Composed gaze

If some political and media voices within the camp that once prided itself on calling itself the “axis of defiance” are unconcerned by the destruction of yet more villages as they brandish irresponsible, demagogic slogans, other voices on the opposite side are no less reckless in their hasty calls for peace and normalization. Indifferent to the occupation of more than sixty villages in southern Lebanon, they rush toward any ill-considered initiative simply to condemn the irresponsible conduct that dragged Lebanon into war! Between irresponsible defiance and surrender at any cost, the country falls prey to hollow demagogic posturing. One side is prepared to bring about further destruction under slogans that the latest war has rendered obsolete. The other is prepared to retell history, from the civil war to the present, through the prism of right and wrong, and use that interpretation to promote an impossible peace and a normalization whose time has not come.

If the Lebanese authorities believe they are mobilizing all their energies and capabilities to address the new reality created by Israel’s occupation of roughly 7 percent of Lebanon’s territory, and making every possible effort to implement the framework agreement signed with Israel and revive the stalled negotiations in Rome or Washington, then they must also seek to devise some form of internal political dialogue, particularly with Hezbollah, which bears primary responsibility for drawing Lebanon into two successive wars, in 2024 and 2026. The Lebanese authorities have set the bar high since the political order was reconstituted with the election of General Joseph Aoun as President of the Republic in January 2025 and the formation of Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s government in February of the same year. It must be acknowledged that these were goals that could scarcely even have been contemplated a few years earlier, when Hezbollah’s grip on the Lebanese state and political establishment had become deeply entrenched and its military strength had driven it to expand into Syria and become immersed in that country’s complexities and problems.

Much has been written about the new Middle East and the sweeping changes it has undergone over the past three years. Analysts have filled television screens with predictions about where the region is headed and how its future may be shaped by the shifting political and military balance of power. The changes are real, and they deserve a measured reading. Some argue that the regional order established in the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of unrivaled U.S. global dominance, has entered a period of decline. They point to Washington’s direct involvement in the region’s wars, including conflicts it has at times helped set in motion. The most obvious examples are the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the war against Iran, which continues intermittently and has yet to reach a definitive end.

It will take a long time before Lebanon regains full stability. The greater danger, however, lies in growing accustomed to the shocks it is currently experiencing. The situation is stark: southern territory remains under occupation, while increasingly extensive measures on the ground by the occupying forces give no indication of any military withdrawal in the foreseeable future, as statements by Israeli officials themselves confirm; internal political dialogue has come to a complete halt; and the U.S.-Iranian war continues in different forms and at different levels. It is clear that negotiations, although they remain the only option available to the Lebanese, are stalled. This deadlock is undoubtedly linked to Israel’s determination not to alter the new reality that has taken shape in South Lebanon. Israel has, in one way or another, managed to neutralize Resistance operations, or at least significantly weaken them, while retaining complete freedom of action to bomb villages, towns and areas in the south without even feeling the need to justify those strikes. Some of them, for example, have resulted in the complete destruction of more than 60 towns and villages, with losses estimated at around $11 billion and monthly displacement costs exceeding $100 million, according to Lebanon’s economy minister.

At a time when countries across the region are seeking mechanisms and alliances that would allow them to reduce their total security dependence on the United States, if not move entirely out from under its umbrella, with the Turkish-Saudi-Pakistani alliance offering a clear example of this trend, official Lebanon is moving in the opposite direction, toward ever greater reliance on Washington in most areas of its foreign policy. This is not limited to the issue of direct Lebanese-Israeli negotiations, which began in Washington and are continuing in Rome, rather than Paris, for instance, and that is no coincidence.

There is a heavy legacy between Lebanon and Syria, but there are also many opportunities. The past between the two countries weighs enormously. From independence under the Mandate in 1920 to actual independence in 1943, and through the most recent phases, issues have piled up to the point where fraught relations between the two countries have become an almost permanent state of affairs. But the time has come for this to end and for a new chapter to be opened, one whose fundamental principle is mutual respect and non-interference in internal affairs. The bitter experience of Syrian tutelage, which the Lebanese endured from Syria’s entry into Lebanon in 1976 until the military withdrawal of April 26, 2005, remains deeply etched in their memory. That withdrawal came amid the international reactions that followed the assassination of President Rafic Hariri on February 14 of the same year. While analyzing the reasons behind Syria’s entry into Lebanon would require articles of its own, the period that marked the height of the tutelage began after Syria’s participation in the operation to liberate Kuwait in 1990, when its control over Lebanon was effectively granted as a kind of “reward.”

It is true that translating Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s visit to the White House into concrete political results will require time and sustained effort, for many reasons. It is equally true, however, that appearances matter in relations between states, particularly when dealing with a president as unpredictable as Donald Trump, who is known at times to place greater weight on personal chemistry than on institutional considerations in his dealings with heads of state and government around the world. The scene in the Oval Office where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was publicly dressed down before the world’s cameras remains vividly etched in people’s memories.

While the reservations surrounding the US-sponsored framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel are numerous, profound, legitimate, and entirely justified, given the text’s failure to secure any meaningful gains for Lebanon, this does not mean that Lebanon should embrace the Islamabad track or the Switzerland agreement between Washington and Tehran, whose collapse, far from being unexpected, resulted from a combination of political and non-political factors. This fragile Switzerland agreement clearly reflects the deep mistrust between the two opposing sides. Tel Aviv has consistently sought to fuel and deepen that mistrust in pursuit of its own immediate interests: resuming the war from where it left off, further degrading Iran’s military capabilities, even if doing so failed to bring about the regime’s collapse, contrary to the expectations or hopes entertained during the early stages of the conflict. At the same time, it serves Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by buying him additional time, improving his standing ahead of the parliamentary elections, while allowing him to continue delaying, slowing, and stalling the judicial proceedings against him.

Regardless of the political and media debate surrounding the content of the US-Iran agreement, recent developments have made it increasingly clear that new dynamics are taking shape across the region. Their defining feature may well be turning the page on the long-standing and deep-rooted conflict between Washington and Tehran and replacing it with a framework for managing their differences according to parameters markedly different from those that prevailed in the past. It is in this context that Iran’s insistence on “bringing the state of war between the two countries to an end can best be understood”.

Many analysts have taken note of the unusually critical remarks made by U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance toward Israel, viewing them as an unprecedented stance, despite the massive political, military, and economic support that Washington continues to provide to Tel Aviv. Indeed, Vance reminded Israeli critics of the diplomatic agreement with Tehran that two-thirds of the weapons that have "protected their homeland" are American-made and fully funded by U.S. taxpayers. He stressed that Israel relies too heavily on military force to resolve its crises, and that it should show greater deference to Washington as its one and only remaining strategic ally in the world. In an interview with the New York Times , Vance noted that Donald Trump is the only world leader currently showing sympathy toward Israel, before addressing Israelis directly: