Opinion

After being endorsed in Washington, General Joseph Aoun was then officially welcomed in Ankara at the end of July — a capital that received him with all the honors befitting his rank. The red carpet, the presidential guard presenting arms with fixed bayonets, süngü tak , and cannon salutes were no small thing in the eyes of the career military man that the Lebanese president is. Obviously, he would not be the one to pick a fight with a Turkish trade delegation, as President Elias Hraoui had done at the very start of his term. A complete map of the sanjaks of the vilayets of Beirut and Syria in 1909. The vilayet of Beirut encompassed the sanjaks of Nablus, Acre, "Bilad al Bechara" (present-day South Lebanon or Jabal Amil), the city of Beirut, and the sanjaks of Tarablus ash-Sham and Latakia. The term Tarablus ash-Sham was used to avoid confusion with another Ottoman city: Tarablus el-Gharb, the city of Tripoli in Libya, which retained its name. (Wikimedia Commons)

The Lebanese crisis, which officially emerged in the autumn of 2019, has been explained almost exclusively through technical factors: the financial engineering of the Banque du Liban, bank profits, the lira-dollar peg, interest rates, capital transfers, and the trade deficit and consumption. These factors do indeed warrant scrutiny, but they are not sufficient on their own to fully explain the collapse. The political, security, and administrative causes — looting of the public sector, chaotic hiring in the state administration, spending without regular budgets, clientelism, the politicization of the judiciary, smuggling, the shadow economy, and involvement in regional conflicts — have been largely overlooked. Hassan Diab's government is not solely responsible for a crisis that had been building for decades. Nevertheless, certain decisions made or endorsed during his tenure accelerated the breaking point.

Before anything else, Sheikh Naim, you must understand that all Lebanese are paying today for your political recklessness, your blind submission to Iran, and your unilateral decisions that dragged Lebanon into wars neither its people nor its State chose or approved. Those who brought the country to this tragic reality and allowed the Israeli occupation to return to parts of Southern Lebanon are not those striving today to save the country. They are those who submitted to Iran’s orders and unilaterally declared war, outside the framework of the State, its institutions, and its sovereign decision-making.

The war in Ukraine continues to be at the center of a wide-ranging debate, fueled in part by near-daily bombardments targeting key nerve centers on both sides, and more specifically the Russian and Ukrainian capitals. In order to better understand the various dimensions of this long-standing conflict, it is necessary to revisit the background and origins of what led to this (fratricidal?) war—by examining the motivations and aspirations of the different parties involved, including the West (the United States and Europe, extended to all NATO member countries with the exception of Turkey), and by recalling the early stages of the Russian offensive and the failed attempts to achieve peace, or at least negotiations, bearing in mind that responsibility in this context is shared by many.

One could almost believe that Lebanon has lived only according to the rhythm of foreign capitals: there was the Egyptian era under Nasser, the Palestinian era under the PLO, the Syrian era under the republican dynasty of the Assads, and, of course, the Iranian era, when Hezbollah took control through intermediaries. What makes the Lebanese experience particularly distinctive is that whenever the influence of one Arab or foreign regime began to fade or disappear, another quickly stepped in to replace it. As though it were only natural, since nature abhors a vacuum and our politicians have never wished to renounce servitude.

By Antoine Menassa* A few days ago, the Beirut Indictment Chamber issued a dismissal ruling in favor of former Banque du Liban Governor Riad Salamé, in the case stemming from a complaint filed in June 2021 by businessman Talal Abou-Ghazaleh. The complainant had accused Salamé of issuing circulars that altered the liberal economic system, concealing the true state of the banks' finances, and conspiring with those banks to misappropriate depositors' funds. In its decision handed down on July 14, 2026, the Indictment Chamber found that the constituent elements of the alleged offense had not been established. Applying the principles of criminal law with impartiality and independence, it placed the case back within its strictly legal framework and brought the proceedings against the former Governor to a close. This decision has been welcomed as an illustration of the role of justice, which must be guided not by public sentiment or pressure, but solely by the law and the evidence.

When we have been driven back by enemy fire; when the adversary has stormed our cities, razed so many towns and villages, and forced our fellow citizens from their homes; when it has demonstrated that it can keep advancing until it encircles our capital; and above all when, weary of war, those who clamored for battle finally pleaded for a ceasefire, it stands to reason that, at the negotiating table, one cannot afford to be overly fastidious and may have to compromise on certain principles, such as national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Defeated France had to cede Alsace-Lorraine to the Kaiser's Empire in 1871; likewise, Germany, upon signing the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, was compelled to accept, among other humiliating terms, the demilitarization of the Rhineland and the reduction of its army to one hundred thousand men.

The Middle East is undergoing unprecedented transformations that are reshaping the region’s security and power landscape. After years of open wars and proxy conflicts, the region is gradually moving toward a new approach built on strengthening the nation-state, reducing the influence of non-state armed organizations, and rebuilding military and security institutions as the sole guarantor of stability. Against this backdrop, Lebanon has a rare opportunity to rethink its defense architecture in a manner that reflects these regional changes while safeguarding its national interests. Over the decades, Hezbollah has accumulated advanced military and technological expertise in command, intelligence, drones, electronic warfare, communications, and logistics. This expertise represents valuable human capital that should not be allowed to go to waste. Instead, within the framework of the state’s legitimate authority, it should be integrated into the Lebanese Armed Forces and the country’s security institutions, thereby strengthening state sovereignty instead of perpetuating divided authority over national security.

There is a logic that reappears every time the question of Hezbollah’s weapons is raised. It tries to present the party not as an armed authority that has confiscated the decision of a sect and a country, but as the natural extension of Lebanon’s Shiite community — as though objecting to Hezbollah were an objection to Shiites themselves, and as though disarming it meant uprooting an entire community from its history, memory, and means of protection. This logic is not only wrong. It is insulting. It reduces Shiites to their fear. It turns their long history into a prelude to a rifle. It treats an entire community as though it cannot exist except inside the network of an armed party — as though Jabal Amel, Najaf, jurisprudence, reform, scholars, intellectuals, farmers, students, merchants, and all the Lebanese Shiite national experiences were nothing more than a preparation for Wilayat al-Faqih.

“Land in exchange for peace.” That, in essence, is the Israeli-Lebanese agreement reached in Washington between June 23 and 26 – an old formula that remains as relevant today as ever, provided the interests of the people of Lebanon’s devastated villages are placed above all else. The rest is detail. Yes, land in exchange for peace – but not just any peace. A peace achieved through placing all weapons in the hands of the Lebanese state as we know it: a parliamentary democracy, a land of freedom and pluralism. It could also be put this way: land in exchange for Hezbollah’s weapons. For contrary to what people think, the Washington agreement is a peace agreement, not a military one. It could be implemented without a single shot being fired.