The New World

One can only welcome the visit to Lebanon by Asaad al-Shaibani. For the first time, it was the visit of a Syrian foreign minister to a sovereign, independent state rather than to a mere arena or subordinate territory. At least in the way it was conducted, the visit reflected President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s desire, as the man ultimately in charge in Damascus, to build a different kind of relationship between Lebanon and Syria, one freed from the burdens of the past, particularly those that have weighed on both countries since Hafez al-Assad seized power in Syria in November 1970. Does this signal a lasting shift in Syrian policy, or merely a transitional approach while the new leadership consolidates its rule by building a strong, cohesive state, much as Hafez al-Assad did even before the coup he carried out in the autumn of 1970 under the banner of the “Corrective Movement”? The simplicity of Asaad al-Shaibani’s demeanor immediately brought to mind the conduct of Syrian officials who used to visit Lebanon under Hafez al-Assad and later his son Bashar. The contrast could hardly have been sharper. Bashar never concealed his ignorance of Lebanon. During a meeting with an Arab foreign minister who had come to deliver a message from his country’s head of state, he described Lebanon as “a fragile country,” seemingly oblivious to the fragility of Syria itself, a country already carrying within it the seeds of an internal explosion. That explosion came in 2011. The country’s internal wars continued until the end of 2024, when the Syrian president fled to Moscow. The curtain then fell on a regime that had endured for more than half a century by relying on Alawite control of the military and security apparatus, and, through them, of virtually every aspect of the country’s economy. What came back to me most vividly during Asaad al-Shaibani’s visit to Lebanon were the rounds of negotiations held in the summer of 1973 between Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam and his Lebanese counterpart, Fouad Naffah. Their purpose was to reopen the Lebanese-Syrian border, which Hafez al-Assad had ordered closed in protest against the Lebanese Army’s attempt to put an end to the armed Palestinian presence in Lebanon, a presence that Syria had fostered because it ultimately served its ambition of plunging the country into turmoil. I can still picture Khaddam arriving at the Park Hotel in Chtaura to meet the Lebanese foreign minister. On that occasion, the Syrian foreign minister insisted on entering Lebanese territory in a convoy protected by members of the Syrian military police. Armed personnel saluted him as he entered the hotel, in a carefully choreographed display intended to trample on Lebanese sovereignty. Everything has changed today. Asaad al-Shaibani observed every rule of diplomatic courtesy with meticulous care. Time will tell whether this approach reflects a lasting policy on the part of Syria’s new leadership toward Lebanon, a country that Hafez al-Assad viewed through the slogans of “one people in two countries” and the “unity of the two tracks.” It is equally clear that every step taken by the Syrian foreign minister had been carefully choreographed, including his visit to Tripoli, through which Ahmed al-Sharaa sought to demonstrate the extent of his popularity in Lebanon’s Sunni cities. By sending Asaad al-Shaibani to Lebanon, Ahmed al-Sharaa knew he was under close Arab and international scrutiny and that he had to show the utmost respect for Lebanese sensitivities toward Syria. After all, it is no secret that the former Syrian regime, an ally of Hezbollah, played a role in persecuting all Lebanese communities, particularly Sunnis and Christians. As for the Druze, the regime had long ceased to attach much importance to them after the assassination of Kamal Jumblatt in 1977, a message whose implications Walid Jumblatt understood all too well. There is little point in listing the Sunni figures whom the Assad regime helped eliminate, from Grand Mufti Hassan Khaled to Rafik Hariri. Nor is there any need to recall the assassinations of two Lebanese presidents, Bashir Gemayel and René Moawad, or the many Syrian actions aimed at preventing Lebanon from signing the May 17 Agreement with Israel in 1983. The visit of Syria’s foreign minister to Lebanon can certainly be viewed positively. It marked a clear departure from the past and reflected profound change in Syria. Yet one essential reality cannot be overlooked: the world will be convinced that genuine change has taken place only when that change becomes evident inside Syria itself. Reaching out to Lebanon’s Christians carries little meaning without a comparable opening toward Syria’s own Christian community. The same applies to Syria’s Druze, who continue to suffer the consequences of the recent clashes with local armed groups that sought to bring them to heel with the backing of the new regime. More importantly, Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government is now working to reshape the very fabric of Syrian society so that it conforms to the values promoted by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and the factions allied with it during the years they controlled Idlib. This transformation is unfolding quietly, without fanfare. Among other measures, laws have been enacted banning the import of musical instruments as well as alcoholic beverages. The new Syrian approach toward Lebanon is certainly to be welcomed. Even so, it remains premature to speak of genuine change in Syria unless the new leadership sets about building a cohesive society free from all forms of intolerance and dogmatism. In the end, Ahmed al-Sharaa’s and Asaad al-Shaibani’s real test will be inside Syria, not in Lebanon. Syria, now rid of the Alawite regime of the Assad family, is expected to become a state reconciled with itself and with all the components of the Syrian people: Sunnis, Christians, Druze, Alawites and Ismailis. When that happens, provided that it also extends to the Kurds , the Lebanese will believe that profound change has truly taken root in Syria and that normal relations between the two countries can finally be established.

