Opinion

In the aftermath of the disastrous June 1967 war—the so-called Six-Day War—the Arab countries were forced to confront a bitter reality: Egypt had lost the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula; the Hashemite Kingdom had been stripped of Jerusalem and the West Bank; while Syria had ignominiously withdrawn from the Golan Heights. Yet the Baath regime in Damascus, refusing to assume responsibility for a historic defeat, suggested that Israel had not truly won as long as it had failed to overthrow the Syrian regime. As long as the regime remained standing, Tel Aviv could not claim victory. This attitude of denial would set a precedent whenever the Arabs suffered a Waterloo. And so, true to form, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, raising his voice despite the retreat, proclaimed on the eve of Ashura commemorations the victory of the Party of God “against the conspiracy woven by the alliance of the United States and Israel, under the cover provided by the Lebanese state.” It takes no small amount of audacity to claim the laurels of victory at the very moment when the Israeli army is steadily encroaching upon southern Lebanon and emptying it of its inhabitants. Saving Face And what about Donald Trump? Why does he appear so triumphant? According to Nicolas Baverez in Le Figaro, the protocol signed at Versailles by the American president shares many characteristics with the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War and established “a false peace and merely a suspension of hostilities.” From this premise, the columnist drew a sweeping conclusion and delivered the following verdict: “The Versailles Protocol thus records the strategic debacle that concludes the Iran war for the United States, Israel, the Gulf monarchies, Europe, and America’s Asian allies.” That said, one should be wary of the reflexive anti-Americanism found in certain segments of the French press and instead pay close attention to Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, a newspaper that is hardly indulgent toward the current U.S. administration. Friedman observes that the leaders of Israel, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the United States have one thing in common: none of them would welcome the establishment of a commission of inquiry to examine their conduct and performance during the latest Middle Eastern conflict. So who won and who lost? But is it not still too early to ask—or answer—that question? The Axis of Evil—or the Axis of Good, depending on one’s perspective—may not have won a battle, but neither has it necessarily lost the war. Conflicts are not judged by their opening rounds but by their final outcome. The simmering confrontation will continue in one form or another, under one pretext or another, with Lebanon serving as a testing ground and an arena for settling scores. Dissociating Lebanon from Iran at All Costs Our Lebanon, more than ever the punching bag of the belligerents, has been ravaged since early March by a new war between Israel and Hezbollah. The country has suffered damages estimated at more than one billion dollars, with 11,000 buildings completely destroyed in the South. This is without mentioning the thousands killed, wounded, and displaced. Yet what is even more serious—and what Naim Qassem openly advocates—is maintaining a link between the ceasefire established in Lebanon and the one reached between Iran and the United States. Making the two fronts inseparable would mean sacrificing the Lebanese cause on the altar of Iranian interests during the negotiations taking place in Bürgenstock, Switzerland. For Lebanon to extricate itself from its predicament, it must remain an autonomous theater of operations, governed by its own circumstances and conditions. If the cessation of hostilities in the South were to depend on an understanding between Tehran and Washington, Lebanese sovereignty would effectively be lost. Such an arrangement would establish a Persian tutelage over the Lebanese state—more insidious than the Syrian tutelage exercised under the Assad dynasty. Naim Qassem is waiting precisely for such a development so that he may proclaim victory. Yet this would be a victory for Iran, not for Lebanon.

Major crises reveal a simple truth: no country can endure when loyalties that transcend it remain stronger than the sense of belonging to it. Nations that overcome adversity are those that make national identity the common ground uniting all their citizens, regardless of their political, religious, or cultural affiliations. The nation does not erase diversity. It provides the framework that protects it. That lesson has become particularly clear in Iran’s recent evolution, where national and patriotic discourse has gained renewed momentum by embracing groups that, until recently, had been regarded as lying outside the circle of political loyalty. The authorities have come to understand that existential challenges require widening the circle of belonging, for a state’s strength is measured not only by the cohesion of its governing institutions, but also by its ability to embrace society in all its diversity. Lebanon, meanwhile, continues to grapple with the same fundamental question. Where should allegiance come first: to the sect, the party, the regional axis, or the state? The recent signing of the declaration of intent between Lebanon and Israel under American sponsorship, together with the domestic divisions it has stirred, has served as a reminder that the real problem lies not merely in the substance of any agreement, but in the absence of a unifying national framework within which decisions of such consequence can be debated before they become sources of internal division. No one is being asked to abandon deeply held convictions or legitimate concerns, nor should choices be imposed by majority rule or by force. What is required is for the principle of “Lebanon First” to become a political and moral foundation around which everyone can rally. That calls for an open and candid national dialogue on the issues that divide the country, from defense strategy to foreign relations, so that decisions are shaped within constitutional institutions rather than in the arenas of regional rivalries or at negotiating tables abroad. True peace begins at home. Sovereignty begins with unity of decision. Stability cannot be secured through an external agreement as long as the Lebanese remain divided over the very meaning of the state. When Lebanon comes first, differences cease to be a threat and become a source of strength, because everyone remains free to disagree beneath the shelter of one nation, one state, and one shared future.

