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In Lebanon, education is meant to liberate minds, but Iran’s proxies weaponize it. Lebanon has long prided itself on something rare in this region: a belief that education is not a privilege, but a pathway. A country where, despite war, collapse, and political decay, parents still scrape together what little they have to send their children to school. A country where classrooms have historically produced doctors, engineers, writers, and thinkers, not martyrs for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The numbers tell part of that story. Lebanon boasts one of the highest literacy rates in the region, hovering near 98 percent. For years, it ranked among the top countries globally in the perceived quality of education. Mathematics and science are not taught as luxuries but as necessities, often delivered in English or French from an early age. Education here is not simply about acquiring knowledge; it is about mobility, dignity, and escape, from sectarianism, from violence, from the suffocating limits of geography. And yet, today, that very idea is under attack. The recent threats and actions by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps against American institutions in Lebanon and across the region are not just another episode in a long cycle of escalation. They reveal something deeper and more troubling: a deliberate attempt to redefine what education means in places like Lebanon. Because for Hezbollah, the IRGC’s most entrenched arm in the country, education is not a tool of liberation. It is a tool of control. Where Lebanese families see schools as gateways to the world, Hezbollah sees them as factories of loyalty. Where parents hope their children will learn algebra to build futures, the party envisions geometry as a means to calculate trajectories. Physics is no longer about understanding the natural world; it becomes a way to refine the arc of a rocket or the stability of a drone. Chemistry is stripped of curiosity and repurposed into lethality. This is not metaphor. It is doctrine. Hezbollah’s educational ecosystem, its schools, scouts, youth programs, and cultural institutions, has long functioned as a parallel system. One that mirrors the state in form but subverts it in purpose. Children are not only taught to read and write; they are taught to obey, to revere, and ultimately to fight. The language of resistance is introduced early, wrapped in the symbols of martyrdom and sacrifice, until it becomes indistinguishable from identity itself. In that sense, the recent targeting, whether rhetorical or operational, of American institutions is entirely consistent. Universities like the American University of Beirut are not just buildings. They represent an idea that stands in direct opposition to what Hezbollah and the IRGC seek to impose. They represent doubt instead of dogma. Inquiry instead of indoctrination. A space where a student can question authority rather than surrender to it. And that is precisely why they are seen as threats. Perhaps the most devastating consequence of all is not even the weaponization of education itself, but the quiet destruction of the ecosystem that once made Lebanese education exceptional. Hezbollah, along with a political establishment that chose to normalize, accommodate, and ultimately legitimize its parallel order, has steadily eroded the very diversity that sustained Lebanon’s intellectual life. This country’s educational model was never just about curricula or rankings; it was about plurality. Classrooms where languages intersected, where histories were contested, where identities coexisted rather than collapsed into one another. That fragile but vital ecosystem was the engine of creativity, producing generations capable of thinking beyond the confines of sect, ideology, and fear. Today, that space is shrinking. Not through formal decree, but through pressure, intimidation, and the slow suffocation of dissent. What is being lost is not only institutional autonomy, but the very condition that made learning in Lebanon meaningful: the freedom to be different. It is no coincidence that regimes and militias built on ideological rigidity fear campuses more than they fear armies. Armies can be deterred, negotiated with, or even defeated. But ideas, once unleashed, are far harder to contain. A student exposed to critical thinking is infinitely more dangerous to an authoritarian project than any external adversary. Lebanon today sits at the intersection of these two visions. On one side is a fragile but persistent belief in education as a means of survival and transcendence. On the other is a disciplined and well-funded effort to hollow that belief out, to replace it with a militarized worldview where knowledge serves only the battlefield. The tragedy is not just that these two systems coexist. It is that one is steadily encroaching on the other. When a child learns mathematics to solve equations, they are being prepared to build something, an economy, a career, a life. When that same knowledge is redirected toward “zeroing” a cannon or programming a drone, it becomes something else entirely: a weapon masquerading as education. And in Lebanon, that transformation is happening in plain sight. The attack on educational institutions, whether through threats, intimidation, or worse, is therefore not incidental. It is strategic. It is an attempt to sever Lebanon from one of the few remaining pillars that still connect it to the world and to itself. Because a Lebanon that continues to educate freely is a Lebanon that cannot be fully controlled. And that, ultimately, is what this is about. Not missiles. Not drones. Not even geopolitics in its narrowest sense. But the far more consequential battle over what the next generation of Lebanese will learn, and what they will become.

