change, yet its meaning is reversed: from victim to executioner. It is as though violence has no need to invent new forms, merely reusing the same ones after assigning them a different code. This is more than a simple reversal of meaning. It exposes a deeper mechanism of domination, whereby the same forms can be redeployed in contradictory contexts without ever losing their original appearance. In this respect, the work recalls the world of George Orwell, where power asserts itself not through rupture but through the inversion of meaning from within language itself, as well as that of Haruki Murakami, where violence slips into everyday life under familiar, almost ordinary guises, making it difficult to recognize at first glance. What Hady Sy achieves, however, is neither linguistic nor narrative. He transforms form itself into the site of tension between opposing meanings, revealing that what we see is not always what is. This logic of repetition finds its echo in other works, such as Cactus , where the memory of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas appears not as a closed historical episode but as a pattern that continues to reproduce itself. The world, these works suggest, never ceases to produce new “others,” pushed to the margins or condemned to disappearance. Past, present, and future converge: the colonial past, the turbulent present, and a future open to the recurrence of similar destinies. Along this same trajectory emerges Sisyphus, not as an isolated mythological figure but as the distilled image of a universal human condition. The burden never ends, and the effort begins anew, not as an individual punishment but as a condition of existence itself. Yet this world is not entirely devoid of openings through which another meaning may enter: a rose, a kiss, the trace of love. Fragile though they may be, these gestures continue to resist the logic of brutality. The themes thus reveal themselves not as separate subjects but as the interconnected strands of a single web: origin, wandering, violence, repetition, and resistance. Together, they portray the human being suspended between what might have been and what has, in fact, become. If, at the conceptual level, these works point to a world in which the human being is reduced to a number, their true power lies in the way they are materially realized. Iron, and particularly Corten steel, is not merely a medium here but a language in its own right. Hard, heavy, and typically associated with construction and infrastructure, with everything functional and enduring, it is redirected from its ordinary purpose. Hady Sy bends it, curves it, and shapes it into forms that evoke the human body, as though rigidity itself were compelled to acknowledge the fragility it contains. This tension between hardness and curvature operates not only at the level of form. It reenacts what becomes of the human being in times of war: a body that learns to bend, to adapt, to calculate, without entirely losing the trace of its humanity. Iron thus becomes not the body’s opposite but its distorted extension, its translation into a world governed by the imperatives of measurement and power. These sculptures do more than represent our world. They offer a sensory reconfiguration of it, making visible what often eludes language and allowing us to touch what is ordinarily reduced to numbers. Perhaps that is why these works leave such a lasting impression. They do not offer a meaning to be consumed but an experience that continues to unfold within us. An experience that compels us to reconsider what we had taken for granted: what it means to be human, to belong to a place, and to inhabit a time whose boundaries have become increasingly uncertain. And it is precisely within this hesitation, between what can be measured and what can be lived, between what can be calculated and what can be felt, that the question can no longer be deferred: How can the human being remain human in a world that is redefining itself in a language that is no longer entirely their own?

The war in Ukraine continues to be at the center of a wide-ranging debate, fueled in part by near-daily bombardments targeting key nerve centers on both sides—most notably the Russian and Ukrainian capitals. To better understand the various dimensions of this long-standing conflict, it is necessary to revisit the background and origins of what has led to this (fratricidal?) war, by examining the motivations and aspirations of the different parties involved—particularly the West (the United States and Europe, extended to all NATO member states with the exception of Turkey)—and by recalling the early stages of the Russian offensive and the failed attempts to achieve peace, or at least negotiations, bearing in mind that responsibility in this context is shared by many. To fully grasp the ins and outs of the various aspects of the war in Ukraine, some fundamental questions should be raised from the outset. What do Russia and Ukraine represent for the West? What could be the concrete consequences of a clear-cut victory by either of the two protagonists? And by extension, what would the implications be for the West and the Middle East? In a series of five articles, our contributor Jean-Patrick Dayras, a rear admiral in the French Navy, presents his vision and analysis of the issue. Jean-Patrick Dayras, Rear Admiral (ret.) On the very day Russia invaded Ukraine, February 22, 2022, many French and European citizens displayed Ukrainian flags (including in the Azores!) and volunteered to take in refugees or even offer language classes to help them learn to speak the language of their host country. It would have been interesting to ask these people, who were making a political statement, to locate Ukraine on a map and explain what had happened over the previous ten years (2013–2022) among Europe, Ukraine, and Russia. Such remarks, however, are not welcome in certain circles in France. EU Membership Just a few days after the Russian invasion, Ukraine officially applied for membership in the European Union. On June 17, 2022, the European Commission recommended granting Ukraine the status of candidate country. For what