Lebanon has no alternative but to pursue negotiations with Israel in order to achieve the desired objective: obtaining an Israeli withdrawal and enabling the displaced to return to their villages and towns. That is what genuine patriotism means, far removed from the temptation to cling to a past dominated by glittering slogans such as “praying in Jerusalem,” slogans that have led only to the return of occupation. Ultimately, Lebanon faces a reality from which it cannot escape forever. That reality lies not only in the price the country must now pay for the wars waged by Iran, through Hezbollah, against Israel. It also lies in the emergence of new parameters that now shape the region, parameters to which Lebanon would do well to adapt instead of remaining captive to Iranian tutelage. Lebanon must determine the price it is prepared to pay in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal, if it wishes to avoid falling into the Iranian trap. At the heart of that trap lies the Islamic Republic’s determination to turn Lebanon and its people into bargaining chips, regardless of the devastation and destruction inflicted upon the South and other parts of the country. Iran’s objective in Lebanon has never changed. That is why Tehran continues to refuse to acknowledge the transformation that has taken place across the region. The Islamic Republic and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps continue to view Lebanon as a bargaining chip in any negotiations with the United States. Faced with Iran’s refusal to recognize the region’s transformation, Lebanon should stop fleeing reality on the one hand and refuse to submit to Iranian logic on the other. In that context, it is pointless for Lebanese officers negotiating with the Israelis in Washington to avoid appearing in a photograph bringing together all the delegations taking part in the talks. Such a gesture changes nothing. It does, however, convey the image of an outdated Lebanese mindset determined to reduce Lebanon to little more than an Iranian satellite. Appeasing Tehran serves no purpose. It produces only one result: perpetuating the occupation and entrenching it. Hezbollah thrives on that occupation, which Iran seeks to perpetuate in pursuit of illusions it continues to nurture. Iran chooses to ignore that the most recent wars were fought on its own soil and that, in the end, it found itself negotiating with the Americans and signing a memorandum of understanding with them, with nothing to suggest that it will resolve any of the outstanding disputes between the Islamic Republic and the United States, between Iran and Israel, or even between the Islamic Republic and the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Against that backdrop, the first thing Lebanese officers should understand is that they are not negotiating with ghosts. They are negotiating with the Israeli army, which occupies Lebanese territory and will not withdraw as long as Hezbollah retains its weapons. Real courage lies simply in working to bring the occupation to an end rather than helping to entrench it, instead of hiding behind resounding slogans and shying away from a photograph with the negotiating delegation. Are the Lebanese officials negotiating with Israel under the authority of the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister traitors, or are they, on the contrary, the very embodiment of patriotism in a country that has fallen under Iranian domination, a domination that brought Israel back into southern Lebanon? Simon Karam, head of the Lebanese negotiating delegation, and Lebanon’s ambassador to Washington, Nada Hamadeh Moawad, need no certificate of patriotism from anyone. For one simple reason: the negotiations Lebanon is conducting in the American capital are taking place openly and are aimed, above all else, at bringing the occupation to an end. Could there be a more honorable mission? Lebanon is negotiating under exceptionally complex circumstances. The difficulty stems less from Israeli intransigence than from the profound transformation that has taken place within Israel, where a majority now believes that coexistence with Hezbollah’s weapons is no longer possible. Benjamin Netanyahu has no room to make concessions on a withdrawal from Lebanon without clear Lebanese guarantees regarding Hezbollah’s arsenal. Put more plainly, the Israel that existed before the Al Aqsa Flood bears little resemblance to the Israel that emerged after Hamas launched its attack on the communities surrounding Gaza on October 7, 2023. There is no longer any room for agreements under the banner of the “rules of engagement,” whether with Hamas in Gaza or with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Such agreements are no longer conceivable, particularly since the American administration has shown no willingness to exert significant pressure on Israel over Lebanon. The issue is no longer fear of a photograph. The real issue is Lebanon’s ability to appear in Washington with a single, united delegation that knows exactly what it wants, free from political posturing. In the end, one question alone remains: does Lebanon truly want to end the occupation instead of helping to perpetuate it? Does it want to avoid falling into the Iranian trap built upon exploiting southern Lebanon and its people, particularly its Shiite population? One thing is certain: fear of a photograph bodes ill. Far more encouraging is the existence of a Lebanese determination to continue the negotiations along an independent path, separate from the American-Iranian track. That would reflect genuine Lebanese courage, rather than taking refuge behind slogans and the chronic complexes that continue to shape attitudes toward the Israeli occupation.

On paper, the American-Iranian memorandum of understanding eventually signed by President Donald Trump and President Masoud Pezeshkian appears to be a document in which all outstanding questions remain unresolved. Apart from reopening the Strait of Hormuz and lifting the American naval blockade imposed on the “Islamic Republic”, nothing points to any breakthrough on the issues that continue to divide Washington and Tehran. Can one also say, at least on paper, that the Trump administration has chosen to yield to Iran rather than follow through on its initial determination to break its capacity for disruption and put an end to its expansionist project, as it had originally intended? A close reading of the memorandum’s fourteen points clearly shows that the Trump administration has left all the fundamental issues hanging in the balance. The fate of Iran’s nuclear programme remains unclear, even though Trump has repeatedly insisted that its very existence is unacceptable. There is no mention of ballistic missiles or their infrastructure, nor is there any position regarding Iran’s regional proxies, apart from the assertion that the ceasefire agreed with the United States extends to Lebanon. How will this translate on the ground in Lebanon? Are the Iranians convinced that the United States will force Israel to abide by the ceasefire there? To be fair, Israel is currently observing it. Yet the memorandum contains nothing to suggest that Israel, which is not a party to the agreement, has bowed to American pressure in Lebanon or that it will carry out, at the earliest opportunity, whatever Washington asks of it. Despite American declarations announcing a ceasefire in Lebanon, Israel’s position towards the country remains shrouded in profound ambiguity. It did not take long after the memorandum entered into force for implementation difficulties to emerge. One fact quickly became apparent: the Trump administration knows little about Iran and even less about the behaviour of Iranian officials. In the past, however, it gave the impression of understanding much more. Perhaps this was due, during Trump’s first term, to the presence of a cohesive team that fully grasped, for example, the significance of eliminating Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force within the Revolutionary Guards, and the far-reaching implications of such an event. The matter extended well beyond Iran’s domestic sphere, where Soleimani occupied the second highest position in the power structure after the now deceased Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He was also the Islamic Republic’s principal man in the region and the spearhead of its strategy. He was the de facto commander of the Houthis, the high commissioner in Iraq and the effective ruler of both Syria and Lebanon. Some believe that the current American administration suffers from the absence of a figure such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Pompeo understood what the Iranian regime was and how to deal with it. It is striking that, in recent weeks, the Iranian file has been removed from the State Department’s hands. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has appeared more like a mere bystander, reduced to the role of a simple observer of what is unfolding between Tehran and Washington. A group of American officials cut from the cloth of Vice President J. D. Vance, who knows very little about Iran, cannot manage a dossier of such sensitivity. What we are witnessing today is merely a new chapter in a story that began in 1979, when Iran’s new authorities held American embassy diplomats hostage in Tehran for 444 days. That hostage crisis, which elicited no American response, opened the door to further blackmail by the Islamic Republic against the “Great Satan”. Over the past forty-seven years, the Islamic Republic has manipulated most American administrations. In 2003, it even succeeded in steering the administration of George W. Bush towards invading Iraq, paving the way for its eventual handover to Iraqi sectarian militias affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, militias that had fought alongside the Islamic Republic during the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988. The memorandum signed recently, a document devoid of any real viability, amounts to nothing more than a return by the Trump administration to traditional American policy towards the Islamic Republic. The possibility of the United States going to war with Iran was no more than an exceptional episode. Donald Trump has returned to his familiar position as a dealmaker seeking an agreement with Tehran. That explains why he entrusted the file to his vice president, alongside his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Nothing has changed in Iran to justify an American concession to the Revolutionary Guards. The day when Washington can portray Iran as a place suitable for major commercial deals remains far away. What we are witnessing today is an American mindset grappling with an extraordinarily complex file whose details and history it does not understand. This is the same American mindset that once wanted to turn Gaza into a “new Riviera”, a mindset disconnected from the realities of the region. It fails to grasp that Iran has no intention of changing. All the leadership in Tehran wants is to buy time. Iran is betting on political change inside Israel, on widening American-Israeli disagreements and on the Trump administration losing the midterm elections next November. At that point, Trump would become little more than a lame duck president. We will soon discover whether that Americain wager was well founded. The American president has fallen into Iran’s trap. One thing is certain: Donald Trump is no easy man, but his enduring problem lies in the absence of a team that truly understands what Iran is, whereas Iran knows perfectly well how to deal with America. The Iranians possess decades of experience in outmanoeuvring American administrations and bending them to their advantage while waiting for the right moment to deploy the blackmail tactics they have mastered to perfection. Nor does this concern America alone. The countries of the region, as well as those of Western Europe, have, at their core, adopted an exceedingly cautious stance towards this memorandum of understanding.

The world speaks of a Lebanese tragedy brought about by Hezbollah and, behind it, Iran, and of another Palestinian Nakba caused by Hamas. What remains absent from any account of this tragedy and this Nakba are two major events: the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in the summer of 2005. Both withdrawals were complete. The first was carried out in execution of UN Security Council Resolution 425, adopted in 1978, and that same Council had from the outset rejected the official Lebanese narrative regarding the Shebaa Farms, a narrative that Hezbollah and its spearhead, the "president of the resistance" Emile Lahoud, had rushed to deploy. That narrative was nothing but a brazen lie, designed to justify the retention of the "resistance" weapons, weapons that were never directed at anything other than the Lebanese interior, and whose sole purpose was to keep southern Lebanon as a mailbox between Israel on one side and the Islamic Republic on the other. All of this unfolded without anyone pausing to ask, even in passing, about the fate of the people of that land, who were, and remain, the greatest absent party in this internal and regional equation. To this day, there is no rational explanation for what has befallen southern Lebanon and its people. The events that followed the Israeli withdrawal confirmed that the preservation of arms took precedence over liberation from occupation. The proof was the determination to keep the southern front open. A Hezbollah unit, acting on direct instructions from Bashar al-Assad, whose ego Iran was intent on inflating, abducted several Israeli soldiers just a few months after the withdrawal. Lebanon faced a choice between letting the South continue to bleed and working toward rebuilding itself. For Iran, the Israeli withdrawal was an opportunity to demonstrate the depth of its grip on Lebanon. That grip only expanded and consolidated after 2005, when members of the Hezb assassinated Rafic Hariri, an act that triggered a Syrian military withdrawal and left the Lebanese arena open before the Revolutionary Guards. What did Lebanon build upon that Israeli withdrawal? It built, in practice, the catastrophe it suffers from today, one that has cast the entire country's future to the winds. Everyone speaks of the catastrophe, but very few point to the Lebanese failure itself, a failure that Iran systematically encouraged by obstructing any fruitful investment in the Israeli withdrawal. It would have been possible to turn that withdrawal into an opportunity for a better future, for the country, for its people, and for the South in particular, rather than allowing it to become the bridge over which occupation returned, an occupation whose eventual end, if it comes at all, remains unknown. And heavier than all of this is the scale of the ruin, the devastation, and what has rained down upon the villages of the South, along with the number of displaced persons within the Shia community, which now surpasses all imagination. As for the other date that deserves to be recalled constantly, it is that of the complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in August 2005. It is certain that Ariel Sharon's calculations, primarily concerned with ridding himself of the Gaza Strip while consolidating control over the West Bank, drove that withdrawal. But it is equally certain that the Palestinian side as a whole, both the Authority and Hamas, did everything within its power to turn the Israeli withdrawal into yet another Palestinian catastrophe. One can naturally hold the Palestinian Authority, in the person of Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, accountable, a man who possesses no leadership qualities of any kind. Abu Mazen chose to remain outside Gaza at the very moment the Israelis withdrew, rather than being on the ground, among the people of the territory. With time, Hamas's weapons prevailed over Gaza and its people. Rather than making the withdrawal of summer 2005 an opportunity to build a small-scale model of a viable, civilized Palestinian state, that withdrawal became an opportunity for Israel to claim that there was no Palestinian partner with whom to negotiate. What Gaza endures today did not emerge from a vacuum. It is the result of a deliberate, calculated course of action pursued by Hamas over more than two decades, focused on retaining its weapons in order to build an "Islamic emirate" along Taliban lines, and on undermining the Palestinian national project at its very foundations. Israel did not object to this orientation, nor did it object to the rockets Hamas launched from Gaza, nor take issue with them. Its overriding concern was to confirm that the Palestinians did not deserve a state and that negotiating with them was pointless, while deepening Palestinian internal divisions at the same time. In southern Lebanon first, and then in Gaza, the weapons served their function in Israel's interest, until the "Al-Aqsa Flood" came. On October 7, 2023, the spell was turned against the sorcerer. Israel discovered that it could no longer coexist with either Hezbollah's weapons or Hamas's arsenal. Both belong to the past, and more than that, they belong to a different world, one that was prepared to reach all manner of accommodations with Iran and its regime, which has practiced the art of extortion with unparalleled mastery since the very first day of its existence in 1979. The two Israeli withdrawals, from southern Lebanon and from Gaza, were two missed opportunities for the Lebanese and the Palestinians. The withdrawal from the South laid the foundations for a Lebanese catastrophe that could have been avoided, and the withdrawal from Gaza laid the groundwork for a new Palestinian Nakba, at a moment when the future of the entire region and the contours of its possible reshaping are being posed, in light of developments in Iran, with unprecedented sharpness. Opportunities pass before peoples. Some know how to seize them; others do not. What is truly reprehensible is the refusal to acknowledge that those opportunities existed, and to act as though they never were, when in fact they were more real and more tangible than was necessary.