Hundreds of images, every day. Grey as the dominant tone, at times interrupted by a flash of orange, a coloring book, a doll. At other times, images reach us stained with memories, those of strangers we do not know, who do not know us, and who may no longer recognize their own. Memories held in suspension. Fleeting flashes across phone screens. Fragments scrolling on television beneath a red ticker hastily composed, saturated with approximations, where a place name is thrown in as a token of precision. Or brief sequences designed to sustain the continuity of an endlessly renewed flow. Within this flow, the image ceases to emerge as an event. It becomes inscribed within a continuous visual regime, profoundly reconfiguring our relationship to war and to what we perceive of it. With technological shifts, instant capture, immediate publication, and limitless circulation, the place of the image has shifted. That of the viewer as well. The image forms at the very heart of the event and reaches us in the same movement. It circulates even as the event persists. And we, recipients adrift in a sea of visual strikes, find ourselves questioning pain, what reaches us of it, what recedes, what settles, what escapes. Perhaps also the very legitimacy of looking. Within this accelerated visual regime, catastrophe settles into a continuous presence, depositing in memory an incomplete trace. If it leaves a trace at all. In the aftermath of the July 2006 war, I undertook a research project centered on the press photographer as a nodal point. The aim was to examine his position, the decisions he makes, and those that precede the image. Many of those I met insisted on this: the image is never the product of a pure instant, but a construction, an arrangement of angle, temporality, and selection. One of them spoke of the weight of a constant responsibility: determining the conditions under which war becomes visible, deciding what enters the frame and what is excluded. Two decades ago, the image was something one looked at, something one kept. It had its own time. Its duration. Its imprint. Today, it accumulates to the point of exceeding any possibility of narrative containment. This accumulation does not become memory; it produces dispersion. In Regarding the Pain of Others , Susan Sontag interrogates the relationship between image and suffering, and the limits of what images can convey. “Images do not explain; they attest that something has happened.” They fix the occurrence without providing the means to understand it. As their circulation accelerates, images lose their capacity to carry stable meaning and become units within a visual flow. The dulling Sontag describes is tied to the density of images, to their speed of circulation, but also to the very conditions of looking and to the place assigned to the viewer within this apparatus. Here, the question of meaning begins to slip. “The understanding of suffering is not given; it must be constructed.” Seeing is not enough to grasp catastrophe. Meaning takes shape within a context, from a position, that of the one who looks, and that of the one who receives. Hence her warning: “We should not assume the existence of a single ‘we’ when the subject is looking at the suffering of others.” Much has been written about the “silence of the world” in the face of the devastation of Gaza. How do “others” remain silent before the bodies of naked children? And we, in Lebanon today, write similar things about our own reactions to a town that has been erased. Do we relate to this place in the same way? Do we rely on projection to generate empathy? Does indifference, for some, take shape as a defensive strategy? Looking is not a shared experience. It is shaped by distance, by the possibility of exposure, by one’s relation to danger. Contemporary studies of violent imagery, which initially asked what these images do to us, now turn toward the act of looking itself: how do we look, when, and under what conditions? In Lebanon, this visual reconfiguration has intensified over the past decade. The image has shifted from the register of testimony to that of immediate experience. Those who film are often already caught within the event. The phone has become an extension of the body: trembling, sonic saturation, shock—everything now inscribes itself within the frame. In this moment, the position of looking fractures. The viewer inhabits the image as much as they observe it. We, if such a “we” can still be sustained, are no longer those who look at catastrophe from a distance. We have become those who are looked at. This shift exceeds the event itself. It reappears with each crisis, each escalation, each “new catastrophe.” But since the war in Gaza, and through the two most recent wars in Lebanon (which we are still living through), an additional layer has imposed itself upon this visual regime. Images no longer belong solely to the domain of testimony. They now include falsified images, generated by artificial intelligence, or stripped from other contexts. They circulate at the same speed, producing real affects despite the absence of the events they claim to document. This is not merely a failure of representation, but a destabilization of the image’s status as evidence. In many cases, its truth becomes undecidable. “The image is not a substitute for reality,” Sontag writes. From the index, it has become a milieu , a site of circulation, transformation, and the reconfiguration of perception. Within this space, the position of looking shifts once more: it anchors itself in continuous exposure, at the expense of coherent understanding. The image becomes a presence without a point of focus. … For memory to take shape, it requires thresholds, a beginning, and an end. Within the flow we now inhabit, what remains is a diffuse, unbounded trace. Sontag writes that “compassion is an unstable emotion; it needs to be translated into action, or it withers.” Within the flow of images, empathy dissolves into the next one. Some persist without mediation. Others fade despite their intensity. What remains does not follow a logic of importance, but a logic of persistence within the flow. Faced with this saturation, the mind sometimes resorts to displacement or partial erasure. In both cases, it is not a lack of importance that is at stake, but an excess of exposure. The image does not disappear. But neither does it take hold. Hence, the emergence of another position: the refusal to look. Some images, through repetition, exhaust their own meaning or reproduce the violence they carry. Yet this refusal offers no clear way out: to withhold images from view does not negate their existence, nor does it halt their effects. What are we to do with this accumulation of collapsing buildings? With these mutilated animals? With these villages, sometimes familiar, that now appear as the remnants of a post-apocalyptic landscape? For some, looking is a class privilege: those who look can do so because they are alive, because they are safe. Those buried beneath the rubble have become the image. Others believe that we now live inside an image, reproduced without us. Still others argue that looking is itself a political act: that we, as living witnesses, participate in the making of catastrophe, its extension, its archiving. And yet, nothing endures. We feel very little. Because we have grown accustomed to looking. Perhaps the catastrophe, the only real one, resides precisely there: in our growing accustomedness to the visible.

A “Shia question” has now forcefully emerged within Arab reality — a reality that is not isolated from its regional environment or from the policies of the major powers. Some argue that the “Shia question” reveals, in certain of its manifestations and circumstances, a weakening or a wavering of Arab Shia loyalty toward their national states, owing to an Iranian centralism that seeks to extend its influence throughout the Arab region by exploiting existing vulnerabilities and creating new ones in the foundations of those states. Those Shia targeted by this accusation respond collectively, arguing that their movements in their respective countries arise either from the raising of grievances and a demand for political and social justice — Iraq and the Gulf countries being cases in point — or from a commitment alongside their compatriots to the duty of resisting Israeli aggression, as in Lebanon and Palestine. The “Shia question” intensified in the wake of America’s war on Iran in March 2026, reaching the threshold of a reawakening of old demons and stoking atmospheres of sectarianism and doctrinal fanaticism, and total rejection of the Other. This rejection is further fed by the conduct of certain groups such as Hezbollah and its involvement in killings perpetrated in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere — to say nothing of Iran’s bombardment and targeting of Arab capitals in the Gulf throughout the ongoing war. Lebanon, by virtue of its diversity, holds a distinct advantage in contributing to the correction of a distortion that has now spread across the Arab world. This diversity constitutes Lebanon’s contribution to the enrichment of human civilization — a necessary contribution in this era of history, when humanity is traversing a painful labor, and an existential question insistently arises: how can we live together, different and equal? For the way out of this crisis does not consist merely in awaiting the outcome of the Iran-America war, nor in Lebanese-Israeli negotiations, nor in reliance on balance-of-power politics. Addressing the “Shia question” requires a cultural foundation built on accepting the Other as they are. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a “Christian question”: rather than separating from the Other, the Maronites chose Greater Lebanon, built on the living together. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the “Shia question” resurfaces in Lebanon. What, then, is the choice of its elites, its thinkers, and its leaders?

While some Beirut residents continued on Friday, April 10, to inspect the sectors severely hit on Wednesday by Israeli aviation, as part of a surprise attack against Hezbollah cadres based in various neighborhoods of the capital, air raids continued in the South against several villages in the southern part of the country. One of these raids killed 12 people (State Security agents) in Nabatiyeh. But in the absence of major developments in military operations, it is the direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel, scheduled for early next week in Washington, that are currently focusing the attention of local diplomatic and political circles. Information available on Friday indicated that a preliminary meeting will be held on Tuesday at the office of Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, between Lebanon's ambassador to Washington, Nada Hamadé Moawad, and Israel's ambassador, Yechiel Leiter. This three-way discussion will most likely define the general framework or the broad outlines of the agenda for Lebanese-Israeli talks in the military, security, political, and bilateral relations spheres, with a view to peace between the two countries. Lebanon is expected to soon form ad-hoc committees that will be responsible for conducting bilateral talks with Israeli negotiators in the various areas of common interest. It should be noted in this context that Hezbollah has declared its opposition to any direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel. On Friday afternoon, a few dozen supporters of the pro-Iranian party organized rallies in Zokak el-Blatt, Hamra, and in the city center, particularly in the Grand Serail area, to denounce the government's position regarding talks with Israel, obviously forgetting that Hezbollah had negotiated, indirectly, with Israel in the mid-1990s (which led to the April Arrangements), not to mention the talks initiated in 2021-2022 by the pro-Iranian party with Israel, through the American envoy Amos Hochstein (also a former Israeli army officer) with a view to demarcating the maritime borders between Lebanon and Israel. Hezbollah supporters who took to the streets on Friday afternoon are undoubtedly too young to know, moreover, that during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the Iranian mullahs' regime had resorted to... Israel to procure weapons and ammunition to confront Saddam Hussein's army, which at the time caused the famous Iran-Contra affair. It would also be good to recall the (direct) negotiations undertaken between Lebanon and Israel in 1983, following the 1982 war ("Operation Peace for Galilee"). Lebanese and Israeli negotiators then met, face to face, alternately in Khalde and in the Israeli city of Netanya. A strategic issue Beyond the populist outbidding initiated by Hezbollah, it must be noted in the current context that the stakes of direct negotiations with Israel are highly strategic for Lebanon. This issue was clearly defined on Thursday, during the Council of Ministers, by President Joseph Aoun, who bluntly stressed that "only Lebanon negotiates for itself, and no one can negotiate on behalf of Lebanon." The allusion to the Islamic Republic is obvious, inasmuch as the Iranian power insists that Lebanon be included in the ceasefire concluded between Tehran and Washington. Clearly, this would mean that Iran would have, in this case, arrogated to itself the right to monopolize the Lebanese card in its talks with the Trump Administration. By thus embarking on the path of direct negotiations with Israel, President Aoun and the Salam government reaffirm their determination to completely dissociate Lebanon's case from Iranian maneuvers, which would amount to tearing the Lebanese card from the hands of the Islamic Republic. This dissociation is vital for the Lebanese authorities to ensure a settlement of disputes with the Hebrew state. In the mid-1990s, it is recalled in this regard, direct negotiations took place in Washington between Lebanon and Israel but they did not lead to the desired results because Beirut had linked its approval of an agreement with Tel Aviv to the success of Israel's talks with the Syrian regime, which had then refrained from signing with the Israeli government, which had torpedoed the Lebanese-Israeli agreement. The Salam government is thus clearly seeking to dissociate Lebanon's case from the Iranian file so as not to repeat the unfortunate precedent of the destabilizing concomitance of the Lebanese and Syrian components at the time. This dissociation is all the more fundamental for Lebanon today as the Revolutionary Guards do not seem particularly enthusiastic about concluding an agreement with the United States, as indicated by their position on the Strait of Hormuz. "From now on, we will decide which liners will be allowed to cross the strait," the Pasdaran affirmed on Friday. A small phrase which, if it materializes, risks torpedoing the Islamabad talks, scheduled to open on Saturday.

