Opinion

Lebanese have long repeated the popular saying: “A thousand enemies outside the house are better than one enemy within.” In few words, this proverb has distilled across generations an enduring political and national truth: external dangers, however formidable, remain less devastating than those that seep inward to strike at the unity of the state, paralyze its judgment and undermine its sovereignty. It is through this lens that one can understand much of Lebanon’s suffering over recent decades. Iran has never dealt with the Lebanese state as a sovereign and independent entity possessed of its own constitutional institutions; it has always chosen instead to operate through forces and organizations that owe it political and ideological allegiance. In the regional circumstances following the Khomeinist revolution, under the banner of “exporting the Islamic revolution,” it found a propitious opportunity to build relays of influence extending well beyond its national borders into several Arab countries. Over time, this went as far as a public boast of dominance over four Arab capitals, with Beirut at the top of that list. On the Lebanese domestic scene, Hezbollah successfully wielded the banner of resistance to entrench its political and military position, until its former Secretary-General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, openly declared that the Party’s money, weapons and resources all came from Iran. Yet both parties have fallen into the same error. Iran behaved as though Lebanon had become an integral part of its direct sphere of influence, while Hezbollah conducted itself as though it were the supreme authority, standing above the institutions of the state and its constitutional powers. The facts, however, have demonstrated that Lebanon, despite everything it has endured, has not lost its capacity to rise again and restore its role and its institutions. With the election of General Joseph Aoun to the presidency and the designation of Dr. Nawaf Salam as prime minister, a new political phase has opened, defined by the rehabilitation of the Lebanese state and the concept of national sovereignty. The conditions that had so long permitted projects of tutelage and domination to persist have shifted, and the clouds of occupation and foreign influence have begun to lift gradually from Lebanon’s sky, while many regional projects are revealing themselves for what they truly are. The misfortune is that Hezbollah and Iran have refused to acknowledge these changes. Rather than revisiting their manner of engaging with the Lebanese state, they have continued to address it with the mentality of a past that is no longer. The Lebanese authorities had initially sought a calm and diplomatic language, one that combined respect with firmness, affirming the necessity of dealing with legitimate institutions as the sole authority empowered to express the will of the Lebanese people. But the overreach continued, until the president of the Republic’s unambiguous position cut through it: Lebanese legitimacy, he made clear, resides in the Constitution and in the institutions of the state, and the Lebanese people are the vassal of no foreign state and the subject of no party leadership, whatever its size or influence. Even so, certain Iranian stances continued to disregard these realities, reaching an unprecedented level of political and moral offense when an Iranian newspaper attacked the president of the Republic in terms unworthy of relations between states and disrespectful of national sovereignty. This conduct reveals the depth of the crisis gripping those who have still not grasped that Lebanon belongs to no one, and that the era of diktat and guardianship has begun to wane. Lebanese have regarded Israel as an enemy for long decades, and the dispute with it remains open on fundamental questions of sovereignty, borders and security. But negotiating with adversaries and enemies is neither surrender nor concession — it is a political instrument to which states resort in order to defend their interests and protect their peoples. States negotiate from a position of self-confidence, not from a position of fear or subjugation. By contrast, the wound that comes from within remains the most dangerous of all. Lebanese history is replete with episodes that have shown, time and again, that internal divisions and foreign allegiances have always been the widest gateway to crises and catastrophes. This is why the Lebanese have repeated that betrayal from the inside shakes the very mountains — because it comes from those who were supposed to share the same roof. What Lebanon needs today is neither more transnational loyalties nor more projects that place foreign interests above the interests of Lebanese people. It needs a single state, a single authority, a single national decision. For when the state advances, influence retreats; when the logic of institutions prevails, the illusions of domination collapse of their own accord; and when the Lebanese rally around their constitutional institutions and legitimate authorities, there is no longer any room for a new Brutus to stab Lebanon from within.

The Strait of Hormuz has held the world up to a magnifying mirror of its own contradictions, much as the Covid-19 crisis did, or the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Modern prosperity rests on global stability and the free flow of material exchanges — maritime routes, molecules, cables, ports, interest rates — within a globalisation built on the economy of contemporary reality. Faced with an energy crisis, reactions now follow a familiar pattern: rising oil prices make renewable energy more attractive, soaring gas prices heighten the importance of safer routes, and notions of reclaimed sovereignty reassert themselves in public debate. This logic is not wrong, but it is simply incomplete. With the Hormuz crisis, globalisation enters a phase of progressive foundering, its liquidity dissolving into the labyrinths of shifting sands. States that simultaneously wish to rearm, decarbonise, protect their social model, fund an ageing population, invest in artificial intelligence, support their industry and reduce their debt find themselves trapped in a context of sluggish growth and shrinking budgetary margins, amid structural collapses that have brought Europe — once hailed as the “heart of the world” — closer to third-world conditions, as the chapter of its cultural progressivism and intellectual authority draws to a close. To this is added the melancholy disillusionment over the fall of the American dream once proclaimed by the celebrated Declaration of Independence of 1776, while democratic spaces dissolve into voids and political populisms. The private sector and civil society cannot substitute for the state when it comes to bearing political or strategic risks, nor can they alone shoulder the task of returning to a more satisfactory state of affairs. Stability, in reality, comes only after risk disengagement carried out by the public sector, not in its place. The equation is formidable: the more dangerous the world becomes, the more indispensable investments in sovereignty grow — yet these require states endowed with intellectual, political, financial and social solvency, at the very moment when the multiplication of crises renders those same states more fragile. The global public service is disintegrating — shared debts, trimmed ambitions — the solutions are known, and so are the disagreements. The strait crisis represents not merely a shock to hydrocarbon prices, an inflation of freight costs, disruptions to supply chains and industrial overheads; it also lays bare the shock sustained by modern societies’ capacity to adapt to conflicts and collapses within the “Tower of Babel” of geopolitical fractures, as well as the threat posed by a minority of billionaires who present themselves as superior and all-powerful, capable of bringing the world to heel in pursuit of inordinately cultivated interests, without bearing the slightest moral cost. Hamlet , Shakespeare’s masterpiece devoted to the mercurial prince, seems to be living through a singularly chosen moment. The fictional tale of loss that inspired the creation of Hamlet — a character at once pragmatic and unattainably ideal — is perfectly suited to our age, where the torrent of bad news ceaselessly fuels existential questionings, and