Opinion

Marco Rubio’s recent speech in Athens, calling for the renewal of Western civilization and the restoration of its political, economic, and military strength, raises a fundamental question: Are we witnessing a temporary crisis of Western leadership, or have we reached the historical limits of the political and social order upon which Western dominance was constructed? I would argue that we are witnessing several interconnected crises: the limitations of Western democracy, the transformation of historically dominant identities, the declining capacity of the nation-state to address global challenges, and the inadequacy of security policies based primarily on military power.

In the current Syrian context, a fundamental question arises with particular urgency: who called for the return of the Golan? Who else could it be but Syrian President Ahmed al-Charaa? But why on earth did the Syrian president reopen the Golan “cold case” when he had so many other priorities to deal with? In his view as a former jihadist, appealing to world opinion at the UN General Assembly meeting on September 23 was not merely a reminder of the Israeli-Syrian dispute dating back to June 1967. So what got into him, when in an interview the previous day he had stressed that direct Israeli-Syrian negotiations had taken place under U.S. auspices and that the two sides had reached 90% of a security agreement? (1)

A bulldozer does not debate politics. When it enters a village, it does not ask who supported the war and who opposed it. It does not distinguish between the home of a supporter and that of an opponent. It tears down walls, uproots trees, alters the features of the land, then leaves people facing the simplest and harshest question: Do we rebuild only to wait for the next war? This is the question from which any serious discussion about Lebanon’s future should begin. For many years, we discussed neutrality as though it were an academic idea, or the demand of one Lebanese camp against another. Some saw it as a withdrawal from the Arab-Israeli conflict, while others regarded it as an attempt to detach Lebanon from its surroundings. At times, it was treated as though it were a sectarian project impossible to implement.

But “who are these Zulus, who are these remarkable people who inflict defeats on our generals , who convert our bishops ...?” This exclamation by Disraeli, the British Prime Minister, could be echoed by the European nations that, with winter approaching, fear the closure of Bab el-Mandeb! Let us recall that in January 1879 , when the British Empire under Victoria had achieved global supremacy, its troops were being massacred in South Africa by primitive tribes. European imperialism took a blow, the British cabinet could not get over it, and Western nations could quietly laugh at the misadventure that tarnished the luster of Her Gracious Majesty!

The Hashd al-Shaabi emerged under circumstances different from Lebanon’s, at a moment of severe security collapse as ISIS expanded in 2014. It would therefore be wrong to draw a simplistic equivalence between the Hashd and Hezbollah. But the Iraqi experience offers an extremely important lesson about the idea of integrating armed organizations into the state. In 2016, the Iraqi parliament recognized the Hashd as an independent military formation within the armed forces and linked to the commander-in-chief. In theory, this was supposed to place armed forces under the authority and command of the state. But specialized studies found that many networks and factions retained their own leaderships, interests, and political and economic ties, and that the formal framework was not sufficient to produce a unified chain of command and loyalty.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam went to the United Nations and spoke at length about sovereignty. He called for Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanese territory, reaffirmed the state’s exclusive authority over weapons and the decision of war and peace, and insisted that no one has the right to negotiate on Lebanon’s behalf. These are all principles that a Lebanese prime minister should defend. But there was one remarkable omission from his speech: Hezbollah. Not once did Salam name the organization whose weapons make the very principle he was defending necessary. He spoke of “arms outside the state,” of wars Lebanon did not choose, and of the need to restore national decision-making. Yet the actor that possesses those arms, has repeatedly made decisions of war and peace outside the state, and has tied Lebanon’s security to Iran’s regional strategy remained unnamed.

Following the conclusion of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) mission in Beirut, and as Lebanon prepares to make decisive decisions on the restructuring of the banking sector and the future of deposits, the country now finds itself at a critical turning point. In April 2025, I described the agreement Lebanon was seeking with the IMF as “the world’s most expensive visa.” Today, following the IMF’s latest visit to Beirut, that phrase takes on an even more obvious meaning. The staff-level agreement reached with the IMF in April 2022 involved financing of around $3 billion, subject to the completion of the required prior actions and approval by the Fund’s relevant governing bodies. Above all, the agreement was intended to serve as a certificate of confidence and credibility, enabling Lebanon to subsequently attract much larger amounts of Arab and international financing.

As the fighting continued in Hormuz, two military axes emerged in plain view of Washington, embodying two geostrategic approaches destined to compete with each other. What is more, this was happening across an area stretching from the Arabian Sea to the eastern Mediterranean—a region still regarded as the United States’ backyard, if not its exclusive preserve. Indeed, the missile and drone defense agreement concluded between Israel and Greece on September 2 appears to be a replica of the joint defense alliance signed in Mecca on August 7 by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. Thus, in theory at least, we now have “two security poles facing each other without forming two entirely separate blocs.”

It was a phrase my late mother used to repeat to us from the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War, more than fifty years ago. To her, it was not merely financial advice, but the expression of an early awareness of danger and of the need to prepare for difficult days. She had also known the tragedy of famine through the stories passed down by her father, whose two brothers had emigrated in search of a livelihood and remained out of contact for a long time, while he stayed behind to care for his parents… At the same time, my mother was influenced by Raymond Eddé’s reformist ideas and by his concerns over Israel’s expansionist ambitions. She would particularly recall his warning in 1969 against signing the Cairo Agreement, fearing that it could provide Israel with a pretext to expand its occupation of southern Lebanon, within the broader framework of what he saw as Israel’s long-standing expansionist ambitions.

Would we dare draw a parallel between the respective careers of two deposed dictators, namely Adib Chichakli and Bashar al-Assad? Both ruled Syria with an iron fist (1), only to beat a miserable retreat, abandoning their followers to the wrath of the people. The first slipped away in February 1954; the second was spirited out, without fanfare or fuss, in December 2024. The same pattern, seventy years apart! But the comparison does not end there. Both dictators, after all, tried to regain a foothold in Syria from a Lebanese base. In denial, neither could bring himself to doubt his popularity among a people he had brutally repressed, nor the enthusiasm Syrians would supposedly display should he ever return to power.