Since the outbreak of the latest military escalation on the southern border, Lebanon has found itself at the heart of the regional picture as a theatre of open confrontation, reviving longstanding questions about its role, the limits of its decision-making autonomy, and its capacity to bear the cost of engagement in conflicts that far exceed its borders. Against this backdrop, a fundamental question presents itself: how is one to assess the merits of this confrontation from a strictly Lebanese perspective, in light of the consequences it has produced on the military, economic, and social levels? The field data points to a considerable cost. Vast areas of the South suffered serious damage to infrastructure and private property, while waves of internal displacement affected hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, further burdening host regions and an already deeply strained state grappling with a severe economic and financial crisis. Key productive sectors, agriculture and tourism foremost among them, were also badly hit at the very moment when the Lebanese economy was in most need of any opening for recovery. Assessments diverge, however, when it comes to actual military gains. Some argue that engagement in the confrontation forms part of a broader deterrence strategy, anchored in regional balances, and that it aims to impose new equations or consolidate existing ones. Others contend that the results have produced no qualitative shift in the balance of power, and that the outer limit of political outcomes remains close to pre-ceasefire arrangements — or even to a return to the practical effects of those arrangements as they stood before the latest escalation — which raises questions about the relationship between the cost incurred and the results achieved, all the more so given that this escalation itself unfolded within wider regional interactions and logics that extend well beyond the strictly Lebanese framework. This divergence of assessment reflects, to a considerable degree, a fundamental disagreement about Lebanon's position within the regional conflict. Is it a direct party endowed with an independent margin of decision, or a link in a broader network of alliances in which local and regional calculations are inextricably intertwined? The answer is not merely theoretical: it bears directly on how the war is understood and how its utility is judged. On the domestic front, the escalation has revived the debate on the role of the state and the limits of its authority. The question of the monopoly on arms and the prerogative of decision over war and peace remains among the most sensitive in Lebanese political life. One camp holds that concentrating this power within state institutions is a sine qua non for strengthening sovereignty and building lasting stability. The other argues that security realities and existing balances impose different formulas, and that any serious approach to this issue must take into account the mutual fears and apprehensions among Lebanon's constituent communities. This debate is not new, but recent developments have lent it renewed sharpness. Experience has shown that the plurality of decision-making centres generates serious challenges in terms of internal coordination and crisis management, while also affecting Lebanon's position in its external relations, whether with regard to the diplomatic track or its capacity to benefit from international support. This question is bound up with a broader interrogation about the nature of the political system. Since the adoption of the Taëf Agreement, foundations were laid for the reconstruction of the state and the reinforcement of its institutions, yet implementation has remained deeply uneven, under the combined effect of internal complexities and shifting political balances, both local and regional. This variable-geometry application has contributed to keeping essential questions — sovereignty, institutional reform — in the realm of perpetually open and unresolved debate. Beyond the question of sovereignty, there is the matter of citizens' trust in the state. Successive crises, from the financial collapse to the fallout of war, have eroded this trust and driven large segments of the Lebanese population to rely on alternative networks to meet their needs. This in turn undermines the possibility of building an effective social contract, founded on a relationship of reciprocity between the state and its citizens, grounded in rights and duties. It is within this framework that one can understand what is sometimes described as a certain "selectivity" in the application of laws or in the approach to public affairs. This selectivity is partly the product of distrust towards institutions, or of the feeling among certain groups that the rules are not applied equally. Yet it simultaneously contributes to weakening the very idea of the state as a common and unifying point of reference, making any attempt to establish stable rules of governance all the more difficult. At the regional level, what is unfolding in Lebanon cannot be separated from a broader context shaped by the interactions between international and regional powers. The experience of recent years across several arenas of the region has demonstrated how internally fragile states can be transformed into arenas where these conflicts intersect and overlap. Lebanon appears, in this configuration, to be particularly exposed to the influence of these balances, by reason of its internal composition and the entanglement of its external relations. It is within this same framework that the recent announcement of a ceasefire between the United States and Iran must be situated — a fifteen-day halt brokered by Pakistan, intended to open a negotiating process between the two parties with the aim of reaching a settlement to the crisis between them. This process, however, raises a series of questions for Lebanon, since it remains unclear whether this agreement concerns it directly or indirectly. It also raises the question of Lebanon's place in such arrangements, at a time when it has no official representation at the negotiating table, while the Lebanese state should in principle be the sole authority empowered to negotiate on its behalf. This situation illustrates a persistent problem related to the limits of national sovereignty: matters that directly concern Lebanon are being addressed within external negotiating frameworks without the state holding the role that should rightfully be its own. Faced with this picture, the choices on offer are neither simple nor clear-cut. A realist approach requires acknowledging the intertwining of internal and external factors, and recognising that any path out of the crises demands a balanced treatment of these factors, on the basis of consolidating the state — not indulging or undermining it. This entails, on one hand, strengthening state institutions and their capacity to manage sovereign dossiers and public services, so as to guarantee a just state, bound by the rule of law and ensuring equal rights; and, on the other, working to reduce internal polarisation and build a minimum of consensus around fundamental questions, in order to reinforce national legitimacy without eroding the role or sovereignty of the state. In the final analysis, Lebanon's recent war raises far more questions than it answers. It reveals the scale of the price that engagement in open-ended conflicts can exact, and casts fresh light on structural questions relating to the state, sovereignty, and the social contract. While readings and assessments remain divided, the central challenge remains that of turning this experience into an opportunity for a rethinking of choices — rather than allowing it to become one more episode in the spiral of recurring crises.