people are exhausted by the relentless cascade of the world’s calamities. How can this man of multiple inner dissonances find his place in a world that persists in misunderstanding him, in recasting his anxieties as simplified narratives, in confronting him with complicity in a failing political system so closely akin to our own that it generates a pervasive, generalised sadness? The world perceives all too clearly that everything Donald Trump wants amounts, in essence, to: “Take this thing and do with it as you please.” Each day he exhibits his facetious gesticulations, addressing his audience directly with a theatrical steadiness that carries considerable weight. And this manner of being instils in the world a persistent unease — a president hyperconnected on his Truth Social platform, posting almost every hour a statement that sets the entire world in motion, things that are difficult to decipher. The world’s rhythm now turns on the narratives surrounding America and Iran: are they drawing closer to a deal, or perhaps not; the agreement with Iran is largely concluded and will be announced soon, or there is no urgency to announce any deal, and indeed there may be no deal at all. These are but a sample of Trump’s bewildering messages. Yet it does appear that the warring parties are genuinely approaching an understanding, even if it will not be a comprehensive agreement bringing the war to a definitive end. At best, it would likely take the form of a provisional accord around a set of general principles — an extension of the ceasefire for at least sixty days — affording time to negotiate the modalities of implementing those principles, with negotiators still needing to work through the details. Every detail, every word of a declaration of intent will carry weight and be scrutinised closely. But what matters most will depend on what happens thereafter. Iran wants at all costs to avoid the scenario of a provisional and fragile agreement that its adversaries might use to prepare for a war that Trump will in all likelihood not launch again after the end of the World Cup, and just weeks before the midterm elections. But can Iran obtain from the United States a commitment that Israel will also be bound by the agreement? That is far from certain. The Iranian regime may well have survived the war. The Revolutionary Guards have consolidated their grip on power and demonstrated to the United States, Israel and the Gulf states that a large-scale war was insufficient to make them yield, let alone to bring them down. They have discovered that closing the Strait of Hormuz amounted to a deterrent nearly equivalent to a nuclear weapon, and they now intend to levy tolls on it to compensate for the damage caused by the conflict. But who will verify compliance? And what will become of the existing nuclear installations? These will be long and complex nuclear discussions, bearing notably on Iran’s stockpile of more than four hundred kilograms of enriched uranium. America has long demanded its transfer abroad, while Iran insists on diluting it on its own soil. Mr Trump has hinted that he might accept the latter option, perhaps under the supervision of an “Atomic Energy Commission”, without making clear whether he meant the American body of that name — dissolved in 1974 — or the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog. The most contentious issue remains Iran’s demand for substantial economic benefits. The regime hopes to recover promptly a portion of its assets, estimated at one hundred billion dollars, frozen in foreign banks. American officials say they are prepared to grant a waiver allowing Iran to export some of its oil, but refuse any direct release of funds until definitive progress has been made. Meanwhile, the theocratic regime is already counting on everything it might hope to obtain, beginning with the reconstruction of its ballistic missile programme and its militias through the billions that will flow into its coffers with the potential lifting of sanctions under a final agreement — which would only complicate an already heavily burdened situation further. Troubling situations, or at least near-troubling ones: a war partially lost, partially missed, a war for nothing or only in order to gain nothing. A war in which losses and gains prove insufficient to justify the contest, and which above all leaves everything far below the previous status quo. This is the political fear of leaving the Gulf states and the region in a state of shock, with morale at its lowest, threatening political regimes unaccustomed, on one side or the other, to cohabiting with instability — beneath the watchword of “peace through strength”, supposedly extending to an entirely new Middle East. And if confidence has not disappeared but has simply deserted the Middle East region through the American desire to occupy every space within nautical miles of China, to control every scenario, to reduce everything to a narrative, and where every promise is perceived as designed to be traded — then the world must stop searching for absolute trust. The next two years will be decisive in terms of the capacity to remain in the global game industrially, technologically and geopolitically. Everyone will arrive with their own pressures, fears and national priorities, at the very moment when the world must think collectively to settle the bill of a time that keeps passing.

Among my distinguished colleagues gathered at this podium dedicated to the Lebanese Constitution, I am nothing but a novice in the company of experts; yet I am also a Lebanese citizen in a democratic and constitutional republic, sincerely and earnestly attached to his citizenship. I know my constitutional rights, hold fast to them, and refuse to surrender them to any confessional community or zaamat . For over the course of a hundred years, the one constant need expressed by the Lebanese citizen as an individual has been his need for the State, not for the sect, not for the zaim . The Blessed Patriarch Elias Howayek, who, together with his companions, kindled the flame of Greater Lebanon, gazes upon us now from a century's distance. His gaze carries within it what he sees: disappointment, bitterness, and sorrow. And with good reason: we celebrate the founder… while destroying what he and his companions built. No democratic state can be built without a constitution or a constitutional order, and if that constitution is not respected, the state collapses. Those who wrote the Constitution in 1926 and developed it in 1990 were neither incompetent nor ignorant nor half-educated. Their patriotism was neither deficient nor suspect, and they were not those courtiers who compose ornate and pedantic missives. The Lebanese Constitution is a rigorous text, drafted according to the principles and rules of constitutional science; it is the covenant of the Lebanese among themselves, not a favour bestowed by some upon others, and it is binding upon all without exception. As an expression of the Taif Agreement, it does not constitute a conjunctural necessity rendered obsolete by the passage of time; it has become, on the contrary, an essential component of Lebanon’s integrity and unity, and the Lebanese Republic built upon it is a homeland erected through consensus and consent, not through coercion, domination, or compulsion. The Taif Agreement has not failed for it to be set aside and abandoned. It simply has never been applied. I repeat constantly that the current formula concerning the completion of the implementation of the Taif Agreement is inaccurate, since it was quite simply never applied for its completion to be possible. We need neither a new Taif, nor a new constituent assembly, nor a vice-president of the Republic, nor enlargements and administrative additions to the Lebanese state. We need only to apply the Constitution in its entirety, to respect it, to revere it, and to rely upon it; and in cases of ambiguity, to call upon a solid Constitutional Council whose members are not politicians in search of an occupation. This Constitution, as a covenant, is the legal edifice that has embodied Lebanon’s subtle composition and the vital equilibrium that runs through it, for it regards the communities for what they are in themselves and not for their demographic weight and their number. It is from there that the balance between Muslims and Christians derives, and the balance within each of them as well, giving us a political regime that is, on one hand, civil in nature (that is to say, a civil state) and, on the other, preserves the balance between communities and within each of them. Consequently, this Constitution is the certain reference text for building the state and its institutions on sound foundations. It represents simultaneously the permanent and faithful roadmap for consolidating the political regime, stabilising it, and enabling its development. This Constitution needs to be applied in its entirety, in observance of the succession of legal timeframes its application requires. I am aware that there are, here and there among the Lebanese, those who sincerely wish to see the Constitution applied and call for it, while at the same time expressing reservations, equivocating, or fearing the activation of all its articles, sustained by a vague and obscure illusion that full application would not be in their favour. A partial constitution, a fragment of a constitution, builds no state and safeguards no homeland. I would not wish us to be among those whom the Quran reprimanded: “…Do you then believe in part of the Scripture and disbelieve in part?