Roger Barake's article "Storm Warning in the European Sky" - Levant Time, June 13, 2026 - presents the stated reasons for the abandonment of the FCAS project (Future Combat Air System). This article offers a particular perspective by depicting Franco-German relations as they are perceived by many French people. It sheds specific light on this regrettable abandonment. Here are some illuminating excerpts from the introduction of the aforementioned article: "The program's failure immediately reignited criticism targeting Dassault Aviation and its CEO, Éric Trappier. In certain German and European political circles, the head of the French aircraft manufacturer is portrayed as one of the main figures responsible for the deadlock. His detractors accuse him of having championed an overly nationalistic vision of the program, incompatible with the logic of European cooperation. For several years, Éric Trappier has maintained that the problem is not European but industrial. In his view, a combat aircraft cannot be designed through constant compromises between multiple companies and multiple states. His reasoning is straightforward: responsibility must be inseparable from authority. If a manufacturer is tasked with developing the primary aircraft, it must also hold the corresponding decision-making power. Two competing visions of European defense have clashed since the program's inception. The first, often associated with Berlin and European institutions, favors the sharing of expertise, industrial integration, and the pooling of technologies. France requires an aircraft capable of operating from aircraft carriers and of contributing to the airborne component of its nuclear deterrent. Germany shares none of these requirements. As for Spain, its primary concern is securing its place in the European aeronautics industry." These excerpts perfectly illustrate two opposing visions: Dassault, which only seeks leadership and design control over its own portion of the program, is genuinely concerned with upholding a conceptual and industrial coherence that guarantees the production of a high-performance aircraft — one whose development and manufacture for the benefit of the Air Force, and also the Navy in France's case, would be faster and certainly less costly than a model designed under multiple constraints and modifications, some of which would be rejected by one partner or another on the grounds that they are not relevant to them (such as features related to carrying a nuclear weapon or carrier landing, which concern only France — something none of the parties was unaware of from the outset). Reading these excerpts alone highlights the crux of the mutual misunderstanding between the two viewpoints. Berlin, with Europe behind it, favors the sharing of expertise, industrial integration, and the pooling of technologies. Dassault prioritizes efficiency and its own experience-based competence as it relates to the aircraft itself — and only the aircraft — thereby preserving its know-how. It is therefore necessary to revisit a few key points in order to explain what lies beneath the divergence between the French and German perspectives — a genuine disagreement, in fact. In his remarkable biography of Talleyrand, Jean Orieux precisely identifies what still burdens, to this day, a healthy relationship and genuine understanding between the two countries. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, following the fall of Emperor Napoleon, "Prussia was constantly demanding Saxony, the Rhineland, Luxembourg, and Belgium; England backed its claims on one point: the Rhineland." She did it above all to position a war machine on the French border (…) Napoleon had been brought down in the name of European security. The Rhineland was given to Prussia, and European security was ruined for a century and a half (…) France thus found itself under the menacing watch of an army permanently stationed 220 km from Paris along an open border. A nation drunk on hatred since Jena was being installed at our doorstep. England (…) was freely setting up a fearsome watchdog on the Rhine. The rest is history: Bismarck, Sadowa, Sedan, the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, the War of 1914, Hitler. Europe, murdered. The consequences are still felt today, including in the Middle East: after Hitler, one must add that in order to erase the guilt of the Holocaust, a Jewish state was created on already-occupied land. Lebanon stands as both witness and victim. Jean Orieux does not mince his words — his choice of language makes that clear — when he speaks of a nation drunk on hatred since Jena. More temperately, one might ask whether a certain animosity among Germans toward the French today is not the distant, post-Jena legacy of having been represented at the signing of the unconditional surrender of German armed forces — thereby ending World War II in Europe — on May 7, 1945. In 1962, De Gaulle invited Adenauer to attend a Mass at Reims Cathedral — a city symbolic of Franco-German conflict — to demonstrate the will to turn the page on past wars, cement lasting reconciliation, and make Franco-German cooperation a driving force in European integration. On September 22, 1984, during commemorations of the Battle of Verdun, Mitterrand and Kohl joined hands before the Douaumont ossuary — a symbol chosen to seal European reconciliation, deepen European integration, and consolidate peace in Europe. On both occasions, the two French presidents were driving forces behind a sincere and definitive reconciliation. De Gaulle and Adenauer built that reconciliation; Mitterrand and Kohl deepened it, making the Franco-German partnership the engine of Europe. Why, then, is there a perceptible cooling of relations? Today, while France still speaks of a Franco-German couple, the term has fallen out of use in Germany. The creation of a Euro so unfavorable to France in terms of trade, the deindustrialization of France orchestrated in part by Germany, Merkel's unilateral decision to abandon nuclear energy — which put France in the dock before the court of German and French environmentalists — and the rules governing electricity pricing in Europe* as applied in France all point to an animosity toward the French on the part of those we call 'our friends.' But nations have no friends — only partners, and sometimes allies, for as long as the alliance holds. French politicians are forcing France into European integration at a breakneck pace; yet are the Germans not often pushing for a European Union that serves German interests? It is without doubt too early to declare Dassault — and by extension France — guilty. Time will tell which aircraft Germany chooses to buy. The F-35?** *Pegging electricity prices to the price of gas is disadvantageous to nuclear-powered France. This measure is ostensibly designed to facilitate the energy transition by incorporating more renewable energy. Germans argue that nuclear power does not fall under the category of renewables — yet they have partially offset the elimination of nuclear energy with coal-fired power plants! **To supplement its fleet of 35 aircraft ordered in haste in 2022, with entry into service expected in 2028.