Thirty-nine days into the war, the question that now hangs over the Middle East is no longer whether the conflict will reshape Iran. It already has. The real question is whether we are approaching the moment when the war moves from its destructive phase into its political phase — the moment when wars historically reach their climax and the foundations of the post-war order begin to emerge. Every war follows a brutal but recognizable trajectory. First comes shock. Then escalation. Then devastation. And finally — when the human, economic, and political costs become unbearable — the search for a new equilibrium begins. After nearly six weeks of sustained military operations, the war between Iran, the United States, Israel and their respective allies appears to be entering precisely that stage. The signals are becoming difficult to ignore. The Cost of War The toll of the conflict has been immense. Across Iran, large portions of military infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed. Strategic facilities, missile bases, command centers, and elements of the energy system have been repeatedly targeted. Civilian infrastructure has also suffered heavily. Electricity networks, transportation hubs, and industrial complexes have been disrupted across several provinces. The economic cost is already measured in tens of billions of dollars, in a country whose economy was already weakened by years of sanctions and structural inefficiencies. The human cost has been even more devastating. Thousands have been killed. Many more have been injured. Large numbers of civilians have been displaced internally as military operations intensified around key strategic zones. Financially, the pressure is equally severe. Iran’s currency has collapsed further, inflation has accelerated, and the country’s already fragile fiscal structure is now under extraordinary strain. Wars of this intensity cannot continue indefinitely. Sooner or later, the political calculus begins to change. The Hidden Negotiations Behind the public rhetoric of total confrontation, quieter diplomatic channels appear to have opened. According to Donald Trump and several regional sources, discussions have taken place between the United States and Iran. But notably, these discussions do not appear to involve the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) . Instead, they seem to involve senior officers of Iran’s regular armed forces — the Artesh — with the Pakistani military reportedly acting as an intermediary. If confirmed, this would represent a significant strategic development. For decades, Iran’s military structure has been defined by a dual system. On one side stands the IRGC , the ideological army created after the 1979 revolution to protect the Islamic Republic and its revolutionary doctrine. On the other side stands the regular Iranian military , the traditional national army whose institutional culture predates the revolution and whose mission has historically focused on the defense of the Iranian state rather than the export of ideological influence. The balance of power between these two institutions has long defined the internal architecture of the Iranian regime. The emergence of negotiations that bypass the IRGC may therefore indicate something deeper than simple wartime diplomacy. It may indicate that the political future of Iran itself is now being quietly discussed. The Ultimatum Phase Wars often end not with a sudden ceasefire but with an ultimatum . An ultimatum serves a precise strategic purpose. It forces internal actors to choose. It reshapes the internal balance of power within the losing side. And it creates the conditions under which a political transition becomes possible. The signals emerging from diplomatic channels suggest that the conflict may now be entering precisely such a phase. The ultimatum is not simply directed at the Iranian leadership. It is directed at the structure of power inside Iran . In essence, it asks a fundamental question: Who will control the Iranian state once the war ends? The revolutionary guard — or the national military? The Struggle Inside Iran This internal struggle has existed for decades, though it has rarely been visible to the outside world. The IRGC has grown enormously powerful over the past forty years. It controls large segments of Iran’s economy. It dominates major security institutions. It oversees the country’s missile programs and regional proxy networks. But the regular Iranian army remains a large and professional institution , with deep historical roots in the Iranian state and strong internal cohesion. The war has inevitably shifted the balance between these forces. When states face existential crises, institutional power structures often begin to evolve rapidly. History offers many precedents. Military establishments sometimes emerge from wartime crises as the only institutions capable of restoring order and stability. The possibility that Iran could eventually move toward a military-led transitional authority is therefore no longer unthinkable. A Possible Religious Transformation Such a shift would also have profound ideological implications. Since 1979, Iran’s political system has been built upon the doctrine of Velayat-e-Faqih — the rule of the Islamic jurist — established by Ayatollah Khomeini and centered in the clerical establishment of Qom . This model fuses religious authority with state power. But within Shiite theology itself, another tradition exists. The Shiite religious establishment in Najaf , Iraq, historically developed a different doctrine — one that emphasizes the separation between religious authority and political governance . For decades, Najaf’s scholars have advocated a more restrained political role for clerics. During the uprising, many Shia clerics and seminarists form the Najaf philosophy have actually participated with the Iranian people. A post-war Iran dominated by the military could therefore mark a radical shift away from the revolutionary clerical model of Qom toward a form of governance closer to the Najaf tradition , where religion retains influence but does not directly govern the state. Such a transformation would represent one of the most profound political changes in the Middle East since the Iranian Revolution itself. The Day After Wars often appear chaotic while they are unfolding. But the endgame usually reveals the deeper political forces that have been building beneath the surface. Thirty-nine days into this war, the outlines of that endgame may now be emerging. The conflict has devastated Iran’s infrastructure and economy. Diplomatic channels appear to be opening behind the scenes. The ultimatum phase is here. And within Iran itself, the ultimatum, whether respected and its consequences if not, may be the trigger that will shift the balance between the IGRC and the national Army.. If these dynamics continue to evolve in the same direction, the war may not simply end with a ceasefire. It may end with the reconfiguration of the Iranian state itself. The fall of regimes rarely comes from external pressure alone. More often, it comes when the internal pillars of power begin to realign. If the signals now emerging prove accurate, Iran may be approaching precisely such a moment. And when the guns finally fall silent, the Middle East may discover that the real transformation has only just begun. A new Middle East where the destruction of the State of Israel is eliminated from the Iranian constitution, where Religion is separated form the running of the State, where peace agreements are signed between Iran and its Gulf Neighbours and where guarantees are give for the free circulation through the straits of Hormuz.