reason? To what end? No one will ever truly know. On June 23, 2022, the heads of state and government of the 27 member states, meeting at the European Council, unanimously decided to grant Ukraine official candidate status for membership in the European Union. On December 14, 2023, the European Council decided to open accession negotiations, and on June 25, 2024, those negotiations were officially launched. What civil servant or corporate employee wouldn't have dreamed of a promotion bringing such a rapid and advantageous change in status? This wouldn't just be climbing the social ladder—not even a social elevator—but a social interplanetary rocket! Compare this with other candidate countries that are not yet members of the European Union. Opening of negotiation processes: Turkey 1999; North Macedonia 2005; Montenegro 2010; Serbia 2012; Albania 2014; Moldova 2022; Bosnia-Herzegovina 2022; Georgia 2023. Kosovo applied for membership in 2022 but has not yet been granted official candidate status. Why such haste? Was it not possible to support Ukraine without rolling out such a promising—perhaps overly promising—red carpet? The least one can say is that candidate countries are not being treated equally. Ukraine is a country that was highly corrupt and remains so. Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranked Ukraine 142nd in the world in 2014 and 116th in 2022 (Russia's scores are similar). In the Western press, Russia is portrayed as a corrupt state. Ukraine's corruption, meanwhile, goes largely unmentioned. The peace project under Turkey's auspices In spring 2022, peace was not far off. The door was left ajar from the very start of the war. Turkey played an important diplomatic role, even though it did not manage to secure a lasting peace agreement. Turkey held a unique position: a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, it maintained good relations with Ukraine (drone sales and military cooperation) while keeping close ties with Russia on geopolitical (Syria) and economic grounds. Turkey was one of the few states able to speak simultaneously to Moscow and Kyiv. It hosted the main peace negotiations in March 2022 and facilitated the grain export agreement. The March 2022 negotiations Turkey hosted a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers in Antalya on 10 March 2022, as well as more substantial negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul on 29 March 2022, which outlined: A neutral status for Ukraine (renouncing NATO membership). Security guarantees provided by several states in exchange for this neutrality. The withdrawal of Russian forces from certain areas. The deferral of discussions on the status of Crimea. Research by historians and scholars shows that a draft agreement existed, but that many essential issues remained unresolved, including the status of occupied territories, security guarantees, the timetable for military withdrawals, and the future size of the Ukrainian army. Ukraine's military successes around Kyiv led Ukrainian leaders to believe a stronger position could be achieved on the battlefield. For its part, Russia maintained demands that Ukraine considered unacceptable. Boris Johnson's role Boris Johnson allegedly discouraged Ukraine from concluding an agreement. This claim remains disputed. Nevertheless, it was clearly reported by numerous newspapers and by well-informed, credible commentators. Boris Johnson has not denied it. His role in the failure of the peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, conducted under Turkish mediation in spring 2022, is one of the most debated topics of the war. On 9 April 2022, Boris Johnson traveled to Kyiv. According to anonymous sources cited by the Ukrainian outlet Ukrainska Pravda, he reportedly conveyed two main messages: that Vladimir Putin should not be considered a reliable negotiating partner; and that Western powers were not prepared to guarantee any agreement reached with Russia on the terms then being discussed. This account is the basis for the claim that Johnson sabotaged the prospective deal. He was publicly expressing skepticism about the possibility of negotiating with Putin and advocating for the continuation of Western military support for Ukraine. There is no established proof that a final peace agreement was ready to be signed and was called off solely because of his intervention. Nonetheless, President Zelensky's position changed dramatically. The strengths of both countries What can these two countries bring to Europe? Ukraine has some of the most productive agricultural land in the world, growing wheat, corn, barley, sunflowers, and rapeseed. It also holds significant mineral resources, including some that are critical for the development of modern technologies: iron, manganese, titanium, uranium, graphite, and lithium. Its industry is highly capable in sectors such as steel, metallurgy, railway construction, aeronautics, space, and shipbuilding. On top of that, Ukraine has a remarkable nuclear power generation capacity, natural gas resources, and an extensive pipeline network connecting Russia to Europe. Furthermore, Ukraine is a strategically vital territory bridging Europe and Russia, with access to the Black Sea — essential for grain exports and of major military significance. As for Russia, it is endowed with vast natural resources, including oil and natural gas, as well as mineral wealth such as coal, nickel, palladium, platinum, gold, diamonds, copper, and aluminum. Beyond holding the world's largest forested area, it also benefits from an agricultural sector that gives it a major export advantage, producing wheat, barley, and vegetable oils. Next article The War in Ukraine: Russian Strategic Blunders and Western Missteps (3/5) Also read on the same topic How the West Chose Ukraine (1/5)