Every time Hezbollah faces a political, military, or popular crisis, its leaders return to the same lexicon: resistance, victory, sovereignty, the rejection of any tutelage. Heavy words, charged with strong emotion, yet losing more of their persuasive power among the Lebanese with each passing day, as the gap between the rhetoric and the reality keeps widening. In his latest speech, Hezbollah's secretary general, Sheikh Naim Qassem, claimed that the Party remained faithful to the Taif Agreement and the Lebanese Constitution, that its weapons were aimed at Israel, and that it was facing projects of foreign allegiance and tutelage. A statement that appears coherent at first glance, but collapses the moment it meets the facts. For politics is not what is said from podiums, but what is practiced on the ground. And the facts the Lebanese have lived through over the past decades bear no resemblance to the account Qassem presented; they are, instead, very nearly its exact opposite. If Hezbollah remains faithful to the Taif Agreement, how then can one explain the persistence of a military force independent of the state, more than three decades after the agreement was signed? The Taif Agreement was not a mere political settlement to end the civil war, but a project of state-building. The essence of that project can be stated in a few words: one state, one army, one authority holding the monopoly on weapons and on security and military decisions. Has this been achieved? The answer is one every Lebanese already knows. A parallel authority to the state has emerged in Lebanon over the past decades — an authority possessing weapons, holding the decision, and capable of imposing political and military facts on the ground outside the constitutional institutions. And when the decision of war and peace escapes the Council of Ministers, the Parliament, and the Presidency, speaking of fidelity to Taif becomes closer to rewriting history than to describing reality. The problem does not lie in the existence of a political disagreement over the role of the resistance or the future of the weapons; that debate is legitimate in itself. The problem lies in the pretense of presenting matters as though Lebanon had lived, throughout all these years, under the full application of Taif, when everyone knows that one of the chief causes of the Lebanese crisis was precisely this duality of power and decision. As for the claim that the weapons are aimed solely at Israel, it is an assertion Lebanese memory can hardly take seriously. The Lebanese have not forgotten the seventh of May. They have not forgotten the years of political intimidation during which the balance of power was imposed by weapons, or by their mere shadow. They have not forgotten that the simple existence of a military force outside the framework of the state was enough to overturn political balances, block constitutional deadlines, and impose conditions on governments, presidents, and parliaments. Even when the weapons were not used directly, their mere presence remained a decisive factor in Lebanese political life. And this is where the core of the problem lies. Democracy cannot be established when a single party holds the capacity to impose its will by force, should it choose to. And a state does not deserve the name unless no political force knows that there exists, above the constitutional institutions, a higher decision still. Then comes the talk of rejecting foreign tutelage. This is where the paradox reaches its height. For what tutelage has Hezbollah actually rejected, all these years? And what autonomy of decision is it speaking of? For many years, the Party has never hidden its strategic bond with Iran. This was never an accusation leveled by its adversaries, but an acknowledged part of its own political literature. It has fought major regional battles, grounded in calculations that far exceed Lebanon's immediate interest. It entered the Syrian war. It engaged in the region's conflicts. It tied Lebanon's fate to an entire regional axis. And it turned the country, whether the Lebanese wished it or not, into an element of the equations of conflict between Iran and its adversaries. Today, as Qassem speaks of confronting tutelages, American-Iranian negotiations are underway over the region's files, Lebanon among them. And this fact alone is enough to expose the scale of the contradiction between the slogan and the reality. Had the decision been purely Lebanese, the future of the weapons and of Lebanon's security and political role would not appear on the tables of regional and international negotiations. And had the sovereignty they speak of truly existed, the Lebanese would not find themselves waiting, to learn the fate of their own country, for the outcome of arrangements concluded beyond their borders. But perhaps what most deserves pausing over is the notion of “victory” that Hezbollah offers the Lebanese. In Qassem's speech, as in those before it, holding on becomes victory, enduring becomes victory, and not collapsing entirely becomes victory. By this equation, it becomes possible to declare victory under any circumstance. But peoples do not measure victories this way. Peoples measure victory by their standard of living, their security, their stability, by their children's capacity to remain in their own country, and by their state's capacity to protect their interests. So what was the outcome, after so many years of these policies? A collapsed economy. A currency that has lost most of its value. A bankrupt state. Paralyzed institutions. A mass exodus of the young and the skilled. Growing Arab and international isolation. And destroyed regions that will need years to rebuild. Are these the signs of victory? Or are they rather the signs of a deep national crisis that some are trying to wrap in slogans? What is painful is that the Lebanese who paid the heaviest price no longer seek out speeches. The people of South Lebanon do not need more theories of victory so much as they need to rebuild their homes. Families who lost their children are not seeking political eloquence, but a rational explanation for the scale of what they have lost. And the young people leaving Lebanon by the thousands are not asking about ideological speeches, but about a future that no longer exists in their own country. This is why the language of repeated victories sounds, each day, more disconnected from the reality people live. Hezbollah has grown accustomed to winning in the narrative even as it loses on the ground. But today it faces a different dilemma. For the facts have grown too vast to conceal, the costs too heavy to justify, and the questions too pressing to be silenced by slogans. In the end, the Lebanese need no one to convince them whether what they lived through was victory or defeat. They already know it, from the details of their daily lives. They know it when they stand before their bankrupt banks. They know it when they search for work and find none. They know it when they see their children off at the airports. They know it when they wait for decisions made outside Lebanon to determine their country's future. This is why the real question is no longer: did Hezbollah win, or did it not? The question that imposes itself today is harsher still, and more essential: If everything that happened over the past decades was victory, as Naim Qassem claims, what then would defeat have looked like? This is precisely the question the keepers of slogans fear, for it is the question speeches cannot answer, flags cannot cover, and celebrations cannot hide. It is the question of facts. And facts, unlike speeches, do not lie.

The question, phrased this way, may come somewhat late in the day. Yet it has the merit of being asked in explicit terms. Under what rule of law or international convention does Iran interfere in Lebanese affairs? And how has it managed to do so with complete impunity for more than forty years? Taking advantage of the collapse of the state, this interference has taken the form of military, political, and financial support provided to Hezbollah, to the point of involving our country in conflicts and confrontations that were never on the agenda of its legitimate government. How does one flirt with a diplomatic incident without actually causing one? The ambassador of the mullahs already does not enjoy the status of persona grata, the diplomatic term certifying that an envoy has been accredited by — and accepted by — the state to which he is posted. Of course, Tehran was not about to wait for Mohammad Reza Shibani to present his credentials before trampling over our turf, encroaching upon our sovereignty, and, still less, deciding when to launch hostilities against Israel or when to halt them. With remarkable audacity, the Revolutionary Guards behaved as though they were at home; and our officials, when they were not complicit with them, were content merely to look the other way, as though unwilling to face the obvious. This situation was supposed to continue indefinitely, with Lebanon bearing the burden. But that was before the unexpected deviation of the head of state, who recently insisted on drawing a distinction between the assistance provided by the Islamic Republic and the interference it permits itself in our internal affairs. Such meddling, constituting a serious violation of a country's sovereignty, could only be conceived in the era of the “foreign tutelages to which it is forbidden to return.” Yet the improvement brought about by this departure from the norm may prove short-lived. For Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s Foreign Minister, the Lebanese file cannot be separated from the Iranian one. Claiming solidarity with our country and demanding an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in order to achieve peace in accordance with the Islamabad Agreement, Tehran is involving us more than ever in its political game and in negotiations concerning the future of the Persian Gulf. So our fate would be decided in Islamabad rather than Washington? According to Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, Hezbollah’s rejection of the June 3 ceasefire agreement (1) can only be explained by Tehran’s desire to remind everyone that such a decision belongs to it: as the Iranian capital, Tehran cannot be excluded from the negotiations. According to one senior Iranian official, Iran has made far too many sacrifices on the Middle Eastern stage for a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel to be negotiated without its approval. Moreover, what did we really know about the memorandum of understanding drafted in Islamabad, whose various versions had until now been riddled with inaccuracies and omissions? And now that it has been electronically signed in its final form, who would wager on its implementation—or even its “durability”? (2) Did you say interference? Faced with rapidly approaching deadlines, Tehran nevertheless sought to reopen communication with Baabda through Abbas Araghchi. The very same minister who recently mocked President Joseph Aoun’s remarks by asking whether it was the Islamic Republic or the Jewish State that occupied one-fifth of Lebanese territory. Yet in saying so, Iran’s chief diplomat fell into his own trap. One could easily reply that it is his country that occupies a far larger portion of “useful Lebanon” than the area occupied by Israel (3). And this is without even mentioning the grip of Wilayat al-Faqih over the machinery of the deep state that governs us. All of this, of course, is exercised through its proxy, Hezbollah. Was it not Hezbollah, empowered by the Revolutionary Guards, that was able to drag Lebanon into devastating conflicts and trigger mass evacuations? (1) Lebanese-Israeli negotiations are due to resume on June 23. (2) Sina Toossi, “Even if Iran benefits from this deal with Washington, any peace is likely to be temporary,” The Guardian, June 16, 2026. (3) “Useful Lebanon” is a pejorative and cutting expression—but after all, people have also spoken of “Useful Syria.”