Those who have studied war, such as Gaston Bouthoul or Marvin Harris, never confined their analysis to the immediate geopolitical dimension alone. They did not merely ask "why did it break out?" but also "what does it do?" and "whom does it serve?" For societies, when they prove unable to resolve their internal contradictions, tend to export them outward, and war is transformed into a means of reorganising the interior through violence directed toward the exterior. This approach allows for a reading of contemporary wars that escapes their reduction to the military or directly geopolitical sphere. The conflict blazing today across the Iranian-American-Israeli triangle cannot be understood simply as a struggle for influence or mutual deterrence; it must rather be grasped as a complex process serving multiple functions, aimed at consolidating embattled domestic legitimacies, redrawing regional balances, and producing mobilisation narratives that simultaneously redefine the enemy and the self. For Bouthoul, war gave birth to history, which begins with the chronicle of armed battles; it constitutes the boundary marking all great transformations. It embodies one of the forms of accelerated transition. In Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches , Marvin Harris endeavours to explain cultural, religious and military phenomena from a material, economic and ecological angle. His approach helps measure the importance of resources as a factor of conflict and demonstrates that economics and geopolitical role constitute the background of apparent confrontations. It also illuminates why certain communities remain in a state of prolonged war despite accumulated losses, because war fulfils social functions embedded in the heart of the material structure. Harris further connects the infrastructure, understood as the economy, the environment and technology, to the superstructure formed by religion, symbols and beliefs. His analytical framework, however, struggles to account for the role of religious and political ideology, whether Shia, Sunni, Zionist or nationalist, or for the place of emotions, hatred and historical memory, whose determining power the Iranian aggression against the Gulf states so forcefully demonstrated. It also leaves aside the real-time interactions between heads of state that punctuate current events. The ongoing war must therefore be considered a conflict with plural objectives. Strategic resources play a decisive role in American engagement, through the consolidation of influence in the Gulf, the control of energy corridors and maritime passages, and the assertion of technological superiority; the tactics of maintaining hegemony can be read in the difficult balancing act Washington performs between its own sphere of influence and the rising threats that challenge it. The internal social structures of states also play their part, as political and industrial elites exploit instability in pursuit of their own interests, while economic and military apparatuses draw substantial benefit from the perpetuation of tensions. The conflict further serves to preserve the internal cohesion of certain regimes, particularly Netanyahu's, and the "external threat" is converted into an instrument of social control, as is manifestly the case in Iran. It is here that the symbolic, psychological and directly political factor comes into play. Symbols, memory and identities exercise a central function in the Middle East especially. The current war also obeys ideological, religious and nationalist impulses that cultural materialism alone cannot exhaust; it encompasses struggles for identities, for religious and historical narratives, for existential security and for domestic legitimacy. Unpacking the conflict between the three states reveals the material interests concealed behind the ideological discourse, and invites the question of who benefits structurally from the continuation of the war. In terms of geography and resources, Iran presents itself as a regional power endowed with considerable territorial depth and vast energy reserves, while Israel, geographically small, bases its survival on technological and military superiority as well as on American support. The strategic theatre of the confrontation encompasses the Gulf, the energy corridors and regional waters. The balance of forces between the two sides reveals that Israel perpetuates an undeclared nuclear superiority, against an Iranian nuclear programme seeking to establish strategic deterrence, while a parallel race in missiles, drones and cyberwarfare further intensifies the tension. On the American side, the conflict touches on the very architecture of the world economy. The sanctions imposed on Iran generate an internal resistance economy, while the Israeli and American defence industries benefit fully from the climate of threat prevailing in the region, and the persistent tensions provide justification for military and security alliances on a global scale. The conflict thus overflows the bounds of simple doctrinal antagonism to encompass a struggle for hegemony, deterrence and the distribution of power in an environment exceptionally rich in strategic resources. The question that then arises is how the conflict serves the internal structure of each actor. In Iran, the "Israeli-American threat" has long reinforced the narrative of siege, justified the tightening of the security grip and consolidated the position of the Revolutionary Guards as a cardinal institution of the state. In Israel, the Iranian threat has reinforced the centrality of security in political life, strengthened the currents that perceive the danger as existential, and produced an unprecedented degree of social cohesion, despite the deep fractures that run through the society. For the United States, it has made it possible to maintain regional balance, consolidate alliances and manage influence in the face of rising powers. In this sense, the conflict fulfils an internal social function, generating cohesion through shared fear. At the level of the symbolic superstructure, encompassing language, religion and identity, one enters the orbit of the grand formulas: the erasure of Israel, the defence of existence, support for the axis of resistance and the nuclear threat. These formulas do not belong to the realm of mere discourse; they function as instruments of mobilisation. To this must be added the metaphysical dimension embedded in Iranian discourse, and the historical trauma that, in Israeli consciousness, resurfaced with redoubled intensity after the war of 7 October, summoning the collective memory and the existential anguish this trauma carries within it. Is the conflict between Iran and Israel structurally resolvable? Or has it become part of a functional equilibrium that serves the survival of the regimes themselves? Does Netanyahu not have an urgent need for the wars to perpetuate themselves to his benefit? Does Trump not need the strategic balance to prevent China from allying itself with Iran, from extending its influence and from consolidating the Belt and Road? Does Iran not need to maintain the regime against a people in rebellion? And yet, the functional equilibrium we have just described seems now to be slipping beyond all control. The regimes that believe themselves masters of escalation remain exposed to any unforeseen event, whether an assassination, a miscalculation or a decisive strike, and here we are, plunged into a war whose cost weighs on all actors, while the very survival of the Iranian regime is now at stake.