…”, those very ones whom the righteous James, in his epistle in the New Testament, urged to observe the law in its entirety: “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” It is time, after a hundred years, for us to take our destiny in hand, we the Lebanese, and to build a single unified state, resting on a single constitution, with a single reference authority and a single president — not three. It is the sincere and complete application of the Constitution, with the uncompromising resolve in that direction from truly honourable statesmen, that is capable of bringing arms under control before prohibiting them, of protecting the state from systematic pillage, and of shielding it from being reduced to a temple turned den of thieves. I return to the famous formula of Georges Naccache: “Two negations do not make a nation.” I depart from it partially, for the consensus on “neither East nor West” did indeed make a nation, or, more precisely, did indeed consecrate a nation. But I also endorse it broadly, for those two negations proved incapable, on their own, of preserving a homeland or of building a state that would endure and last: the state collapsed in internal wars, and those wars came close to sweeping away the homeland — and risk doing so still. The first Lebanese knew what they did not want from one another, without being certain of what they truly wanted from one another. We now know what we want from all Lebanese and what we ourselves are bound to as Lebanese, for the benefit of all Lebanese: to respect and apply Taif as it is embodied in the Constitution; to acknowledge that we are all Lebanese in a definitive homeland; that our shared and unified coexistence is our way of being in the world and our way of being Lebanese; that we have a just state as the embodiment of that coexistence; and that we are free within it, in a genuine and complete democracy. The Taif Agreement, as it has been embodied in the Constitution, has introduced us to two great positive virtues: the virtue of the democratic regime, and the virtue of the sincere participation of communities. It has also preserved us from two great vices: the vice of the despotic grip of communities over the state, and the vice of the monopolisation of power by a faction of a single community. Our failure to apply and respect it has plunged us into the first of these vices and nearly dragged us toward the second. Our Constitution belongs to all of us. It belongs to all our children. Let us not barter it away. *Speech delivered during a panel discussion on the centenary of the Lebanese Constitution at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik on Wednesday, June 3, 2026, on the sidelines of the exhibition organized by the university for the occasion.

For long decades, Israel waited for the right moment to liquidate what it considers a threat to its project, whether Palestinian, Lebanese, or linked to the Iranian regional agenda. Beyond military preparation, it worked steadily to arrange the diplomatic and media conditions needed to secure international cover for a major battle whose ambition was to redraw the face of the Middle East. When the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation erupted on October 7, Benjamin Netanyahu's government promoted the discourse of “existential danger”, exploiting the alignment of the major Western powers and above all the United States. That was the historic opportunity Netanyahu had been waiting for to unleash the devastating war machine, not only against Hamas but against anything that could be classified as an ally or supporter. At the heart of this plan, Iran committed its first sin by issuing the order to drag Lebanon into the war through Hezbollah, in what was called the “support front”, on October 8. That day, Israel did not conceal its intentions but warned clearly that southern Lebanon risked becoming “a second Gaza”. The second sin followed when the confrontation widened and transformed into a battle directly tied to Iranian calculations for avenging the death of Khamenei, with no connection whatsoever to Lebanese interests, to the security of the Lebanese people, or to the future of the South. The catastrophic reality now lies exposed for all to see: for every Israeli armoured vehicle hit, an entire village is erased, its inhabitants displaced, its sons killed. It has become unmistakably clear that Lebanon is paying the price of a confrontation between two foreign projects — Israel, which rejects the Lebanese model, civilisational, plural and prosperous, and Iran, which persists in keeping Lebanon an advanced terrain and a first line of defence for its Islamic revolution. Amid this existentially grave tableau, the President of the Republic launched a courageous and bold initiative, one that no one before him had dared to undertake, driven solely by the ambition to save the country and restore decision-making to the State. In complementarity with that position, the Prime Minister affirmed on his part that the path of dialogue and direct negotiation, however difficult and complex, remains the only realistic course for sparing the Lebanese further haemorrhage and destruction. What gives some reason for hope today is that authentic cry which rose from beneath the rubble and ashes of our steadfast South. It is the voice of the true Southerner, who refuses gratuitous death, who refuses to see his villages and his sons serve as fuel for others' wars or as a sacrifice on the altar of regional calculations. That voice calls openly for the full and effective presence of the State, for the monopoly of arms in the hands of legitimate institutions, and for rallying behind the Lebanese Army as the sole authority in matters of security and sovereignty. Faced with this reality, one can no longer count on the conscience or good faith of local parties who continue to practise evasion and dissimulation, knowing full well they are losers in advance. In these decisive circumstances, the policy of equivocation, obstinacy, and sabotage of national solutions is no longer merely a political error; it has become a form of abdication of national responsibility, a betrayal of the people and the homeland. Supporting the President of the Republic and the head of government, backing these rescue orientations, and standing firmly behind the Lebanese Army is no longer an ordinary political choice among many; it has become a national and moral duty that imposes itself on everyone. And the question swells, the call grows urgent: where are the forces of change? Where are the protesters of 17 October? Where are the children of the Cedar Revolution and all those who believe in sovereignty and freedom? Why do you not unite today around the cry of your own people in the South? Why do you not stand as one front against the occupier and the usurper to support the project of building the State? The hour of truth and decisive choice has come: either move toward a sovereign, free, capable State that holds exclusively the decision of war and peace and protects its children, or remain in the whirlwind of collapse and destruction, leaving the homeland hostage to the foreign projects that contend over its soil.

In an era when crises and challenges are multiplying, we read each day articles, studies and analyses focused primarily on describing the current reality and examining its political, economic and social dimensions. Yet, despite the importance of understanding the present, excessive focus on diagnosing the situation has locked us into circular thinking: we turn endlessly around the same observations and the same deadlocks, without genuinely advancing towards serious reflection on the future of Lebanon, on that of its citizens, and consequently on that of society and the State. Launching national reflection circles… with positivity Lebanon today has an urgent need to create spaces for dialogue and reflection bringing together groups, elites and actors of society, whatever their level of organisation, in order to raise the fundamental questions that will determine the shape of the country in the decades to come. The nations that survive and progress are not those that content themselves with managing their daily crises, but those that have the courage to think long-term and to sketch a clear vision of their future. But before any debate, we must adopt positive thinking. A positive person is more open to the opinions of others; they see in the diversity of ideas a wealth and new opportunities for progress. Conversely, negative and closed thinking fosters mistrust of the other and ends up casting doubt on the very opportunities that stand before one. We must also look at reality as it is, and not as we would wish it to be. Fleeing from facts or embellishing them produces no solutions; it merely defers the explosion of crises and aggravates them. It therefore becomes essential to raise questions with objectivity and respect, far from pretence, narrow calculations or preconceived judgements. Living societies do not fear questions; they regard them as a natural step towards the search for a better future. Imagining the next hundred years Lebanon today, more than ever, needs “national reflection circles” capable of approaching calmly and realistically the great fundamental challenges, of exchanging viewpoints and seeking common ground likely to guarantee the country’s stability for the next hundred years. Among the essential questions to be raised: – What is the form of governance best suited to Lebanon in the light of past experience? Does the centralised system remain the best choice? Would extended decentralisation or federalism offer more effective solutions? Or is it necessary to imagine an entirely new formula? – Is the Taif Agreement still adapted after all the transformations experienced by Lebanon and the region? – Is the model of coexistence and consensual democracy still capable of producing stability and building a genuine State? – Does coexistence remain possible in its current form, in light of the experiences, crises and divisions traversed by the Lebanese? – How should Lebanese diversity be managed? Through a civil system founded on complete equality among citizens? Or through a system respecting communal specificities and balances within a consensual formula guaranteeing stability? – What should be the role of the State? Should it be limited to ensuring security, stability and essential needs such as health, education and infrastructure? Or should it intervene more broadly in the various economic and social sectors? – What of education? Should priority continue to be accorded to private schooling, which has long been one of Lebanon’s historical pillars? Or does the future require a more balanced model between public and private sectors? – What economy do we want? Does the liberal economy remain the most appropriate choice for Lebanon? Or does the next stage require a social economy reconciling economic freedom and social justice? – How to ensure genuine popular participation in the production of power? What electoral law would ensure fair representation and strengthen democratic life? – How should major national decisions be taken in the event of disagreement? – And what constitutional and political mechanisms would prevent deadlocks while preserving the national partnership? These questions are but a few examples of the great debates that should be approached with courage and serenity. For building a nation consists not only in managing the crises of the present, but also in being capable of imagining the future and preparing for it. It is often said: “In times of crisis, opportunities are born.” This is true, provided one knows how to read reality with lucidity and possesses the intellectual and political courage necessary to seize those opportunities, rather than contenting oneself with managing collapses or awaiting solutions from outside. If Lebanon wishes to remain a living nation capable of enduring, it needs a long-term intellectual and national project, collectively elaborated, in order to build political, social and economic stability for the next hundred years — and not merely for a few years.

In an interview broadcast on one of Lebanon’s satellite channels, following Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 and amid what had afflicted some with a certain “national indigestion”, former Lebanese Defence Minister Albert Mansour took aim at the inhabitants of the occupied Syrian Golan, who numbered at the time no more than twenty thousand souls and had chosen the path of peaceful resistance against the Israeli occupation, asking with derision: “Why don’t these people resist the Israeli occupation?” Many of Hezbollah’s mouthpieces and loyalists did the same, sparing the Golan’s inhabitants none of their repeated barbs over what they called a deviation from the principle “where there is occupation, there is resistance”, as though resistance could only manifest itself through rockets and projectiles, oblivious to the fact that the highest form of patriotism and resistance lies in clinging to the land, in refusing to surrender it as easy prey to the occupiers, and in preserving a heritage, a culture and an identity. This is precisely what the Golanis accomplished, within the limits of their modest and limited means, and in the most exemplary fashion. It was this state of affairs that compelled the author of these lines to publish, in January 2001, two detailed consecutive studies in the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir under the title “And They Ask You: When Will You Fight Israel?”, then to follow them with another article in “Qadaya An-Nahar” on 29 November 2005, entitled “A Letter to Hezbollah from the Occupied Golan”, in which he invited the organisation unreservedly to neutralise Lebanon and relieve its front from the burden of the conflict with Israel, now that the Lebanese had paid their share of the price. Yet, in a comedy of the darkest hue and by a reversal of a most singular kind, it was Hezbollah itself that, alongside Hamas in Gaza, proceeded to enshrine another conception of “resistance”, so strange that it would not have occurred to anyone, even in the most confused of dreams, and whose substance reduces to this: where resistance exists, occupation is summoned. A posture that goes far beyond the notion of national betrayal born of collaboration with the occupier, venturing into territory that is graver and more profound still. What Hezbollah has done to the Lebanese, and to the Shia in particular, has now reached the point of requiring the Arabic Language Academy to convene an emergency session and forge a new term that would leave the words crime and betrayal light-years behind. Hezbollah was never a national liberation movement, nor did it ever deserve that honour to begin with; quite to the contrary, it has invariably been the armed and auxiliary appendage of a foreign state that occupies Arab lands, the Greater and Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa, before extending its grip entirely over Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. It was this Hezbollah that harvested the fruits of liberation in southern Lebanon in 2000, after having proceeded, in concert with its ally the Assad regime, to liquidate the cadres of the national