In the midst of the great transformations sweeping the region, the Lebanese front appears to be the only one still waiting for the final picture of what is unfolding between the United States and Iran to come into focus. The agreement that halted the war machine and redrew the lines of regional confrontation has yet to reveal the full extent of its repercussions on Lebanon, while the Lebanese watch and wait for the coming days to disclose which direction the forces bound to the Iranian project will take, after long years of wagers, wars and ventures. It is true that the ceasefire represents a gain for all Lebanese, after the country paid an exorbitant price in lives, economic resources, infrastructure and social cohesion. Yet this development cannot turn back the clock, nor erase the catastrophic consequences the war has left in its wake. Every party today seeks to present itself as the victor, but the question that matters to the Lebanese is not who won and who lost — it is what the Lebanese State has gained, and where are the achievements that consolidate legitimacy, institutions and national sovereignty. The war was, in its essence, a confrontation between the United States and Israel on one side, and Iran and its military proxies in the region on the other. The Lebanese State was neither a partner in the decision to go to war nor in the decision to end it; it played no role in defining the objectives of the confrontation or in managing its course. And yet it will bear the full weight of its consequences — politically, in security terms, economically, financially and in terms of its built environment. On the legal and constitutional level, no war, no settlement and no regional arrangement can alter by a single word the decisions issued by Lebanon's constitutional institutions. The war began on an Iranian decision and ended, in practice, on an Iranian decision. Hezbollah has never concealed its doctrinal, political, military and financial allegiance to Tehran, just as its leaders have never hidden their subordination to decisions emanating from the Iranian leadership. The repeated declarations of Iranian officials serve only to confirm the nature of this relationship, which goes far beyond political support to reach the level of an organic fusion with the Iranian project in the region. But whatever shifts the regional conjuncture may bring, a fundamental reality remains that cannot be circumvented: military and political developments cannot annul the decisions of the Lebanese government. A governmental decision can only be revoked by a governmental decision; one form of legitimacy cannot simply be substituted for another; the State does not fall to the benefit of any organization, party or militia, however extensive its influence may be. It is from this standpoint that the official Lebanese position remains unambiguously clear: any weapon not subject to the authority of the State and its legitimate military and security forces is an illegal weapon, and any attempt to confer legal status upon it remains a violation of the very concept of statehood, of sovereignty, and of the provisions of the Constitution and the laws in force. Even if Iran contributed, directly or indirectly, to bringing about the ceasefire, it did so in pursuit of its own interests and its own strategy, not out of any concern for Lebanese interests. States act according to their calculations, and Iran is no exception. The Lebanese interest can only be defined by the Lebanese themselves, through their legitimate constitutional institutions. It must also be recalled that the sole representative of Lebanon in any negotiation concerning its future, its sovereignty and its borders is the Lebanese State alone. Negotiating on behalf of Iranian interests or defending them is a matter that concerns Tehran. The President of the Republic has affirmed repeatedly that the State is the sole reference point in managing the country's major national affairs, and that all Lebanese are children of the Lebanese State and not of any external project or regional axis. The era of political and military mandates is over, and the illusions of tutelage that sought to control the Lebanese decision for long decades have collapsed. What the region is witnessing today — this redrawing of balances — confirms that it is States that endure, while cross-border projects recede, however powerful they may have appeared at any given moment. Before some rush to proclaim victory, it is worth pausing over facts rather than slogans. The data circulating about the American-Iranian agreement does not suggest a triumph for the Iranian axis; it points rather to a significant strategic retreat that could have direct repercussions on Hezbollah and on all the arms linked to Tehran. If the circulating data proves accurate, Iran will have been compelled to abandon one of the most prominent objectives of its strategic project — namely, the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon or approach its threshold — by accepting strict restrictions on its uranium enrichment operations. It will also have stepped back from using the Strait of Hormuz as a permanent pressure lever on the international community, allowing navigation there to resume its normal course without securing the political and financial gains it had long sought. The most sensitive loss, however, lies in the tightening of the financial stranglehold around the funding of its military proxies in the region. For the fundamental problem facing these organizations is not one of political or media discourse, but of their ability to preserve the sources of financing, armament and recruitment that have, for decades, constituted the essential spring of their power. In the Lebanese case specifically, the picture appears even more severe. The war produced no new liberation of territory, did not alter the balance of forces; it left behind ruined villages, tens of thousands of displaced persons, immense human and material losses, and an unprecedented exhaustion of Hezb's military and logistical structure. Any objective reading of the results makes it difficult to speak of victory, while the realities of the field, the economy and the social fabric point, before anyone else, to Hezbollah's own support base as the first to have paid this exorbitant price. The picture thus more closely resembles an attempt to repackage defeat as victory, and a search for exits that save face after years of wagers that ended in a shrinking of Iranian influence across multiple arenas, rather than the expansion that was so widely trumpeted. The most important question remains open: what place does Lebanon occupy in all these transformations? Where does it stand in the new Middle East that is taking shape? What are its ties with the Arab Gulf states? How will it build its partnerships with Turkey, the Arab world and the international community? Will it become once again a normal state, capitalizing on its geographical position, its openness and the energies of its people — or will it remain hostage to the projects of others and their conflicts? Lebanon's future begins on the day when the decision of war and peace becomes a purely Lebanese decision, when the State has recovered full authority over its territory and its institutions, and when all have understood that legitimacy is indivisible, that the State alone is destined to endure — and that militias, however long they persist, are condemned to disappear.

