عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Features

Lebanon Reels After Efforts to Form Government Collapse

"My country did this", reads graffiti daubed on walls near the site of a colossal August 4 blast in Beirut that killed 190 people and ravaged large parts of the Lebanese capital | AFP
"My country did this", reads graffiti daubed on walls near the site of a colossal August 4 blast in Beirut that killed 190 people and ravaged large parts of the Lebanese capital | AFP
TT
20
TT

Lebanon Reels After Efforts to Form Government Collapse

"My country did this", reads graffiti daubed on walls near the site of a colossal August 4 blast in Beirut that killed 190 people and ravaged large parts of the Lebanese capital | AFP
"My country did this", reads graffiti daubed on walls near the site of a colossal August 4 blast in Beirut that killed 190 people and ravaged large parts of the Lebanese capital | AFP

Lebanon was left reeling Sunday without the slightest prospect of ending multiple crises, after its premier-designate stepped down following the failure of talks to form a government, despite international pressure.

Mustapha Adib's resignation on Saturday ended efforts to hammer out a reformist government in the wake of a colossal August 4 explosion in Beirut that killed 190 people, injured thousands, and ravaged large parts of the capital.

Political parties had pledged in early September, during a visit to Lebanon by French President Emmanuel Macron, to form within two weeks a cabinet of independent ministers tasked with ending the country's economic malaise.

"As the efforts to form a government reached their final phase, it became apparent to me that this consensus... was no longer there," Adib said on Saturday.

Under the Lebanese constitution, the president must now hold further talks to nominate another prime minister to form a government, but it is a process that risks dragging out and even failing.

"I don't expect a government anytime soon," said Sami Atallah, who heads the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies.

"There was a chance, there was a lot of pressure to form a government and it didn't happen," he said, adding there was a "bigger problem" of geopolitical tensions, especially between the United States and Iran.

Adib's efforts were hampered by the claims of two Shiite formations, the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, and its ally Amal, led by parliament speaker Nabih Berri, who demanded the finance portfolio.

According to observers, the Shiite allies dug in their heels after recent US sanctions imposed on a minister of the Amal party and two companies affiliated with Hezbollah.

- 'Into the unknown' -

Adib's decision to step aside 26 days after his appointment has left the people of Lebanon feeling as though they are back to square one.

Earlier this week, Lebanese President Michel Aoun warned the country was headed to "hell" unless all political parties stepped up and facilitated the formation of a government.

Even before the devastating Beirut port blast, the country was already mired in its worst economic crisis in decades and mass protests that toppled and replaced the government.

Following the August 4 blast, the country's worst peacetime disaster, the government stepped down and Adib was appointed to form a new one.

Many are worried the country is headed from bad to worse.

The UN envoy to Lebanon, Jan Kubis, on Saturday reacted with disbelief: "Such a degree of irresponsibility, when the fate of Lebanon and its people is at stake!"

"Politicians, have you really scuppered this unique chance created by France?"

Analyst Karim Bitar said Lebanon was expected to have a rough patch ahead.

"Even if Lebanon is not hell-bound, we will probably witness... the weakening of public institutions, a worsening of the economic crisis... and a wave of emigration," he said.

Most Viewed

 
Features

War-weary Syrians and Lebanese Watch from the Sidelines as Missiles Fly in Israel-Iran Conflict 

A Syrian man takes pictures with his mobile phone of Iranian missiles on their way toward Israel, as they pass over Damascus airspace, Syria, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP)
A Syrian man takes pictures with his mobile phone of Iranian missiles on their way toward Israel, as they pass over Damascus airspace, Syria, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP)
TT
20
TT

War-weary Syrians and Lebanese Watch from the Sidelines as Missiles Fly in Israel-Iran Conflict 

A Syrian man takes pictures with his mobile phone of Iranian missiles on their way toward Israel, as they pass over Damascus airspace, Syria, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP)
A Syrian man takes pictures with his mobile phone of Iranian missiles on their way toward Israel, as they pass over Damascus airspace, Syria, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP)

In a park overlooking Damascus, 25-year-old Khaldoun Hallak has spent the past few evenings with his friends, drinking yerba mate, snacking on nuts, smoking hookah pipes and watching the sky for missiles streaking overhead.

“We’ve been through 14 years of war, and this is the first time Syria has nothing to do with it and we’re just spectators,” Hallak said.

Since Israel launched a barrage of strikes on Iran last week and Iran retaliated with missile and drone attacks against Israel, neighboring countries have been in the flight path.