resistance and monopolise armed struggle for itself. The voice of Georges Hawi, whom Hezbollah would subsequently assassinate, still resonates in memory: when he appeared in 2005, during the Independence Intifada, on a Lebanese satellite channel, to remind Hezbollah that after the Taif Agreement, Communist Party militants would slip clandestinely into the occupied border zone to carry out operations against the occupation and its agents, at the risk of being hunted down by them, and that Hezbollah’s own operatives had in fact liquidated many of them on their way back. In light of all the foregoing, even the comparison with Antoine Lahad’s mini-state and his disbanded army, which Hezbollah MP Hassan Yaaqoub warned the President of the Republic might be recreated, and which had been entrusted by the Israeli occupation forces with no more than the surveillance of a strip accounting for ten percent of Lebanese territory in the South, even that comparison no longer holds against Hezbollah, which enabled Iran to extend its grip over the entirety of Lebanese territory, in addition to the decades of death, devastation and ruin it has sown among its own entourage and the Lebanese at large, to say nothing of its implication in the assassination of Lebanon’s finest sons and the countless pieces of evidence pointing to its responsibility for the explosion of Beirut’s port. In any case, it would seem that this is the last war Hezbollah is drawing down upon the Lebanese, after having laid waste to their homes for decades. What the Party called Operation “Al-’Aasf al-Ma’koul”, the Lebanese will be left to swallow, and the Shia above all. The most likely outcome is that this adventure will end nowhere but in Hezbollah’s definitive removal from the scene, and perhaps in the installation of a “friendly” regime in Tehran or the clipping of its arms, eventualities that Hezbollah seems not to have factored into its esoteric calculations, namely the loss of its Iranian patron, as it persists in this gamble down to the last Lebanese Shia. Turning the page on Hezbollah in Lebanon will bring relief to the Lebanese and the Syrians alike. For breaking the backbone of the “Shia Crescent” and severing Iran’s Lebanese arm once and for all would strip any functional value from the regime of Abu Mohammad al-Jolani in Syria and might well hasten its demise. The disarmament of Hezbollah is therefore a Lebanese interest in the first, second and third instance, before it is an Israeli one, and it is a necessity that brooks no delay. As for the continuation of direct Lebanese-Israeli negotiations toward a peace agreement, contrary to what many believe, and even though negotiating with Israel or making peace with it could not be described as a comfortable stroll, there is considerable exaggeration in claims that belittle Lebanon’s capacity to compete with Israel on multiple levels and fronts, beginning with the dynamism of the Lebanese people and the wealth of their skills, energies and expertise, and extending to tourism, cultural diversity and a free economy. All wars are followed by others or by negotiations that lead either to a peace treaty or to surrender, with the sole exception of the October War on the Syrian front and the Lebanon War of 1982, after each of which the state of “enmity” with Israel was exploited as a profitable ‘national business’ to consolidate the equation of eternal occupation over there against eternal tyranny and despotism over here. In an earlier article in Al-Modon newspaper under the title “17 May”, former Socialist minister Ghazi al-Aridi quoted former Lebanese President Amine Gemayel as saying, on the programme “Witness to an Era” on Al-Jazeera : “It was Israel that signed, and I who did not”. Why? “I asked the American envoy, who came to me applying great pressure to accelerate the signing, to convey a message to President Reagan to the effect that: I want a personal letter from him affirming that he will continue to honour his commitment to playing the role of mediator. If Israel upholds its obligations, so much the better; and if it does not, there will be an American commitment to standing by Lebanon and protecting its sovereignty and unity...” He went on to say: “The letter came, but Israel withdrew from the agreement.” Why? “It emerged that Israel had signed not as a commitment to the agreement, but because it wanted something from the Americans, and what it wanted was the lifting of the sanctions imposed because Israel had exceeded the agreement limiting its army’s advance to 40 kilometres in the South only. Which means that Israel never actually wanted the agreement as it stood, despite everything it had extracted from it.” In the light of all this, what is required is not merely a rereading of that agreement, but a painstaking scrutiny of every element of that period. For President Amine Gemayel’s testimony does not merely shake the walls of the narrative that has prevailed about the “May 17 Agreement” for more than four decades; it may well bring the whole edifice crashing down. The most probable hypothesis, however, remains that all the catastrophes, the horrors and the wars that were waged and continue to be waged against the Syrians and the Lebanese are nothing but overdue instalments and long-deferred bills, the price for the Assad regime’s signing of that “disengagement of forces” agreement with Israel and the annulment of the “17 May” agreement in Lebanon in March 1984, without any future path having been charted as to how the conflict with Israel might one day be resolved.

There has been much talk, of late, about the necessity of changing the system of the Lebanese formula, described as a “crisis-generator”, and some speak lightly of an “other” Lebanon at a moment of extreme complexity through which the region is passing. Some have held, since 1989, that the Taif Accord is an accord of “necessity” — meaning that it “does not please us”, but necessity has its own imperatives: – the necessity of putting an end to the war, – the necessity of moving from war to peace, – the necessity of ridding oneself of an internal adversary, – the necessity of holding fast to this accord in the face of Hezbollah's weapons. Others consider that they have “tested the accord and witnessed its failure”, and this party returns, from the very moment of its proclamation, with examples attesting to its failure, disregarding the mechanisms that governed its selective implementation: – Syria's weapons, from 1989 to 2005, – Iran's weapons, from 2005 to the present day. Under the pretext that it 'failed' to manage the country, they break with the text to defend new formulas such as federalism, a Small Lebanon, and others. For my part, I belong to the camp that defends the Constitution as the protector of Lebanon's meaning, which rests on the triad: finality of the entity, Arabness of Lebanon and the living together. I am also proud of the Vatican's announcement of the beatification of Patriarch Elias Howayek, and I warn against: A. The gravity of a continuing transgression against the Constitution and the Taif Accord at a moment when the region's maps are being redrawn and political and economic dimensions and roles are being determined We are at a crossroads where the outlines of a new mapping of the region are taking shape, a hundred years after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning of the Sykes-Picot phase. Today, Islamic currents — Sunni and Shia, non-Arab — are at the forefront and seek to define their political, economic, and military weight at the expense of the region's identity. To prevent Lebanon's fall and spare it from paying the price during these phases of great change, we hold fast to what the Lebanese agreed upon in the Taif Accord, which has become the Constitution, and which affirms the finality of the Lebanese entity and its belonging to the Arab identity. On this basis, the finality of the Lebanese entity constitutes the principal guarantee required so that Lebanon neither moves toward shrinkage nor dissolves into a larger framework. Lebanon's Arabness and its belonging to its Arab environment secure