At the very moment that a conference was being held in Paris at the French National Assembly, giving a voice to our free Shiite fellow citizens*, a village in southern Lebanon, perched 180 meters above sea level, was making itself remembered. On Friday, June 5, a spirit of defiance arose in Baysarieh: a scuffle broke out between local residents - mostly Twelver Shiites and supporters of Nabih Berri - and Hezbollah militants who wanted to install rocket launchers in the middle of the village. The Lebanese Army had to intervene to separate the opposing sides and restore order. A video captured the collective clash which, in a supreme irony, took place in a street adorned with pistachio-green banners bearing the colors of the Amal Movement! The incident occurred at the very moment when the Emergency Operations Center of the Ministry of Public Health informed us that Lebanon had suffered 3,558 deaths and 10,870 injuries since March 2, the date on which Hezbollah reignited the fuse, supposedly to avenge the execution of Iran’s Supreme Leader. Some will say that this is not too high a price to pay for the Iranian support that contributed to the liberation of South Lebanon and to that of Al-Aqsa Mosque. Exasperation Is Spreading Baysarieh, however, was not the only entity to rear up in protest across the country. At the same time, as though they had coordinated their actions, the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister “mutinied” against Hezbollah’s prevailing narrative. Joseph Aoun told CNN that Iran had no right to use Lebanon as a bargaining chip, that Naim Qassem did not represent Lebanon, and that the only sensible option was negotiation to bring a definitive end to the state of hostility between Lebanon and Israel. Nawaf Salam, for his part, pushed back by reminding everyone that Lebanon was not a battlefield where others could settle their scores and that the people of the South should not have to pay the price of “calculations over which they have no control.” Under the circumstances, all that remained was for Speaker Nabih Berri to speak out. Yet we shall draw a veil over his remarks, dictated as they are by the reverential fear that Hezbollah inspires in him. In any case, Baysarieh has already spoken on his behalf, in the name of the Amal Movement and of all Shiites outraged by the absurdity of the continuing fighting and by the monopolization of power by the Iranian-backed militia. As elsewhere throughout Lebanon, exasperation is spreading and becoming widespread in the face of destruction and population displacement. The seemingly immovable Nabih Berri may refuse to endorse the agreement reached in Washington, but his electoral base no longer appears willing to bear the cost of Naim Qassem’s reckless adventures. Waiting So Long Before Overturning the Table! Until recently, Lebanon’s official circles had remained discreet. One had to be careful not to offend the Resistance; it was to be handled with kid gloves. Out of respect and consideration for Hezbollah’s sacrifices, one was not supposed to tarnish its image as a liberator. But suddenly, a paradigm shift! The narrative is no longer the same. It is as though an “epistemological break” had occurred - that is, a radical change in the way reality is perceived, breaking with the previous discourse and the clichés imposed upon us by the Iranian party and its enforcers. This change alone is a sign of liberation, for over many years the Executive had adopted Hezbollah’s rhetoric as its own. As a result, our republican state resembled more a Commedia dell’arte performance than a serious polity. Our leaders had become little more than grimacers and actors, laboring to defend the theses of the Party of God - theses they inwardly rejected. So, to hell with the delicacy that has long surrounded the issue of direct negotiations with Israel. Tensions will evidently rise another notch, and a process of emancipation will begin. It may go so far as to officially compile and publish the list of serial crimes committed by the Party of God. Thank you, Baysarieh; thank you, Palais Bourbon. The fear that Hezbollah once instilled in its own community, as well as in certain political circles, no longer prevails. *Conference: “Lebanon Between Peace and War: State Legitimacy and the Role of Civil Society,” French National Assembly, Paris, June 5, 2026. The speakers, who held Hezbollah and the Iranian “holy alliance” responsible for the current catastrophe, called for the restoration of the rule of law.