Outside the scope

Downed missiles and drones have fallen in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, damaging houses, causing fires and reportedly killing one woman in Syria. But those countries have so far not been dragged directly into the conflict, which had killed at least 224 people in Iran and 24 in Israel as of Tuesday, and many in their war-weary populations are hoping it stays that way.

In Lebanon, which is still reeling from last year’s war between Israel and the Hezbollah party, videos making the rounds on social media have shown revelers dancing on rooftops while projectiles flash across the sky in the background.

Firas Maksad, managing director for the Middle East and North Africa at the Eurasia Group, a New York-based risk consultancy organization, happened to be visiting Lebanon when the conflict broke out and was attending a wedding when a parade of missiles began lighting up the sky as the DJ played ABBA’s disco hit “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)”. He posted a video of the scene that went viral.

“Certainly most in Lebanon and also Syria are very satisfied to be outside the scope of this,” Maksad said.

No longer in the spotlight, a sense of relief

For some in the region, there is also measure of schadenfreude in watching the two sides exchange blows.

There’s a Syrian expression that literally translates as, “The fang of a dog in the hide of a pig.” It means that two people perceived as despicable are fighting with each other. The phrase has surfaced frequently on social media as Syrians express their feelings about the Israel-Iran conflict.

Watching from a park

Many Syrians resented Iran’s heavy-handed intervention in support of former President Bashar al-Assad during the country’s civil war, but are also angered by Israel’s incursions and airstrikes in Syria since Assad’s fall. The Syrian population also widely sympathizes with the Palestinians, particularly with civilians killed and displaced by the ongoing war in Gaza.

“May God set the oppressors against each other,” said Ahmad al-Hussein, 18, in Damascus, who was sitting in a park with friends waiting to see missiles pass overhead Monday night. “I hope it continues. We’ve been harmed by both of them.”

Hallak echoed the sentiment.

“Every time we see a missile going up, we say, may God pour gasoline on this conflict,” he said. “If one side is hit, we will be happy, and if the other side is hit, we will also be happy. We will only be upset if there is a reconciliation between them.”

In Lebanon, where last year’s Israel-Hezbollah war killed more than 4,000 people, including hundreds of civilians, and left destruction in wide swathes of the country’s south and east and in Beirut’s southern suburbs, some see retribution in the footage of destroyed buildings in Tel Aviv.

Hezbollah remains largely quiet

A US-brokered ceasefire deal brought an end to the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in November. The group, which lost much of its senior leadership and arsenal in the conflict, has remained largely quiet since then and has given no indication that it intends to join the fray between Israel and Iran.

Israeli forces have continued to occupy several border points in southern Lebanon and to carry out regular airstrikes on what Israel says are Hezbollah facilities since the ceasefire.

“Of course I am against the Israeli occupation, and Iran is an Islamic country standing up to it,” said Hussein al-Walid, 34, a welder in the southern coastal city of Sidon.

Iran's axis

Despite the dramatic scenes of buildings reduced to rubble in Israel, Tehran and other Iranian cities have taken a worse pounding and other regional countries, including Lebanon, could still be pulled into the conflict.

Caroline Rose, a director at the Washington-based New Lines Institute think tank said that while it seems “clear that Iran-backed proxies across the region, particularly Hezbollah, just do not have the capacity” to enter the fray, Israel could decide to expand the scope of its offensive beyond Iran.

One of the goals announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to eliminate Iran’s “axis of terrorism” - the coalition of Tehran-backed armed groups across the region known as the “Axis of Resistance.”

That goal “is ambiguous and offers Israel the operational space to expand this war to countries it deems are hosting Iran-backed proxies, no matter how weak they may be,” Rose said.

Al-Walid shrugged off the possibility of a new war in Lebanon.

“The war is already present in Lebanon,” he said. “Israel isn’t abiding by the agreement and is striking every day.”

Hassan Shreif, a 26-year-old student from the city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, where Hezbollah has a strong base of support, said that after last year’s war in Lebanon and the heavy losses suffered by the group, many of its supporters “were clearly anguished and didn’t feel vindicated.”

“So, anything, even a window breaking in Tel Aviv, is (now) a victory for them,” he said. Every time Iranian missiles pass overhead, he said, people in the area break out in shouts of jubilation.

At the same time, Shreif said, “there’s always a silent group hugging the wall as we say in Arabic, treading carefully and praying we stay out of it.”