The past week was a turning point for Lebanon by all measures. Observers agree that this was no ordinary presidential election, and not only because it ended a longstanding presidential vacuum that reflected a systemic political crisis.
The election of Army Commander General Joseph Aoun, who received a comfortable majority of the vote in the second round of parliamentary voting, ended an aberration that could have forcibly been normalized if it were not for the recent shifts in the Levant.
It is natural for people everywhere to yearn for liberation from forces that exercise power "de facto," shape their destiny, and control their national resources, be they foreign powers, police states, or sectarian militias.
All three forms of these forces have dominated both Lebanon and Syria for decades. A major non-Arab regional power backed an Arab police state to provide the sectarian militia under its command with a “base” and “depth.” As is well-known, this arrangement also suited another regional power, Israel, for a long time. The latter saw no threat emanating from the opportunistic structure that had been created. In fact, this arrangement served Israel’s broader strategic interests.
Stirring ethnic, religious, and sectarian tensions, in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, as well as Palestine, had been a great service to the "Israeli condition" in the region. This state of affairs contrasts starkly with the boisterous rhetoric about “liberating Jerusalem,” “resistance,” “defiance,” “steadfastness,” and “confrontation,” which were little more than empty slogans in a tired refrain.
More than that, it was understood that the major players in the international community believed that the situation in the region had been acceptable as long as unspoken rules and limits were not crossed by the non-Arab regional actors. That is, global powers, led by the United States, recognized and accepted the interests and ambitions of Israel, Iran, and Türkiye, so long as the power struggles remained controlled and containable.
However, these rules began to falter as a result of shifts in each of these countries in recent years. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu built his government in partnership with radical right-wing settlers to escape prosecution. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) broadened Iran’s ambitions under the watchful eye of the Biden administration. Türkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan reinforced an Islamic-nationalist alliance to push back against the threat posed by Kurdish separatists.
In Arab countries, the traditional boundaries shifted following the “Arab Spring”, which Bashar al-Assad failed to grasp or address prudently. His regime’s mistakes multiplied as the interests of Russia and Iran, without whose support he would not have survived for so long, diverged further apart.
And suddenly, in the fall of 2023, Hamas threw the first stone into these still waters through the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, which left most observers and analysts scrambling. They all struggled to understand the rationale behind the attack, especially since Israel’s fascist expansionist government had been actively seeking a pretext to set the entire region alight.
Affirming Iran’s helping hand, if not outright incitement of the attack (though there is no definitive proof), Hezbollah joined the fray, launching a suicidal “support war” that leveled dozens of Shiite towns and villages across Lebanon, not to mention Beirut’s southern suburbs, to the ground. Moreover, Israel killed Hezbollah’s political and military top brass in the assault, including its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.
The crushing defeat suffered by Iran’s most powerful proxy in the region shook its military influence in Syria. Simultaneously, tensions between Moscow, which was also busy with the complexities of the war in Ukraine, and Tehran, which found itself unsettled by the Democrats’ loss to a Republican who supports Israel’s far-right hardliners, began rising to the surface.
Against this backdrop, the front in northeastern Syria began to shift following a campaign launched from Idlib. Within less than three days, the Assad regime, which had been dominant in Syria since the autumn of 1970 and in Lebanon since 1976, collapsed with practically no resistance.
Following the collapse of Tehran’s influence and the downfall of the regime in Damascus, Lebanon found a renewed sense of self-confidence. The time had come for all Lebanese to unite, save their country, and secure its future. This optimism was further bolstered by serious Arab and international support for rebuilding Lebanon’s state institutions, economy, security, and role in the region, starting with an end to the presidential vacuum.
It was essential that the president be a unifying and institutionalist figure trusted both domestically and internationally. Accordingly, it was not a difficult choice. The Lebanese Army under Joseph Aoun’s leadership was the state national institution that had remained intact and avoided fragmentation and collapse.
Moreover, General Aoun himself commands the respect of both the Arab and international actors. The backing of these foreign powers, along with the unity of the Lebanese people, will be crucial for Lebanon in the coming days as the regional formulas and maps are redrawn.