The world today seems caught between the fever of the World Cup and the social media posts of American President Donald Trump, with all the immediate repercussions these carry for the violent swings in oil and gold prices, and for the considerable profits reaped by the speculations tied to them. Yet this media “noise” conceals behind it shifts that are deeper and more consequential, manifest in the redrawing of the network of regional and international alliances, driven by the accelerating fallout from the confrontation underway between the United States and Israel on one side, and Iran and its ramifications on the other. The Arab partners of the United States in the Middle East have thus begun reassessing their strategic positioning and their traditional alliances, even if the contours of these reconfigurations have not yet fully taken shape. The United Arab Emirates is adopting a firmer stance towards Iran, while continuing to strengthen its ties with both Israel and India; Saudi Arabia, for its part, has activated a closer defence cooperation with Pakistan, intensifying at the same time its political and security coordination with Turkey and Egypt. In the face of these developments, the expression “New Middle East”, which gained wide currency in recent years, no longer seems capable of accurately capturing the emerging reality, nor of encompassing the new strategic alliances that are reshaping the region’s security architecture and its balances of power. The traditional conception of this “New Middle East” has thus been overtaken by the facts now taking hold. While these strategic transformations await clearer definition, global markets continue to be agitated by speculations and political declarations that have become capable of shifting capital and fortunes within minutes. And in the meantime, the poor and developing countries continue to bear the heaviest price of these disruptions. Every rise in energy or food prices, every upheaval in global markets, lands directly on the lives of citizens in these countries, who find themselves at the mercy of decisions and events over which they have no influence whatsoever. It is here that the need asserts itself to reconsider the development models in place, and to work earnestly towards achieving the highest possible degree of self-sufficiency in food, energy and production, drawing on the strengthening of national unity and the combined efforts of all the children of the nation, whether they live at home or are settled in the furthest corners of the world. Experience has shown that the states which succeeded in building the foundations of their own strength were the most capable of weathering global crises, and the most able to defend their national interests with genuine independence. And in the end, it is popular wisdom that gives the most fitting expression to this truth: “If you want something done, do it yourself.” The nations that rely on their own capacities and invest in the talents of their people are the best placed to protect their future and to safeguard the independence of their economic and political decision-making.

Amid the political and media clamour surrounding the ongoing negotiations between Lebanon and Israel under American sponsorship, many are absorbed by the traditional question: does Israel want peace? Are we standing before a new phase in relations between the two countries, or merely facing security arrangements imposed by the balance of power that emerged from the war? But the truth is that this question, however important, is not the most important one for Lebanon. The fundamental question today does not concern what Israel wants, but what Lebanon has managed to reclaim for itself after long decades of confiscation of its national decision-making. For the first time in many years, Lebanon is not sitting at the negotiating table as a battlefield or a bargaining chip in the hands of others, but as a state representing itself. And this shift, in and of itself, constitutes the most significant political event in everything that is currently unfolding. The Lebanese have unfortunately grown accustomed to seeing their country serve as part of other people's wars. They have grown accustomed to seeing the existential dossiers of war, peace, sovereignty and security managed outside legitimate institutions, and to seeing the state reduced to a mere witness to decisions taken elsewhere. During many periods of our recent history, it was not Lebanon that negotiated — Lebanon was the very object of negotiation. And the Lebanese always paid the price. The price of wars whose timing they had not decided. The price of settlements in whose drafting they had not participated. The price of regional conflicts that had turned their homeland into a mailbox for other people's military and political messages. Today, for the first time in a long while, the picture seems different. Not because Israel has suddenly changed, nor because the region has become more peaceful, but because the Lebanese state has begun to reclaim a fundamental sovereign right: the right to speak in Lebanon's name. Lebanese may diverge on the details of the negotiations. Positions may differ on certain clauses, orientations or priorities — and that is something natural and healthy in any democratic society. But what ought to be the subject of national consensus is that the Lebanese decision has returned to constitutional institutions, and that it is the state that manages this dossier on behalf of all Lebanese. This is precisely where the real value of the current process lies. For states are not measured solely by the extent of their territory, the size of their population or the volume of their economy, but by their capacity to hold the monopoly on sovereign decision-making. And sovereignty is not a slogan raised on ceremonial occasions — it is a daily practice that begins with the mastery of the right to decide on war and peace, and ends with the state's capacity to speak on behalf of its citizens on the international stage. From this standpoint, the debate over Israel's intentions becomes less important than the debate over how to protect Lebanon's newly acquired gain. Yes, Israel seeks to defend its security interests — this is a reality that needs no discovery. Every state negotiates from its own interests, seeks its own security and stability, and attempts to obtain as much as possible. But the question that should occupy the Lebanese is this: has Lebanon finally become capable of defending its national interests through its legitimate institutions? If the answer is yes, then we stand before a historical turning point that transcends the results of the negotiations themselves. Agreements can succeed or fail. Understandings can be implemented or stumble. But the recovery by the state of its natural role remains a long-term strategic gain. Lebanon paid an exorbitant price when the decision over war and peace left the state's institutions. It paid a heavier price still when Lebanese priorities became entangled with regional agendas. And it paid an immense price when the fate of the Lebanese became bound to calculations that