Lebanon is on the cusp of a showdown nearly four decades in the making. Last week, and under pressure from Washington, the Lebanon’s cabinet mandated the country’s troops to establish a monopoly on weapons in the country. The order clearly had one target in mind: Hezbollah, the militia-turned-army that’s dominated life here since the Eighties, and which still boasts some 50,000 armed fighters. Stunningly, the country’s president has even resisted efforts by Hezbollah’s backer Iran to inject itself into the fight, saying it was “forbidden” for outside forces to “to bear arms and to use foreign backing as leverage.” How things change. For if the army’s manoeuvring is partly the result of American prodding, it equally speaks to a year-long revolution in Lebanese politics.
Long the dominant force in parliament, successive national governments, and on the streets, Hezbollah is now adrift, its organisation shattered, its surviving leaders fearful of the next Israeli airstrike. Lebanon’s civilian leaders, for their part, are keen to seize the moment, defanging the militants while finally building a truly viable Lebanese state. But if Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and President Joseph Aoun are ready to make their move after years of political deadlock, the schedule is hardly in Lebanon’s best interest — while any miscalculation could soon bring chaos.
As I wrote last month, Hezbollah understands that it’s no longer the formidable, hegemonic force it once was. In this new Lebanon, its options are few and far between. To that end, the group has itself considered shrinking its once-renowned arsenal in exchange for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the border regions they continue to occupy in southern Lebanon. But in a sign of just how earth-shattering the latest cabinet resolution was, Hezbollah and its allies abandoned the meeting in question, stating it would “deal with it as if it does not exist.”
As things stand, a renewed civil war in Lebanon remains unlikely, at least for the time being. Despite its recent battering, Hezbollah is still part of the Lebanese government and retains a great deal of bargaining power within the state. It is therefore more likely that, for the moment, the current dispute will remain confined to behind-the-scenes dealings. But if the US continues to push the Lebanese cabinet to go on the offensive — without respecting the delicate political dynamics at play in the country — that may well change.
Of course, it is now quite obvious that the Trump administration’s agenda in Lebanon is about much more than just Hezbollah’s weapons: it’s about a fundamental realignment that includes Iran, Syria, Gaza, and more, and which will serve to put the finishing touches on the new Middle East envisioned by Benjamin Netanyahu. Tom Barrack, the US envoy who had been facilitating the Trump administration’s contacts with Beirut over the last few months, made this abundantly clear in comments in mid-July. “If Lebanon doesn’t hurry up and get in line,” he warned, “everyone around them will.”
In a sense, of course, that’s already happening — the region’s epochal transformation holds great promise for people from Damascus to Tehran. But as the recent massacres in Syria vividly prove, this transition can only succeed with forethought and care, and that any mistake can quickly spiral. Consider, for instance, that Hezbollah supporters lately took to the streets across Lebanon, both a show of force and warning of what would happen if the army took action. Even more worryingly, meanwhile, groups of protestors have gathered in front of a church in Beirut’s southern suburbs. That openly sectarian tinge is not necessarily new, but it still raises eyebrows, as does the fact that the Lebanese Armed Forces were deployed to confront pro-Hezbollah demonstrators in the Beqaa Valley town of Brital.
In the event, the Brital confrontation fizzled out. Tires were burned and car horns honked, but the protesters had dispersed by the following day. For its part, a senior Hezbollah official said the group would use only peaceful methods to deal with the cabinet decision, claiming it would “not be dragged into internal strife with the army or any Lebanese side.”
That all makes sense. Hezbollah’s position today is a world away from when it last engaged in armed clashes — violence sparked by the port blast investigation — let alone when it sparked a 2008 mini-civil war after the government tried to curb its communications network. Today, Hezbollah is a shadow of the behemoth it once was. Since the start of last year’s war with Israel, it has lost five of its most important leaders, notably its iconic Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. More than that, it has suffered over 10,000 total casualties and has seen perhaps half its arsenal destroyed. As a result, working within the state is the only realistic option Hezbollah has left. Even so, that doesn’t mean it would unilaterally lay down its arms without a fight, or at least without first securing some sort of politically advantageous deal.