Which Donald Trump are we to believe, the one who understands, in his bones, what Iran represents under the regime established in 1979, or the one who seems to have drifted toward the illusions of Barack Obama, who was convinced that Tehran held the keys to every regional crisis and that its nuclear file contained them all? Obama went so far as to persuade himself that radical Shia Islam, embodied by the Revolutionary Guards and their proxies across the region, was fundamentally different from radical Sunni Islam, as represented by Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and before as after them, the Muslim Brotherhood. He never grasped that religious fanaticism, in whatever form it takes, Christian, Islamic, Jewish, or Hindu, amounts to nothing more than different faces of the same coin. Trump's behavior over the past few days has given the impression of a man gripped by indecision. The American president appeared to be leaning, at least outwardly, toward a lopsided deal with a regime that is seeking to recapture the initiative in the region after discovering a new weapon: the Strait of Hormuz. All signs suggest that within the American administration, certain voices are pushing for an arrangement with the Iranian regime centered on reopening the strait, to be presented afterward as a personal victory for Donald Trump. The Iranian file is, admittedly, of extreme complexity, all the more so since Tehran has found this new card to play after having long relied on its nuclear program as the regime's first line of defense. What, then, will the American president do in the days and weeks ahead, as he continues to speak incessantly of “progress” in the negotiations with Iran, and even of the possibility of a meeting with “Supreme Leader” Mojtaba Khamenei, whose true state of health few people know, and whose actual capacity to govern the Islamic Republic remains, at a more fundamental level, an open question? The American president's talk of a possible “memorandum of understanding” with Iran is cause for serious concern at a time when the Islamic Republic has by no means abandoned its aggression toward neighboring states. The two most recent attacks against Kuwait and Bahrain have laid bare both Tehran's persistent belligerence and its inability to strike directly at the United States and Israel. None of this has been enough to prompt an American reassessment of the futility of any agreement with an Iran that deliberately targeted civilians at a Kuwaiti airport, so long as it has not renounced its expansionist project, a project it has still not accepted is now running into a dead end. Certainly, no Lebanese can do other than thank Trump for intervening to dissuade Benjamin Netanyahu from launching a new offensive on the southern suburbs of Beirut, with all the additional destruction that would have visited upon a Lebanese district adjoining the capital, without meaningfully affecting Hezbollah's military capabilities. But such an initiative on the part of the American president will carry little real weight as long as he has not adopted a clear position on the Iranian expansionist project as a whole. One cannot deal with the Islamic Republic piecemeal, in the manner of Barack Obama, who did everything in his power to placate the Iranian regime in the hope of reaching a nuclear agreement in July 2015, just months before the end of his presidency and the first arrival of Donald Trump at the White House. In the period leading up to the signing of that agreement between the Islamic Republic and the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany, the Obama administration spared no effort to shield Tehran from the slightest irritation. It was in this spirit that Obama refrained in the summer of 2013 from striking Syria to bring down the minority regime that had just turned chemical weapons against its own people. The former president forgot his promises and the “red line” he had himself drawn for Bashar al-Assad. Overnight, he stopped seeing the color red — every other color remained visible, but not that one. Donald Trump, from the moment he arrived at the White House in early 2017, had nonetheless demonstrated a deep understanding of what Iran represents as a regime. He tore up the nuclear agreement in 2018, calling it “the worst of its kind”. In early 2020, shortly before the end of his first term, he gave the green light for the elimination of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force within the Revolutionary Guards, then regarded as the most influential Iranian figure after the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. That assassination, which came shortly after Soleimani had left Baghdad airport, having arrived from Damascus following a meeting in Beirut with Hassan Nasrallah, bore witness to an intimate knowledge of Iran, the architecture of its regime, and the pivotal role that a figure like Soleimani played both inside the country and across the region. Everything the American president has accomplished since his return to the White House a year and a half ago attests to a thorough command of the Iranian file. This has included his participation in two wars against Iran alongside Israel. The first concluded in June of last year, following a campaign of strikes that hit Iranian nuclear installations. But has something changed in the American approach to the Islamic Republic and what it represents? Has Trump begun to engage with Iran on its own terms, under the influence of a Pakistani mediation that gives Tehran more time to maneuver? A few days will suffice — a few weeks at most — to determine whether Trump is now prepared to fall into the Iranian trap by severing the nuclear file from the ballistic missiles and their launch platforms, from Iran's instruments of power in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, and from the Islamic Republic's general conduct toward its neighbors, particularly the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council. What is certain is that whether Trump changes course and begins dealing with Iran piecemeal — or does not change at all — Lebanon will pay a heavy price on account of Hezbollah's arsenal. For the one constant in the Israeli-American relationship remains that stubborn insistence on separating the Lebanese file from the Iranian one.