for it the guarantee of integration into the Arab interest system whose contours are taking shape in the first decades of this century. B. The gravity of a reversal against the Taif Accord, the Constitution, and the resolutions of international legitimacy To step outside the Constitution at a moment when Hezbollah is attempting to impose the equation of “weapons in exchange for the Constitution” — that is, to obtain gains for one camp at the expense of the internal balance — is extremely dangerous, for Lebanon is not governed by balances of power but by the power of balance. Adherence to the implementation of the resolutions of international legitimacy, notably Resolutions 1559, 1680, and 1701, which draw from the Taif Accord their juridical foundation, means that holding fast to the Taif Accord is tantamount to holding fast to the resolutions of international legitimacy, just as withdrawing from it means withdrawing from those resolutions. One of the (so far) weaknesses in the content of the negotiations with Israel in Washington may lie in the absence of a political text — oral or written — concerning the resolutions of international legitimacy 1559, 1680, and 1701. C. The question of the living together and political partnership in the context of one party's rebellion against Lebanese and international justice We are in a moment of regional re-ordering, where every community and every state seeks a place that constitutes its reason for being in a world that changes at extreme speed. We are the custodians of a Lebanese experience based on the living together — which, in my view, that is to say this living together, is not the desire of Christians to live with Muslims nor the reverse, but rather the consequence of each party's inability to live alone. Such is the equation we learned during the war and after it, and which today constitutes the essence of Lebanon's meaning in the coming stage, in the region and in the world. President Ahmad al-Sharaa has promised to draft a constitution for the new Syria within four years — we wish him well, for we know the complexity of matters with the Kurds, the Druze, the Alawites, the Christians, the Islamists, the Muslims, the secularists, and others. We have a Constitution — let us preserve it. D. Reframing the debate on the question of neutrality in a way that does not contradict Lebanon's identity and belonging Neutrality rests on every internal party ceasing to rely on external backing at the expense of the national partnership. For such reliance rests on the following exchange: an internal party cedes a portion of sovereignty in exchange for a portion of gains, at the expense of the internal partner. This is why Lebanon must be kept neutral from external conflicts. Lebanon's century-long experience confirms that sovereignty is indivisible and that there are no particular gains for one party at the expense of full internal partnership. All communities and all parties in Lebanon have experienced reliance on the outside. No community or party has been spared the consequences of the 'adventures' of such reliance. The call for neutrality is more pressing than ever, and neutrality is a covenant among the Lebanese that transcends constitutional and legal considerations — it lay at the very foundation of the Lebanese idea. Neutrality is not a founding milestone to be added to previous founding milestones, such as the establishment of the State of Greater Lebanon in 1920, the National Pact of 1943, or the Taif Accord of 1989. The neutrality required today as a protective and unifying national necessity for all Lebanese falls within the framework of preserving Islamic-Christian living together under the sign of balance, justice, and freedom. E. Discussion of Lebanon's economic, cultural, educational, medical, and banking role, with a view to recovering its comparative advantages in this domain and exiting its current Arab and international isolation We are today entering a phase that has brought Israel into the heart of the region, while Iran, Turkey, and Russia expand with imperial appetites suspended for a century and now returning with the collapse of the old Arab order. All of this coincides with the decline of Lebanon's economic, cultural, educational, medical, and banking role. What is required, and urgently so, is to launch concerted efforts in all the aforementioned fields in order to recover this role at the global level. The era of “Lebanon as the region's service center” is over, given the development of the majority of Arab states and the repercussions of globalization and artificial intelligence. If it is true that Lebanon suffered from the problems of the Arab world and paid a heavy price for Arab causes — with the emergence of unionist currents, the momentum of the Palestinian revolution, and others — honesty requires acknowledging in return that Lebanon gained presence, renaissance, and prosperity from its belonging to the Arab world: – generations of pioneering students of engineering, medicine, and economics since the 1940s, who launched the reconstruction of the Gulf, – the Banking Secrecy Law of 1956, which attracted Arab capital fleeing nationalizations in Syria, Egypt, and Iraq, – the closure of the Suez Canal in 1967, which made the port of Beirut the Suez Canal of the region, – Palestinian, Arab, and oil capital. Today that phase is over and it falls to us to invent a new raison d'être in this world. I do not claim to know its contours, but I know that the formula of the living together is what remains to us — provided we know how to preserve it. It does not escape anyone's notice that the Ministers of Public Works of Turkey and Saudi Arabia signed the project to build the 'Sultan Abdulhamid' railway linking Istanbul to Mecca without passing through Lebanon. Nor does it escape notice that a maritime line extends from the Emirates to Aqaba in Jordan, then to Haifa-Israel, and from Haifa to Europe, without passing through Lebanon. And no one is unaware of what President Ahmad al-Sharaa said to the Arab press: “The time of Moses was the time of magic ; the time of Christ the time of medicine ; the time of Mohammad, the time of language ; as for the time of today, it is the time of development.” F. The recurrent anxieties of the communities Lebanon's communities have lived, since the founding of the Lebanese Republic, with anxieties they have considered existential, and these anxieties were an essential factor in Lebanon's entry into the ill-fated war. Today, in the context of the internal crises facing Lebanon and the great mutations in the region, the anxieties of the communities are reappearing: the Christians live with the demographic anxiety that has never left them, considering today that the return to “Small Lebanon” constitutes their “guarantee”; the Shia live with the anxiety of marginalization and seek to escape it by exploiting Iranian support and rebelling against the State and its institutions; the Sunnis live with the anxiety of suffocation, considering that despite their Arab extension they are in Lebanon a community like the others, to which is added today the emergence of a new Sunni leadership in Syria; while the Druze live with the anxiety of the founding community turned into a targeted minority, to which are added its anxieties on a regional level. The Taif Accord is the sole guarantor which, through its complete implementation, offers solutions to all these anxieties by consolidating the living together, guaranteeing the communities, and protecting the rights of citizens. There is a reality shared by all: the culture of submission to the fait accompli, in which all have accommodated themselves to this fait accompli in order to obtain personal gains. No community or confession has refrained from using an external “ladder of access” at the expense of the Lebanese interior: – some climbed the ladder of the Mandate, – others took turns with the PLO, Israel, Syria, and Iran. The heart of the Taif Accord is inscribed in this paragraph of the preamble to the Constitution: “Any authority that violates the covenant of the living together is illegitimate.”