bore no relation to the Lebanese national interest. This is why the real challenge today lies not only in reaching the best possible agreement, but in preventing any return to the past — that is to say, in preventing the decision from being wrested from the state once again and returned to the spheres of influence, the axes and the external conflicts. What would be most dangerous is for the debate over the negotiations to transform into a new internal confrontation among the Lebanese. For past experience has shown that internal division has always been the door through which the outside world infiltrated the national decision. When institutions converge around the superior Lebanese interest, however, Lebanon becomes more resilient in the face of pressure and better able to defend its rights. What Lebanon needs today is not merely a truce on its borders, but a truce with its own political history — a history built on the duality of decision-making. It needs not only security arrangements, but the consolidation of the principle that the state alone is the ultimate reference point in the great national causes. This is the true meaning of the citizenship state for which we struggle — a state that is not reduced to a sect, a party or an axis. A state in which all citizens are equal before the law, all forces are subject to institutions, and all sovereign decisions emanate solely from legitimate authority. For without a state, there is no citizenship. And without sovereignty, there is no state. And there is no sovereignty when decision-making is scattered among multiple centres of power. This is why the political value of the current negotiations lies not only in the understandings or agreements they may produce, but in the fact that they reflect the beginning of Lebanon's transition from the position of a battlefield to that of a state — from the position of the recipient to that of a partner, and from the position of a bargaining chip to that of the one who holds the cards. And it is this turning point that must be preserved, whatever developments may come. If the last century was marked by the Lebanese struggle over the identity of the state, the coming phase must be that of reclaiming the state itself — a state strong through its institutions, free in its decision, sovereign over its territory, one in whose name only those elected by the Lebanese and empowered by the Constitution to represent the Lebanese Republic may speak. The road will perhaps not be easy, and it will no doubt be strewn with obstacles, pressures and challenges. But what has been achieved thus far deserves to be preserved. For nations are built not only through military victories or political agreements, but through the construction of institutions and the recovery of national decision-making. And in the end, while the Lebanese may diverge on the results of the negotiations, they should not diverge on a single truth: the Lebanon that negotiates for itself is worth a thousand times the Lebanon on whose behalf others negotiate.

It is astonishing, puzzling, disconcerting – even strange and paradoxical – that one still encounters today the same reductive, partisan narratives, published by an agenda-driven press and amplified across social media, at a time when the country is facing critical developments both domestically and internationally, and when its fate has been sorely tested for decades. Regrettably, this is hardly a first. We are witnessing media manipulation aimed at creating a diversion and deflecting attention from the pressing issues of the day – chief among them a merciless war that is dragging the country towards total destruction and plunging it into an unprecedented socioeconomic and financial abyss. This entire saga, which in the end is hardly surprising, has a distinctly familiar ring to it. It is a resounding, well-rehearsed refrain, reflecting an unmistakable determination to undermine and destroy through relentless repetition the reputation of former Banque du Liban Governor Riad Salameh and his brother Raja. And once again, the story is seasoned with fresh references to HSBC’s role. Riad Salameh is thus cast as the man responsible for the collapse and breakdown of Lebanon’s financial and economic system. It is easy enough, indeed, to bombard public opinion with this refrain after years of media manipulation on the Lebanese political stage concerning the billions of dollars squandered – and perhaps misappropriated – through government ministries under resolutions adopted by successive cabinets, approved by Parliament, and then, alas, all too often forgotten. In this bleak and murky climate, which often borders on obsession, little seems capable of stirring either concern or even measured thought, so thoroughly are minds held captive by their own fixations. The French daily Le Monde , citing Riad Salameh’s lawyers, reports that he was able to acquire his real estate holdings thanks the substantial income he earned while serving as a financial adviser at Merrill Lynch, prior to his appointment as Governor of the Banque du Liban. Yet this detail, as reported by the French newspaper, vanishes into thin air, like autumn leaves falling to the ground. The same applies when the former governor’s lawyer submits documented evidence to the courts, establishing the origin and provenance of the funds behind his various investments. Should we not, at the very least, allow justice to take its course before rushing to level baseless accusations? Speaking of justice, is it not, in fact, striking that this emblematic institution of the state refrains from prosecuting certain political leaders and party chiefs who bear heavy responsibility – and this is no secret to anyone – for failures in security management, in the administration of justice, and in state spending on social welfare, electricity, and education? This, not to mention certain fictitious civil or religious associations, or the billions of dollars that have evaporated in subsidies for fuel, wheat, and other foodstuffs. Let us not, therefore, be taken in by this media manipulation or by the deliberate choice of this disingenuous political timing, which is – it bears repeating – anything but coincidental. If the purpose of blaming a senior official is to bring drown upon him the wrath of heaven and international sanctions, let us at least have the courage and the decency to acknowledge that Riad Salameh is the ONLY person, to this day, to have paid the price. And even then, he is far from out of the woods. Let us therefore leave it to justice to do its work and render its judgment in a calm and orderly environment, without depriving the former governor of his right to defend himself. To close this chapter on a humble note, it would be fitting to recall a well-known saying: “ If you seek to see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, you must first have the honesty to see the plank in your own.” It is fair to say that this saying merits reflection today. *Antoine Menassa is the President and Founder of the Association of Lebanese Businessmen in France (HALFA – Association des hommes d’affaires libanais en France) .