The tragedy of Yemen derives, in part at least, from the rise to power of a figure such as Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi at a particular juncture in history, and from the errors committed by men of his kind both before and after unification. In the present moment, it has become possible to speak of a country shattered into fragments, searching for some formula by which to reconstitute itself, that is, if reconstitution remains possible at all for a state of considerable strategic significance, a portion of which Iran now holds under its sway. Abd Rabbuh Mansour, whom death claimed just a few days ago, was ultimately nothing more than the expression of a certain political type: the man who arrives from the military apparatus carrying a culture so meager as to disqualify him entirely from governing a country as singularly complex as Yemen. He came to the presidency after spending fourteen years as the shadow of Ali Abdallah Saleh, serving as vice-president, the same Saleh whom the Houthis would later murder, once he had ceased to be head of state. Abd Rabbuh succeeded Ali Abdallah Saleh, who was compelled to resign in February 2012, and remained president until April 2022. It was at that point that the powers with meaningful influence over Yemen acknowledged his incapacity to lead the country. A Presidential Leadership Council of eight members was convened, headed by Dr. Rashad al-Alimi, who appears manifestly capable of somewhat more effective governance, however marginally so. How, then, had the late president reached the presidency in 2012, and before that the vice-presidency in 1994? And more fundamentally, why did Abd Rabbuh Mansour himself become one of the constitutive elements of the Yemeni tragedy, through the accumulation of errors he committed, errors too numerous to catalogue in any comprehensive way? One must first note that Abd Rabbuh Mansour was a native of the southern province of Abyan. He was associated with the former southern Yemeni president Ali Nasser Mohammed, himself from Abyan, who was driven from power by his adversaries in what came to be known as the "January events" of 1986. Abd Rabbuh, who had served as deputy chief of staff in the South, took refuge in Sanaa following Ali Nasser's fall. In the summer of 1994, he joined the southern faction surrounding Ali Abdallah Saleh, in the aftermath of the rupture between Saleh and Ali Salem al-Beidh, the socialist party leader who sought to reverse unification. A bitter war ensued, ending in the defeat of the socialist party. This trajectory allowed Abd Rabbuh to ascend to the vice-presidency, having gone to considerable lengths in his support for Ali Abdallah Saleh in his war against the separatists. I once asked Ali Abdallah Saleh how he could possibly choose someone like Abd Rabbuh Mansour as his deputy, given that the man possessed no qualifications of any kind whatsoever. He answered me word for word: "I want someone who won't cause problems", drawing on his experience with Ali Salem al-Beidh, vice-president of the presidential council after unification, whom he described as a "complicated" personality who had wanted to be a genuine "partner" in power. Abd Rabbuh Mansour remained a peripheral figure throughout his tenure as vice-president. He was obliged to endure Ali Abdallah Saleh, who had gradually transformed himself into a temperamental head of state, prone to fits of anger directed at his own aides for no discernible reason. When Ali Abdallah Saleh was forced to resign in early 2012, Abd Rabbuh Mansour revealed an altogether different character. He left no means of vengeance against his predecessor untried: he made a conspicuous point of refusing to return his calls, while methodically working to dismantle the military institution. His overriding aim was the elimination of any influence that the former president and his son, Brigadier General Ahmad, might retain within the armed forces. The outcome was the destruction of any remaining hope of rebuilding a functional Yemeni army. Whether fully conscious of it or not, Abd Rabbuh effectively placed himself in the service of the Houthis when he refused to confront them in the province of Amran during their march on Sanaa in the summer of 2014. Ali Abdallah Saleh had urged him to stop the Houthis at Amran, arguing that the fall of the province inevitably meant the fall of the capital. He dispatched four emissaries to him, among them Yahya al-Raï and Aref al-Zouka, carrying an unequivocal message to this effect. Abd Rabbuh nonetheless rejected the advice, declaring that he "refused to settle Ali Abdallah Saleh's scores with the Houthis." What actually happened was that he provided cover for the Houthis' advance and their seizure of the Yemeni capital on 14 September 2014. In everything he did, Abd Rabbuh Mansour never possessed the minimum of political culture that governing any country requires. He went as far as signing the "Peace and Partnership Agreement" with the Houthis shortly after they laid their hands on Sanaa, an agreement attended by a United Nations representative, which conferred upon the Houthis a legitimacy they badly needed. This did not prevent them from placing him under house arrest. Abd Rabbuh managed to escape that house arrest in Sanaa only through a mediation in which the Sultanate of Oman played a decisive role, persuading the Houthis to look away while he slipped out to Aden. Abd Rabbuh Mansour was, in the final reckoning, one component of the Yemeni tragedy. A man with no relationship to politics whatsoever found himself presiding over a country in the grip of an existential crisis, a crisis largely provoked by the Muslim Brotherhood, who sought to uproot Ali Abdallah Saleh in order to take his place. Saleh was no angel, and his errors were many, but the Brothers who turned against him failed to grasp that they were playing the Houthis' game, never pausing for a moment to consider what Yemen might become after Saleh was gone. Yemen had the misfortune of having, at a critical period in its history, a president of Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi's particular stamp. This country deserved someone of finer quality: someone who knew at least something of Yemen itself, of its surrounding environment, and who understood that vengeance cannot serve as a policy, however many personal humiliations one may have been made to endure.