In Druze jargon, there is a phrase people use at moments of transition: “Enough… it’s time to go offer congratulations.” In another context, the same instinct may take the form of: “It’s time to go pay our condolences.” It is not merely a social courtesy. It is a political reflex shaped by history. It means that one moment has ended, another has begun, and those who understand the world as it is — not as they wish it to be — must act accordingly. The Druze have long been sensitive to political change. Geography taught them this. History reinforced it. Survival made it instinctive. They do not always need official declarations from capitals to know that the wind has shifted. Often, they sense it before others do. This is why the recent poll numbers showing broad Druze support for negotiations, and even for a peace agreement with Israel, should not be as surprising as many have made them out to be. The surprise is not that the Druze are open to a new political course. The surprise is that they have said openly what many Lebanese privately understand: the old language of permanent war has exhausted itself. According to the numbers, 72 percent of Druze respondents supported direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel, including a majority who supported them strongly. Even more striking, 84.2 percent supported the idea of a peace agreement if signed by the Lebanese president and government, while 80.7 percent supported contact between the Lebanese president and Netanyahu. These are not marginal figures. They suggest a clear political mood: the Druze public is not waiting for ideological permission to recognize that Lebanon needs a way out. But these numbers should not be misread. Druze support for negotiation is not necessarily love for Israel, nor is it a surrender of memory, sovereignty, or national dignity. It is a pragmatic response to a collapsing reality. The same figures show a community that overwhelmingly links stability to the return of the state, the strengthening of the army, and the end of Hezbollah’s monopoly over decisions of war and peace. Druze respondents gave the Lebanese army and its commander one of the highest positive ratings, at 93 percent, and 77.2 percent supported disarming Hezbollah. They also registered one of the harshest views of Iran’s role in Lebanon, with 93 percent describing it negatively. Taken together, the message is coherent. The Druze are not simply saying “peace with Israel.” They are saying: restore the state, restore the army, restore decision-making, and end the open-ended war that has consumed Lebanon. This is where Hezbollah and its allies deliberately distort the debate. They want to collapse every distinction: peace becomes normalization, negotiation becomes surrender, and the return of state authority becomes defeat. In their vocabulary, any attempt to pull Lebanon out of the logic of endless confrontation is treason. Any discussion of Lebanese interests is betrayal. Any proposal to restore the state’s exclusive right to decide war and peace is treated as a conspiracy. But the truth is far simpler. For the Lebanese state to negotiate under clear sovereign conditions does not mean Lebanon is kneeling. It may mean the opposite: that Lebanon is finally standing up after decades in which its national decision has been confiscated. The Druze appear to understand this moment. They are not more pro-Israel than others, and they are not less attached to Lebanon, Palestine, or Arab concerns. But historically, they have been among the Lebanese communities most alert to the difference between a slogan that protects and a slogan that endangers. They know when language becomes detached from reality. They know when resistance turns from national defense into a structure of domestic domination. They know when the cost of pretending becomes greater than the cost of changing course. That is why their position should be read as pragmatic, not ideological. It is a vote to stop the war, not to erase history. A vote to protect Lebanon, not to whitewash Israel. A vote to restore the state, not to celebrate normalization. And yet, this Druze public mood seems ahead of much of the traditional Druze political leadership. That hesitation is understandable to a degree. The leadership carries the trauma of Lebanon’s wars, regional betrayals, assassinations, shifting alliances, and broken promises. It suffers from a kind of historical whiplash. Every sharp turn in Lebanon can carry a price, and every advanced position can be exploited, distorted, or punished. But caution is one thing. Paralysis is another. Politics is not only memory. It is also the ability to recognize the future as it arrives. If a large part of the Druze public is saying that the time has come to escape the captivity of war, then its leadership cannot simply manage fear. It must help shape a serious national position: no peace outside the state, no negotiations outside sovereignty, and no decision of war or peace outside constitutional institutions. Here, however, the greater responsibility falls on the Lebanese State. The Lebanese people are not being asked to rush emotionally toward peace. They are not being asked to forget occupation, blood, displacement, or the Palestinian cause. But if negotiations are on the table, the state has a duty to explain why peace can be a Lebanese interest. It must explain what Lebanon stands to gain, what guarantees are required, what happens to occupied Lebanese territory, what role the army would play, and how any agreement would protect sovereignty rather than undermine it. Peace cannot be sold as a vague transaction. It requires a national argument. It requires a state willing to confront the machinery of intimidation and stupidity that insists on calling every diplomatic option “normalization” and every exit from war “defeat.” Ending war is not defeat. The real defeat is for Lebanon to remain suspended between a war it cannot win and a peace it is not allowed to discuss. The real defeat is for Lebanese citizens to die, emigrate, lose their savings, lose their homes, and lose their future in defense of formulas they are forbidden from questioning. The real defeat is for a country to have a state in name, but not in authority. Victory, by contrast, may lie in Lebanon finally deciding that its national interest is not a footnote in other people’s calculations. It may lie in saying that the south is protected by the Lebanese state, not by permanent instability. That dignity is not measured by the number of open fronts, but by the ability of a country to protect its people, land, economy, and institutions. Seen from this angle, the Druze numbers are not an anomaly. They are an early warning. A small community, long practiced in surviving storms, is telling Lebanon that an era is ending. This does not mean that peace is easy, guaranteed, or without risks. It does not mean that Israel should be trusted blindly, or that Lebanese fears are illegitimate. But it does mean that war can no longer be treated as sacred, and peace can no longer be treated as a crime. Perhaps the Druze, in their own way, have said what the Lebanese state still fears to say: enough. It is time to go, not to congratulate Israel, but to congratulate Lebanon if it can reclaim its state. It is time for peace to stop being treated as an accusation, and for war to stop being treated as destiny. It is time for someone to explain to the Lebanese that ending war, when decided by the state and protected by sovereignty, is not normalization with the enemy so much as it is normalization with the idea that Lebanon deserves to live.

One could almost marvel at the array of torture instruments featured in the repertoire of Syrian prisons! For the various branches of the mukhabarat had not been idle during more than fifty years of prolonged dictatorship. To exercise their perverse talents, extract confessions from their victims, and above all intimidate the population, Baathist torturers could choose between the “doulab,” the “‘abd al-aswad,” and the “bisat al-rih.” It is difficult to rank these ordeals, but the second on the list was so perverse that Amnesty International described it in its 1984 Report in the following terms: “The victim, bound, is seated on a device which, when switched on, inserts a heated metal blade into the anus.” Take careful note of that date and consider who was in power in Damascus at the time. For there are still some in Lebanon who are nostalgic for the regime of Hafez al-Assad and who, in an effort to enhance the prestige of this autocrat, go so far as to disparage the performance of his son Bashar, whom they believe failed to live up to the mission entrusted to him by his father. The East German Stasi as coach! A preliminary observation: the various branches of the mukhabarat, pillars of the regime established in Damascus, were supervised—if not trained—by the infamous East German Stasi. And this lasted from the 1960s until the fall of the Berlin Wall! Yet here the difference in culture between the two intelligence and repressive services became apparent (1). Indeed, Stasi agents believed that their Syrian counterparts had adopted a model of spectacular and systematic torture and that their modus operandi was characterized by unrestrained brutality and “immediate sadistic violence.” They themselves, as refined artists from the banks of the Spree and the Elbe, preferred “psychological destruction, surveillance, and blackmail.” This shows that even by East German standards, the methods of the Assad clan were excessively ferocious, gratuitous, and unnecessary. In this regard, the archives of the political police of the so-called German Democratic Republic, examined by researchers and academics, suggest how much “Syrian praxis” was driven by vindictive, clan-based, and sectarian logics that did not exist behind the Iron Curtain (2). Torture as the regime’s identity marker Not only were the detainees in agony, but so too was an entire people—a people in whom every form of opposition and every inclination toward dissent had to be crushed through terror and intimidation. In January 2025, drawing on more than 2,000 testimonies, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria published a report entitled “The Web of Agony,” denouncing the systematic practice of torture by the ruling authorities. Giving free rein to their instincts, this is what the perpetrators of these dirty deeds inflicted: “Beatings, electric shocks, burns, the ripping out of fingernails, rape and other forms of sexual violence, denial of medical care, and psychological torture.” And this says nothing of arbitrary detention and mass executions. The Damascus trials or the hour of judgment A page has been turned! Survivors of the Syrian prison regime are now speaking freely on social media. Soon, courtroom hearings will take over from podcasts in recounting the horrors committed in detention centers. Of the Baath Party in Syria as in Iraq, only oppression, terror, and crimes will be remembered. It was certainly not during the eras of Saddam or the Assads that freedoms had any chance to flourish! And just as one can never imagine Hitler without Auschwitz-Birkenau, nor Stalin without the gulag, one can scarcely evoke Hafez or Bashar without the infamous torture ! John O. Koehler, “Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police,” Basic Books, 1999. Sophia Hoffmann, “Intelligence Fields: The Relations of the East German Stasi and Syrian Mukhabarat” (1960–1990), Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient Publications, Berlin.