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

What is happening in Lebanon today can no longer be understood within the framework of a war or a conventional conflict, but within what René Girard described as the “spiral of violence”: violence is no longer a means, it becomes an autonomous system that reproduces itself through discourse before it does so on the ground. In this context, Hezbollah’s discourse, no less than the statements of figures such as Mahmoud Qomati, cannot be read as situational or emotional expressions. We are facing a coherent discursive structure, one that goes beyond politics to remake society through symbolic and material force alike — the discourse itself becoming an instrument for reshaping reality, not merely reflecting it. This is where the danger of a political discourse built on accusations of treason and intimidation reveals itself: not as a situational aberration, but as a component of a deeper structure seeking to redefine the very notions of state, society, and legitimacy. René Girard offers an indispensable analytical framework for understanding what is unfolding, through his concepts of “founding violence” and the “scapegoat mechanism.” Violence, according to Girard, persists only if it is relegitimized through a moral discourse that confers upon it a quality of necessity or sanctity. In the Lebanese case, one can clearly observe: the conversion of war into a moral duty, the redefinition of defeat as “sacrifice,” and the reduction of opposition to the concept of “treason.” In this sense, the accusation of treason is not deployed as a descriptive tool but as a mechanism of exclusion, preparing the isolation of the dissenter and stripping him of his legitimacy. In his theory of the scapegoat, Girard shows that societies in crisis tend to displace their internal tension onto a substitute victim, who is made to bear responsibility for the chaos. What we are witnessing today is a gradual shift: from a clearly identified external enemy to an internal enemy of multiple faces, encompassing the media, opponents, and even anxious citizens. This shift is not incidental: it is a symptom of a profound crisis in the structure of legitimacy, where the maintenance of internal cohesion becomes conditional on the production of an “internal enemy.” The Spiral of Violence as a Self-Regenerating Mechanism Jeanne-Henriette Louis, in her work L’engrenage de la violence, offers a complementary framework, illuminating how violence transforms into a closed system that reproduces itself: violence generates fear, fear generates silence, and silence permits more violence. In the Lebanese case, this loop manifests clearly: a war that drains society without end, a discourse that justifies it and forecloses all questioning of it, social and media pressure to silence dissenting voices. The result is not merely the perpetuation of violence, but its consolidation as the norm. Adaptation to Violence Some read society’s adaptation to this violence as a positive sign — which is precisely what Boris Cyrulnik’s writings contradict, through his analysis of the phenomenon of “adaptation to trauma.” Societies subjected to repeated traumatic events may develop defensive mechanisms that lead them to accept what was previously considered unacceptable. In Lebanon, this adaptation manifests in: the normalization of the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, the acceptance of destruction as a given, and silence in the face of a discourse of internal threat. This adaptation does not signify recovery; it indicates, on the contrary, a profound dysfunction in the perception of reality, where trauma is absorbed rather than addressed. The most striking mutation in Hezbollah’s current discourse remains its shift from expression to imposition. The discourse no longer seeks to persuade; it aims to impose a particular definition of patriotism, to monopolize the designation of the enemy, to intimidate those who disagree. This translates concretely into the emergence of an illegitimate parallel power: one capable of making existential decisions (such as war), without being held accountable to any institution whatsoever. Yet the paradox lies in the abyss between the narrative and reality: against the discourse of power and victory, Lebanon is confronted with an entirely different reality — the displacement of hundreds of thousands of citizens, the massive destruction of infrastructure, the deepening of economic collapse, the erosion of state institutions. This gap between narrative and reality is not a mere contradiction: it is a constitutive element of the perpetuation of the crisis, insofar as it prevents any serious revision or genuine reckoning. This leads us to the disintegration of the social contract itself: in any state, the decision to go to war is one of the most significant expressions of sovereignty, and is subject to the principle of accountability. But in the Lebanese case: the decision is made outside official frameworks, its consequences are imposed on society, and any debate around it is forbidden. This reality leads to the disintegration of the social contract, where the citizen loses his role as a partner in decision-making and is reduced to a passive recipient of its effects. Lebanon today stands at a decisive crossroads. The question is no longer solely that of an external confrontation, but of the nature of the internal system taking shape under the pressure of the war and the discourse accompanying it. If the spiral of violence, as Girard describes it, continues unbroken, it will not lead to stability, but to further escalation and explosion. And if adaptation to trauma persists, as Cyrulnik warns, society will gradually lose its capacity to distinguish the normal from the abnormal. The real danger lies not only in the war itself, but in its transformation into a permanent condition, remaking society on the basis of fear rather than citizenship. Breaking this loop begins with returning to the fundamental questions: Who holds the power to decide on war? Who bears responsibility? And where does the citizen stand in all of this? Without that, Lebanon will not be a state, but an open arena for conflicts that exceed its capacity for endurance.