The address that King Abdullah II delivered to Jordanians on the eightieth anniversary of independence was nothing less than an expression of confidence in the future and in the capacity to confront the challenges of a region that, to put it mildly, is adrift in turbulent winds. More important than anything else, the Jordanian sovereign sketched the image of the future to which Jordan aspires as a modern state — one that possesses few natural resources but has succeeded in developing its own distinctive wealth: the wealth of the human being. Abdullah II’s address was brief, yet it contained enough courage to affirm that Jordan genuinely practices tolerance on the ground, in a region saturated with contradictions and extremists from every direction. It is no ordinary thing for the Jordanian monarch to speak of his country’s nature while addressing both the “sons” and “daughters” of Jordan, declaring: “Jordan has never been a margin in the narrative of humanity, but a homeland of nations and a land of harmony. On the bank of its river, Christ was baptized; within its bounds, the Companions and the Followers lived. Civilizations flourished on its soil and offered the world lessons in resilience and steadfastness, teaching us to persevere and to turn hardship into opportunity. The present bears the best witness to this. For despite all circumstances, Jordan has preserved its borders and its security, continued its democratic path, and shielded its economy from the effects of crises.” Among the most significant passages of the address is Abdullah II’s statement: “Today, we celebrate not only what we have achieved, but what we possess in terms of destiny and capacity. Pride is not our purpose; what we seek is the consolidation of our confidence in this homeland.” Jordan knows itself, knows its direction, and knows its choices. This means the Kingdom fully understands the nature of events unfolding in the region and knows how to engage with them, drawing on long experience in this domain. If the events of the past eighty years have proven anything, it is that Jordan is one of the region’s constants. Syria changed, Iraq changed — and Jordan remained what it is: a Hashemite kingdom that requires lessons in patriotism from no one, including those Palestinian organizations that once believed “the road to Jerusalem passes through Amman.” Jordan has always navigated Iraqi and Syrian changes and upheavals with simultaneous flexibility and firmness. It did so even as it was targeted on many occasions — particularly during the period of Egyptian-Syrian union between 1958 and 1961, and during Hafez al-Assad’s rise to power after 1970. At that time, King Hussein knew how to contain Assad the father, who sought to bring Jordan under his wing as he had done with Lebanon, and to forge a front under his command stretching from Aqaba to Naqoura in southern Lebanon. As for the Gulf states, Jordan’s relationship with them has evolved considerably. Since the birth of the “Islamic Republic” regime in 1979, and since that regime waged war against Iraq between 1980 and 1988, Jordan — which took a clear position against it from the outset — has become an integral part of Gulf security. One must pause at the reference to the phrase “on the bank of its river, Christ was baptized.” This expression affirms the historical and civilizational significance of Jordan, and the extent to which the Hashemite throne has internalized this significance and this historical depth of a country that came into being through the interaction between its native inhabitants — the East Jordanians — and the Hashemites. This dates to the early nineteen-twenties, when the entity was the Emirate of Transjordan, which in time became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1946. Throughout its entire history, Jordan has preserved certain values grounded in the recognition of all its constituent communities — no distinction between one citizen and another on grounds of religion or nationality. This explains the full integration between Jordan’s tribes, including Christian tribes, and the Hashemite throne, as well as between the throne and the Circassians, Druze, Chechens, and those of Levantine origin. This interaction among all these communities has added immunity, strength, and stability to Jordan. It has reinforced Jordan’s positive role in the Palestinian cause and shored up Palestinian steadfastness in the West Bank, making the Kingdom a lifeline enabling Palestinians to reach the world and return to Palestine via the King Hussein Bridge. Abdullah II has often stated that the issue is not one of tolerance so much as one of recognition of the other. It is therefore no coincidence that Jordan holds the custodianship over the Christian and Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem. A historic bond exists between the Hashemites and the holy sites of Jerusalem, in particular al-Aqsa Mosque. Ultimately, the relationship between Jordan and the Palestinians cannot be ignored. This relationship has transformed over time, shaped by successive experiences, into something more than positive. In 1970, Jordan saved the Palestinians from themselves, thanks to its institutions — above all its army — and to the deep cohesion between the royal institution and the tribes. Jordan went further still by closing the door on the Israeli right, which at a certain point dreamed of the country as an “alternative homeland.” Today, the Palestinians have become a positive factor in domestic affairs and in the service of stability. They are no longer merely an economic force of considerable weight within the Kingdom. The importance of Jordan has been revealed to them, particularly after they discovered the value of Jordanian stability and the meaning of living in a state with solid institutions, one that rejects all forms of extremism and turns away from hollow slogans that carry no weight in practice. Everything Jordan has done — including the decision to disengage from the West Bank in 1988 and the conclusion of the Wadi Araba agreement with Israel in 1994 — represents an affirmation of the drive toward the eventual establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Abdullah II’s address to the Jordanians was a message from the heart. It was an expression of the capacity to exercise self-confidence and to continue building a strong state — one firmly attached to its history and its roots, knowing first and foremost what it wants.

Lebanon is witnessing today a farce that has turned, in reality, into a tragedy. At the heart of this farce lies the insistence of a Lebanese faction organically linked to the "Islamic Republic" of Iran on presenting negotiation with Israel as "humiliation," while the real humiliation consists in doing everything possible to entrench Israeli occupation and serve it. All that the legitimate authority in Lebanon — represented by President of the Republic Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam — has sought to convey is that the "humiliation" of negotiations is in fact an act of honour and patriotism, whereas the "humiliation" of occupation is nothing more than a service rendered to Israel and to its enterprise of occupation. Whoever denounces the "humiliation" of direct negotiation with Israel, as Hezbollah does, evades any question related to reality and to what a country is going through whose fate has been cast to the winds. Lebanon has indeed been cast to the winds since a time bomb installed itself within it: more than one million two hundred thousand displaced persons from the South, scattered across different regions of the country, of which Beirut constitutes the primary concentration. Outside of negotiations, there is no path to defusing this time bomb, whose only antidote is the return of the displaced to their villages and towns, one way or another. This return to localities that are largely devastated remains the sole means of saving Lebanon from the fate of a failed state. No other way exists than direct negotiation to achieve this objective, rather than boasting of "resistance" and its weapons, which are precisely what