The conflicting statements and abrupt reversals by President Donald Trump are set to reshape relations with Europe, NATO and America’s allies. They are also likely to trigger reactions from countries in the Pacific and the Middle East that once viewed U.S. protection as credible. The West is playing for moderation and seeking a role in securing the Strait of Hormuz once hostilities end. Will the United States find itself sidelined in the region in favor of another, unlikely protector? And will Lebanon’s settlement be brokered by France – with or without Europe? Following the U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran on February 28, 2026 – an operation about which neither Western and European leaders nor governments, nor NATO officials, had been informed – President Donald Trump called on them to back him by helping safeguard security in the Strait of Hormuz and by providing direct support for U.S. operations. Most heads of state and governments declined. Trump’s response was unequivocal, if deeply inconsistent. After denouncing the refusal as a “gross mistake” and branding European countries as cowards, he insisted that the United States did not need them and would act alone as “the strongest nation in the world.” Escalating his rhetoric further, he declared that NATO without the United States would be nothing more than a “paper tiger.” He even raised the prospect of disengaging from the alliance, implicitly threatening to free Washington from its obligations under Article 5 of the NATO treaty. To remove any ambiguity from his remarks, Trump argued that America’s allies failed to stand by the United States in times of crisis while continuing to benefit from what he described as a one-sided alliance. Why, he asked, should Washington automatically guarantee their defense? He then set out his threats – a partial withdrawal of U.S. troops stationed in Europe – and his demands for support (participation in the naval blockade against Iran). After publicly rejecting the proposal, several countries barred American aircraft involved in military operations against Iran from using their airspace. Lack of coherence In his statements, President Trump lacks coherence. A call for support – even for active participation – is followed by a dismissive show of indifference, as the United States, “the strongest country in the world,” is capable of winning this war alone. The notion of war thus emerges, a case in which, the U.S. president argues, NATO members are bound to fulfil their obligations under the founding treaty. Yet it was he who triggered this war – encouraged by Israel, a co-belligerent. He is therefore the aggressor. The transatlantic organization has a “defensive” function. In this specific case, Article 5 does not apply. When it has intervened, it has done so only under a United Nations mandate. Suddenly, the President of the United States judges that NATO has no role to play in acting and seeks to keep it out of this conflict, while at the same time exerting renewed pressure on allies and declaring that he will act alone because he can. In reality, he seeks the participatory support of his allies without that support being provided under the NATO framework. As a result, everywhere the United States plays a protective role, doubts arise over the reliability of its declared and formalized security guarantees. NATO members and Europeans are not the only ones questioning them. Pacific countries – Japan, Australia and South Korea in particular – can now only doubt the promised support in the event of Chinese intervention. To these countries are added Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and the Gulf states – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. When a head of state – primus inter pares within NATO – triggers a conflict that could escalate into a world war, he cannot expect the members of the organization to follow him, support him, and take part in military operations blindly. Nor can he, after having treated them in an offensive, vulgar and hurtful manner – he is addressing elected officials, and therefore the peoples they represent – then declare in a contemptuous tone that he can act alone and does not need them. In any case, it must be emphasized that NATO members, even if they do not speak with a single voice and even if there have been some disagreements, are broadly aligned – not in a fully unified position, but on a similar wavelength – and are joined by Pacific countries. The project of ensuring security in the Strait of Hormuz after the cessation of hostilities brings many of them together. The entire world, including the Near and Middle East – and therefore Lebanon – can take note of the restraint shown by Russia and China. It would be naïve to think they are not acting behind the scenes in line with their own interests. But their position, similar to that of Europeans and U.S. allies, in refraining from participating in military operations, reduces the risk of a slide into a confrontation of truly global scale. We can only endorse the general position adopted by European governments, NATO member states, and the main concerned Pacific countries, while nevertheless noting their principled commitment to ensuring security in the Strait of Hormuz – a commitment that it would be desirable to extend to the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, and then to the entire Red Sea. If that were the case, we could only welcome their wisdom. Would it be illusory, or even utopian, to think that such a common stance might be taken into account by the Iranians during peace negotiations? One might think that, in Lebanon, it is the same war. At first glance, the protagonists appear identical. On one side, Hezbollah, remotely controlled by Iran, with Israel as the key player and, behind it, the United States, which for now positions itself as a moderating force. On the other side, Iran, the true key player, the United States as another key player, and Israel, which – after acting an unsuccessful instigator and then being reined in – has become a follower. But the differences are significant when it comes to the future of these two theatres. One is regional, the other global. One excludes Europe, and above all France. The other currently excludes Europe and the envisaged coalition of some forty countries – including Pacific states. The Iranian issue appears insoluble, so much so that the – justified – demands of the United States run counter to those firmly defended by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, now the country’s dominant force. Beyond these currently incompatible demands, Donald Trump’s approach in terms of analysis, diplomacy and negotiating skill falls far short of what would be required. He has nothing to offer other than violence. If he does so, one should beware of Russian and Chinese involvement. Going forward, the behavior and decisions he is likely to take will have consequences for the conduct of international affairs and for the settlement of disputes between states. Donald Trump may well prevail. But at the cost of what abandonments? Whom and what would he sacrifice before November? It is likely that the real long-term winner will be Iran. On the risk scale, the probable outweighs the possible. Could a deep questioning of the reliability of U.S. protection by Gulf countries lead to the replacement of American bases? By which protector? China and Russia would stand to benefit. If France decides to support Lebanon in the firm stance now embodied by its president, it will have to do so with conviction and determination. Half-measures no longer have a place. These are therefore two different wars, whose resolutions must be coordinated. One could be addressed in isolation; the other cannot. Will President Trump take this into account in the final “round” of negotiations with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps? “What has changed most over there is not China, it is not Russia, it is Europe: it has stopped counting” ( The Conquerors , postface – André Malraux). Rather than looking at Ukraine through rose-tinted glasses and focusing solely on oil prices when it comes to the Middle East, Europeans and France should aspire to promote a “firm peace” in Lebanon.