The trilateral framework agreement, negotiated under U.S. auspices and signed in Washington, introduced an ambitious mechanism to demilitarize southern Lebanon: the creation of "pilot zones." The initial phase of this project encompasses six key villages spread on both sides of the Litani River, namely Zawtar al-Gharbiyah north of the river, and Froun, Ghandouriyeh, Qalaouiyeh, and Burj Qalaouiyeh to its south. Under this framework, the Lebanese Army is tasked with deploying, establishing full control, and ensuring that these zones are entirely cleared of militia weapons. In return, Israeli occupation forces are required to carry out a gradual withdrawal. Yet this local security experiment proves to be an outsized geopolitical ambition — even if it represents a glimmer of hope. The project is being structurally sabotaged, caught in a vice between Hezbollah's internal resistance, Israel's intransigence, and Iran's broader regional strategy. Hezbollah's Structural Veto and Internal Resistance The most immediate domestic obstacle to implementing the pilot zones remains Hezbollah's outright refusal to lay down its arms. The group has publicly branded the framework agreement a failure, explicitly warning that any state-enforced disarmament in these villages could trigger a devastating civil war. Lebanese MPs have accused Beirut's negotiators of capitulating to American and Israeli demands at the expense of national unity. Although the Lebanese Army has already begun reinforcing its presence on the ground — setting up checkpoints and conducting patrols around unoccupied villages such as Srifa and Froun — it is operating under enormous operational constraints. Joseph Aoun has had to contend with the serious reservations expressed by the Amal Movement and Hezbollah. The army cannot dismantle the underground rocket-launch networks and military infrastructure buried in the Litani valleys without triggering a direct and bloody confrontation with the group. Hezbollah argues that accepting a localized surrender of its arsenal in Ghandouriyeh or Zawtar al-Gharbiyah would set a precedent, undermining its very identity as a resistance movement. Israeli Intransigence and Strategic Overreach At the same time, Israel is actively blocking the pilot plan through tactical delays and aggressive on-the-ground demands. Military coordination talks, which were meant to formalize maps and withdrawal timelines, were abruptly postponed due to deep disagreements over the exact boundaries of the zones in question. The Lebanese delegation has accused the Israeli state of seeking to expand the boundaries of the pilot zones to include villages not physically occupied by Israeli forces, as well as territories north of the Litani. Furthermore, Israeli officials have reiterated that their forces will not withdraw from their new 10-kilometer-deep "security zone" until Hezbollah is fully dismantled. The entrenchment of this "yellow line" imposed by Tel Aviv creates a deadlock: Israel refuses to withdraw as long as weapons remain in the area, yet the Lebanese Army cannot safely enter to demilitarize it as long as Israeli troops remain positioned there. Moreover, the Israeli military is waging a scorched-earth campaign, systematically destroying neighborhoods and carrying out targeted airstrikes. This sustained pressure signals that Tel Aviv intends to maintain long-term security control rather than cede genuine authority to the Lebanese government. Iran's Regional Lock The pilot zones are also hostage to the collapse of the broader regional dynamics between Washington and Tehran. The Middle East is currently being shaken by intense US-Iranian military clashes, marked by American strikes on Iranian infrastructure and sharp maritime tensions in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran does not view southern Lebanon as an isolated border issue, but as a crucial geostrategic front line. Hezbollah has explicitly stressed that only direct intervention from Tehran could dictate a genuine ceasefire or withdrawal. In Iran's strategic calculus, a consensual disarmament of Hezbollah in the pilot zones would weaken its primary deterrent shield against Israel, at a moment when American pressure on the Islamic Republic is reaching a peak. Accordingly, Tehran is actively directing its allies in Beirut to obstruct the implementation of the Washington agreement, ensuring that Lebanon remains anchored within the Iranian axis. Joseph Aoun's last-chance mission to the White House It is against this backdrop of internal and regional deadlock that President Joseph Aoun is traveling to Washington for a critical meeting with Donald Trump. This visit — the first by a Lebanese leader to the White House in years — aims to salvage the faltering framework agreement and secure the survival of the pilot zones. The two leaders come to the negotiating table with sharply opposing agendas. On the Lebanese side, President Joseph Aoun is calling on the United States to pressure Israel into halting airstrikes and carrying out verifiable withdrawals. To equip the Lebanese army for its mission, he is seeking substantial American assistance for the Lebanese Armed Forces, including financial support. He will also very likely request advanced drone technologies and border sensors to curb arms smuggling along the Lebanese-Syrian border. On the American side, President Donald Trump is demanding concrete, verifiable proof of Beirut's willingness to disarm Hezbollah. His administration is pushing for a restructuring of Lebanon's economy by dismantling Hezbollah-linked informal financial institutions, with the ultimate goal of permanently pulling Lebanon out of Iran's geostrategic orbit. Joseph Aoun's diplomatic gambit faces major obstacles. Analysts point out that the Lebanese president has very little real leverage on the ground. While Washington is pushing for a direct meeting between Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Beirut continues to firmly reject any trilateral talks as long as Israeli troops occupy even a single inch of Lebanese territory. Ultimately, the pilot zones of Zawtar al-Gharbiyah and Srifa cannot survive as a mere technical military arrangement. Without a comprehensive regional de-escalation between the United States and Iran, coupled with a binding internal political settlement in Beirut, the deployment of the Lebanese army will remain extremely difficult to achieve. Caught between Hezbollah's arsenal, Israel's defensive expansion, and Iran's proxy war, the pilot zones face an uphill battle.