brought occupation back. It is important to distinguish between real humiliation, on the one hand, and the attempt to erase the "humiliation" of which Hezbollah speaks, on the other. For humiliation lies in serving the Israeli occupation, not in working to be rid of it. One must recall, every day if necessary, that the Israeli occupation of the border strip in southern Lebanon ended at this very time of year, in 2000. Israel had then decided to withdraw in implementation of Resolution 425, judging that such a withdrawal, confirmed by the Security Council, was not at odds with its interests. Since that Israeli withdrawal to the Blue Line, the former Syrian regime, backed by Iran, sought to keep southern Lebanon as a convenient mailbox for the exchange of messages with Israel. The Hebrew state saw no obstacle in this, particularly since its permanent objective was to focus its efforts on the West Bank. Proof of this was Yasser Arafat's failure to replicate in that territory the experience of the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. Abu Ammar paid dearly, at the time, for the "militarisation" of the Intifada. The historic leader of the Palestinian people did not understand that Israel was prepared to sacrifice hundreds of its soldiers in order to retain parts of the West Bank, while it had been willing to withdraw from southern Lebanon in exchange for security guarantees. Those guarantees were indeed secured, before Iran promptly violated them, intent on affirming that the Hezbollah card remained in play and that the return of the Lebanese army to southern Lebanon was not on the agenda. Up until the war of "support for Gaza" that Hezbollah launched at Iran's request on 8 October 2023, there was no Israeli occupation. In the wake of that war, the occupation was limited to five points. It was the war of "support for Iran," begun in March of this year, that provided the pretext for an extension of the Israeli occupation, for further destruction and for new displacements. Hezbollah defends its position by arguing that Israel would have attacked it regardless, independently of the firing of six rockets that followed by a few days the assassination of "Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei in Tehran on 28 February 2026. These claims might carry some weight were they not a reflection of a profound ignorance of politics and the balance of forces at play, on the one hand, and were Hezbollah not harbouring the desire to retain its weapons as an instrument of intimidation over the Lebanese, on the other. Confessional and militia weapons have never been anything other than a scourge for Lebanon and the Lebanese, and for Lebanon's Shia in particular, given that they have never been capable of playing any role whatsoever in the protection of the country. Their sole function has been to serve the occupation. When the Hebrew state, in the year 2000, judged that it was in its interest to withdraw from southern Lebanon, it did so — Germany having served as intermediary at the time. Hezbollah failed to grasp that Israel had changed in the wake of the "Al-Aqsa Flood," the attack launched by Hamas from Gaza, nor did it understand that its weapons, now in the service of occupation, could no longer be countenanced. Weapons remain the origin of the problem and the source of every affliction in Lebanon. The simple fact is that Israel no longer needs them today, whereas it was formerly indifferent to the question of who controlled southern Lebanon — just as it was indifferent to who controlled Gaza, willing to allow Qatari funds to flow to Hamas as long as that movement was contributing to the entrenchment of Palestinian division. A single formula now sums up the Lebanese situation. The weapons held by Hezbollah are the very expression of humiliation, in that they play the role assigned to them in legitimising Israel's extension of the occupation and the ongoing displacement of populations. These populations are the Shia citizens of the South, turned into that time bomb which threatens every attempt at Lebanon's recovery. Weapons have failed to confront Israel, but they have succeeded in undermining Lebanon from within. Such has always been the function of Hezbollah's weapons since their inception — weapons to which falls the responsibility for all the wars Lebanon could have done without: beginning with the war of the summer of 2006 and up to the war of "support for Iran" and the catastrophe it left in its wake, at every level… a catastrophe that has now become a threat to Lebanon's very existence.

It is no coincidence that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which celebrates on this twenty-fifth of May the eightieth anniversary of its independence, has become one of the cornerstones of Arab security, or of what remains of it. All the theories that had underestimated Jordan have ended up in the dustbin of history, for it has become clear that this country has never lost its regional role. Jordan has held firm despite all the internal tremors and storms it has weathered, and despite the profound upheavals the region has undergone. In 1921, the very year in which the Emirate of Transjordan was proclaimed, a conference was convened in Cairo bringing together the foremost figures of British policy under the chairmanship of Winston Churchill. Lawrence of Arabia was among those present, as were most of the British experts on Arab and Iraqi affairs and regional matters generally, Palestine above all. Foremost among these was Lady Gertrude Bell, then regarded as the most influential British figure in Iraq and the one who wielded the greatest sway over that country. It was Bell who drew the current map of Iraq and played a decisive role in bringing the Hashemites to Baghdad and crowning Faysal ibn Hussein as king. With the passage of years, it became apparent that the Cairo Conference, which had aimed to divide the region into spheres of influence between Britain and France, had proven, in terms of its results, a resounding failure on every level. Among the most striking manifestations of this failure were the bloody military coup that toppled the Iraqi monarchy in 1958 and, before that, the Suez War of 1956, which consecrated the decline of imperial Britain, the empire on which “the sun never set”… One of the notable features of the Cairo Conference was the underestimation of Prince Abdallah ibn Hussein, who was placed at the head of the Emirate of Transjordan and later became king in 1946, upon the proclamation of the independence of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Considering what befell Palestine and Iraq, Jordan may well be regarded as the sole true success story of the Cairo Conference, and that success story has held to this day, all the more so since the solidity of Jordanian institutions has proven itself beyond doubt, notably since 1952, when Hussein ibn Talal ascended the throne at the age of barely seventeen. The Cairo Conference of 1921, which best illustrates the failure of British policy in the region, is not the only event worth pausing over. The modern history of Jordan abounds in developments that merit attention, among them the decisive role played by Queen Zein el-Sharaf, mother of King Hussein, in imposing her son as sovereign despite his young age. King Hussein ibn Talal proved to be a singular phenomenon in the country’s history, succeeding a father afflicted with a mental illness that rendered him unfit to remain on the throne. Under Hussein ibn Talal’s reign, Jordan acquired, thanks to its institutions, a determining role at every level, despite all the upheavals and conspiracies that targeted it, from the rise of the Nasserist wave (after Gamal Abdel Nasser), which gave rise to a series of catastrophes including the military coup against the Iraqi monarchy in 1958, the Egyptian-Syrian union of February of that same year, and the Arab defeat of 1967, whose consequences continue to weigh on the region to this day. Jordan confronted all these events and storms with remarkable composure, beginning with its resistance to the alternative homeland project in 1970, when the