“Hezbollah’s position today is a world away from when it last engaged in armed clashes”
The problem with the government’s gung-ho approach is that the Trump administration isn’t interested in the kind of dealmaking this situation requires. If the last six months have taught the world anything about the President’s approach to international diplomacy, it’s that he cares first and foremost about optics, securing wins for America, and making sure he is viewed as a kingmaker by allies and foes alike. And though Trump has recently had his fair share of spats with Netanyahu, his administration has been nonchalant about Israel’s latest plan to (temporarily) take control of the entire Gaza Strip, making it clear that it wants the entire Middle East to establish formal diplomatic relations with Israel.
In this context, then, American policy toward Lebanon is not about the well-being of the Lebanese people or their political system — just as in need of reform as Hezbollah — but about stamping the new Middle East with Trump’s personal trademark. The same can be seen in neighbouring Syria, where less than a year after Islamist rebels overthrew the Assad dictatorship, the White House has mostly been concerned with the country’s relationship with Israel, even as Syria itself continues to face political and sectarian upheaval.
Despite removing sanctions on Damascus, the White House has placed 41% tariffs on Syria, the highest in the world, for no apparent reason — other than to blackmail the new government into making peace with the Jewish State. That’s despite the fact that Israel has occupied portions of southern Syria since the fall of the Assad regime, something also true of southern Lebanon, and that it has become deeply embroiled in the Syrian government’s conflict with the Druze minority, among other things striking government targets around Damascus. While Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has signalled his willingness to join the Abraham Accords in exchange for carrots from the West, Trump’s unsubtle arm-twisting ignores the other, much more existential battles Syria is currently facing, including the role of non-Sunni Arab minorities.
Like in Lebanon, therefore, the US could well have a constructive role to play in Syria, but as long as it remains focused solely on advancing its own, and Israel’s, narrow objectives in both cases, it might as well kiss that role goodbye. These days, and as the recent church protest implies, sectarian tensions lurk down every street in Lebanon. Though the Lebanese themselves often downplay such divisions in everyday life, the threat of communitarian strife remains a tool of politics, especially in moments of instability. Certainly, Hezbollah has previously invoked the possibility of sectarian warfare as a cudgel to protect its powerbase during protests. Now, facing another existential crisis, it’s happy to play the sectarian card once more, knowing that its war-ravaged Shi’a support base, feeling disenfranchised and marginalised, may well be desperate enough to erupt into populist anger — especially if it fears being locked out of the political process altogether.
In other words, then, pushing too hard on Hezbollah without a requisite plan to support its base may yet again turn the country’s religious communities against each other. In Syria, for its part, the post-war sectarian balance remains incredibly delicate, and could yet be derailed altogether.
There is no question that Hezbollah’s weapons are a detriment to Lebanon’s stability and the health of its civil state. But contrary to conventional wisdom, the US is both speaking loudly and carrying a big stick, leaving no room for the Beirut government to find a genuine path toward disarmament. If Trump really was serious about helping the embattled Lebanese state, he might allow them to disarm Hezbollah in a way that is suitable to Lebanon’s incredibly sensitive political realities.
This could take a variety of forms, including a gradual, step-by-step reduction of Hezbollah’s arsenal that would be coupled with reciprocal withdrawals by Israel. Or else, the group might agree to de facto disarmament without giving up all its weapons, allowing it to maintain its mantle of defiance in a more ceremonial fashion. Details aside, though, the central facet of any workable solution must be giving the Lebanese government, as beleaguered as it is, the chance to define the conversation.
As it is, the great powers are once again using Lebanon as a pawn in their regional chess games, believing they’re better placed to handle the country’s problems than its own people. That’s frustrating, not least given the US is actually quite close to getting things right. All it needs to do is step back and let the Lebanese work out the details. Sadly for the Middle East, however, patience is not a word that often appears in Donald Trump’s vocabulary.