At this hour in Lebanon's life, the debate is no longer about technical matters — will negotiations with Israel be direct or indirect? Will they precede a ceasefire or follow one? These are secondary questions beside the real one, which imposes itself with irresistible force: why negotiate at all, and what does it mean for a state to refuse to do so? In its most elementary definition, negotiation in international relations is neither a sign of weakness nor a surrender. It is the natural instrument states use to manage conflicts when the cost of war exceeds their capacity to bear it. This is how rational states operate. Wars themselves always end in negotiation — after the bloodshed, after the destruction, after the warring parties discover that force alone neither solves problems nor produces lasting stability. This is why states that have waged devastating wars have nonetheless negotiated. The United States negotiated with Vietnam after a long conflict; Egypt negotiated with Israel after two major wars; European powers, after centuries of confrontation, eventually built a new political order across their continent. Negotiation is not an exception in political history — it is the rule. This is precisely why the refusal to negotiate, in a devastated country where hundreds of thousands of citizens have been displaced, constitutes a morally unacceptable and scarcely explicable position. In such moments, refusing to negotiate is not a heroic stance — it is one of the following: ignorance of the nature of international relations, evasion of responsibility, contempt for human lives and for the country's fate — or else, the one blocking negotiations is unable to consent to them without the approval of his guardian authority, Iran, and it is he who embodies the true Vichy government, not the Lebanese government, thus turning against himself the very accusation that Mahmoud Qomati — a member of parliament, incidentally — had levelled against the state. Lebanon is living today through one of its most perilous hours since the end of the civil war. More than eight hundred thousand Lebanese have fled their homes in the South and in other regions, and nothing indicates clearly whether — or when — they will be able to return. Entire villages have become ghost towns. An economy that was barely breathing before the war now stands at the edge of total collapse. And yet, the debate in the country continues as though the matter were merely a theoretical disagreement about the form of negotiations. But the truth — simple, bitter, unflinching — is this: this war was not decided by the Lebanese Republic. It was not declared by the Council of Ministers, ratified by parliament, or demanded by the people. The one who chose to open this front is Hezbollah — a military force that has for years operated outside the state, dominating it from within, strategically bound to Iran and absorbed into its regional conflicts. This is where the fundamental knot lies. For the Party, the war is not a war against Israel nor a defence of Lebanon — it is a fragment of Iran's regional battle. This is why its leaders call it an "existential battle." But in reality, it is existential for the Party itself and for its regional role, not for the Lebanese people nor for the Lebanese state, which pays the price in destruction, displacement, and economic collapse. Faced with this logic, Israel approaches the war from a radically different perspective. For Israel, what is unfolding is perhaps an opportunity that may not come again — the chance to liquidate the military threat Hezbollah represents on its northern border. It is therefore unrealistic to believe that Israel will easily halt its operations, or that it will settle for a temporary ceasefire that restores the previous situation. Israeli military and political logic holds that this may be the last opportunity to alter the equation in Lebanon. Between these two logics, Lebanon — the state — finds itself in a condition of near-helplessness. A state that did not decide the war but pays its price. A state asked to negotiate when the decision to fight does not belong to it. This is why the head of state advances the idea of negotiation. Not because negotiation is a comfortable choice, nor because the circumstances are ideal, but because the continuation of the war means simply pushing Lebanon toward total ruin. To negotiate, in this context, is not a political luxury — it is a national necessity to protect what remains of society and of the state. But the problem does not lie in the principle of negotiation itself — it lies in the political context that surrounds it. In a country where the state holds neither the monopoly on arms nor that on military decision-making, negotiation becomes a near-impossible task. How can a state negotiate an end to a war when an internal party continues waging it, retains the capacity to reignite it at will, and does so according to regional calculations bearing no relation to the direct Lebanese interest? This is precisely where the gravest danger emerges. Lebanon could find itself in the worst of possible scenarios: a protracted war it cannot resolve, and a humiliating settlement imposed from outside after far greater destruction. This is not a theoretical hypothesis. Lebanon's contemporary history is marked by situations that were endured, accepted when it proved unable to decide for itself. The real debate Lebanese people must engage in today is not about the form of negotiations, but about the state's recovery of its decision-making power over war and peace. A state that does not hold this power cannot protect its people, nor even negotiate on their behalf. In the end, no state in the world can live indefinitely under conditions of open-ended war, and no society can endure the displacement of hundreds of thousands of its people without any horizon of return. This is why negotiating is not a moral or ideological choice — it is a political and ethical duty toward citizens. As for transforming the refusal to negotiate into a heroic banner, while the people pay the price of war with their lives, their homes, their livelihoods, and the future of their children — that is not heroism. It is, at best, a dangerous political illusion; at worst, a contempt for the fate of an entire country and a betrayal of those who had placed their trust in them for protection. The question that will determine Lebanon's future is no longer: do we negotiate or not? The real question has become simpler, and more urgent: What is Lebanon's fate?