Jordanian army faced the attempts of various Palestinian organizations to seize the kingdom, thereby protecting the Palestinians from themselves. This resistance was made possible by the cohesion between East Jordanians and the throne, a cohesion that has evolved in our time into a solidarity encompassing all the components of Jordanian society. The Palestinians, instructed by their own experiences, have become the most steadfast supporters of the Hashemite throne and King Abdallah II, who has never ceased, over many long years, to champion the two-state option, the only realistic choice for a settlement between Palestinians and Israelis, in the long run, that is, when the Israeli right abandons its illusions and when a Palestinian leadership worthy of the name rises to the level of events. In 2026, no one any longer underestimates Jordan, especially in light of the spirit of continuity that defines a kingdom which has known how to preserve itself at all times, in the face of Iraqi, Syrian, and Israeli turbulences. Jordan preserved itself by signing the Wadi Araba Accords with Israel in 1994, a step intimately linked to seizing the opportunity that had been opened by Yasser Arafat’s engagement with the Oslo Accords in the autumn of 1993. Continuity, illustrated notably by the caution Jordan has always exercised in its dealings with the “Islamic Republic” of Iran since its foundation, stands among this country’s most distinctive traits, a continuity that was confirmed by the serene transfer of power to King Abdallah II upon the death of Hussein ibn Talal in 1999. Whoever wagered on the fragility of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan wagered on a mirage, especially since Abdallah II has demonstrated his ability to play a leading role in Jordan and beyond its borders, including in the United States. The kingdom is today a state that plays a vital role in regional stability, despite all the conspiracies that have sought to undermine that role, and Jordan has become a haven for Syrian refugees and those from other countries, having long before that opened its arms to Palestinian refugees from every corner! Events attest daily to the manner in which Abdallah II has established himself as an indispensable actor in the region, while broadening domestic consensus around the monarchical institution. It has become clear that all talk of a decline in Jordan’s regional role verges on the absurd. The more time passes, the more apparent becomes the necessity of the Jordanian role in the face of all forms of extremism, whether that of the Muslim Brotherhood or that of the Iranian regime and its various instruments. More important than all of this, events demonstrate daily just how inseparable Gulf security is from the security of Jordan, and the security of Jordan, from that of the Gulf…

In a world where only self-interest holds sway, what can a country like Lebanon do when an internal faction works directly in the service of Iran and wages war against the Lebanese State and its institutions? Lebanon can do nothing so long as there is no national consensus on how to conduct the direct negotiations with Israel in Washington. More importantly, it can do nothing without acknowledging that a price is owed if it wishes to free itself from the Israeli occupation that Hezbollah, and behind it the Islamic Republic of Iran, has brought about. What we have here is nothing more than Lebanese impotence, born of the inability to affirm that Lebanon is a free and independent state, master of its own decisions on war and peace within its own territory. It is in 2026, once again, that Lebanon must establish that its State is the genuine State, that it is not the state of Hezbollah, which is itself nothing more than a brigade of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, nothing else. It is striking to observe, in the run-up to the Washington negotiations, that Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri did not meet Simon Karam, head of the Lebanese delegation tasked with negotiating with Israel. Beyond that, no meeting took place at the Baabda Palace between President of the Republic Joseph Aoun, the Parliament Speaker, and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam before Simon Karam headed to Washington. Such a meeting was nonetheless imperative, in the presence of the Lebanese negotiator, in order to attest that the Lebanese State stands behind him and to enable him to say that he represents that State in all its components — Christians, Sunnis, Druze and Shia alike. In concrete terms, this means that Lebanon came to the table without being able to guarantee full and undivided support for its delegation, which nevertheless negotiated with the Israelis in Washington under American sponsorship. Lebanon nonetheless chose, with a certain courage, to negotiate with Israel, even as the Jewish state continues its war against this small country whose fate remains in the hands of the Islamic Republic governed by the Revolutionary Guards. The Lebanese delegation negotiating with the Israelis had one single question to answer: is Lebanon prepared to pay the price of its defeat, yes or no? To answer that question, it first had to acknowledge the defeat itself. Nothing speaks more eloquently to the scale of that defeat than Israel's control over 68 villages and towns in the South, which it is methodically destroying, compounded by the displacement of one million two hundred thousand Shia citizens from southern Lebanon. This question lies at the very heart of what Lebanon is enduring, for the country cannot go on bearing the weight of a time bomb: on one side this enormous number of occupied and destroyed villages, on the other this mass of displaced persons. In terms of figures, in terms of the number of villages and towns under Israeli control, Bint Jbeil included, with its particular symbolic weight, Lebanon has no choice but to absorb the reality born of losing two wars against Israel. The paradox is that, in essence, Lebanon had no original connection to either of those wars. Both, the "Gaza support war" of 2023 and the "Iran support war" that followed the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on 28 February 2026, were part of the Iranian expansionist project, which has never seen in Lebanon anything more than a bargaining chip to be brandished by Tehran. Is Lebanon prepared to pay the price of two wars that were imposed upon it by force and from which it emerged utterly crushed? This question cannot be evaded; it imposes itself if Lebanon intends to avoid further destruction and displacement, and if it genuinely refuses the return of Israeli occupation. For what Lebanon must finally admit is that Israel is not a charitable organisation. Lebanon needed a national consensus to answer that question. This means, simply, that Simon Karam could not leave for Washington in search of an end to the renewed Israeli occupation without such a consensus, one that would naturally include Nabih Berri, who seems to have preferred, rather than direct negotiations, to provide Hezbollah with the cover it demands of him, Hezbollah, which is itself under the total domination of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Israel will continue its aggressions against Lebanon for as long as Hezbollah's weapons remain, and Lebanon will have to keep seeking ways to rid itself of them, until the day it asks itself a question of absolute simplicity: what is the price of the Israeli withdrawal and the guarantee of the return of inhabitants to their villages and towns in the South, or what remains of them? Once that price is known, a united front will be needed, rather than leaving the entire burden of negotiations to rest solely on the shoulders of the President of the Republic and the government represented by Nawaf Salam. Ultimately, what does Lebanon want? Does it want to recover its territory, on the grounds that the restoration of its territorial sovereignty constitutes for it the priority of priorities… or does it prefer to remain an Iranian "terrain," that is to say, a hostage of the Revolutionary Guards?