During the season of diatribes against the Camp David Accords and President Anwar Sadat, "separate peace" was the dominant catchword. Most of those making these accusations had not been aware that, under the leadership of Lenin, the Bolsheviks in Russia concluded the most consequential "separate peace" in modern history. In 1918, when it signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, communist Russia made peace with imperial Germany and withdrew from the First World War, abandoning Britain, France, and the United States, its former allies, who continued to fight.
The lesson, here, is that when a political regime finds itself in a position that its alliances had imposed, this regime is entitled to break with those and take a different position that it considers more consistent with its interests and sovereignty. As for those abandoned in the middle of the journey, they do not hold back from retaliating when the opportunity presents itself. Egypt was shunned, and Sadat assassinated; for its part, Russia was attacked by its former allies.
The fact is that Lebanon was reduced to being the vassal of an alliance that had prohibited it from having independent diplomacy. The terminology of the Assad lexicon around the "singularity of the path and destiny unity" was particularly famous - "singularity" that had been presented as "the work of God," extensively drawing on history, rhetoric, values, and even notions of honor and dignity to this end.
Those promoting this discourse of subordination made a habit of digging up material from a pre-state, jungle-like world. This is a primitive and violent world by definition: a lot of blood was spilled in the meat grinder that was the Assadist and Khomeinist regimes’ pursuit of "singularity," during the Mountain War of the 1980s and, later, with the wave of assassinations between 2005 and 2006 that had continued until recently.
The Lebanese who had been advocating "unilateralism" were subjected to relentless campaigns of obscene defamation amid a race between character assassination and physical assassination. Ultimately, the reality of Lebanon-as-arena was entrenched through brutality and folly that peaked with the "unity of the arenas" theory that translated into the "support war."
Throughout this period, a succession of pliant figures headed the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and submitted to the two major "allies."
That is why the current government's attempt to "unilaterally" break with the customs of the past seem intolerable to some, leaving the current foreign minister, Youssef Raggi on the receiving end of a torrent of diatribes like no other. Over the past few days, we witnessed simultaneous developments whose simultaneity invites reflection: while residents of Beirut and other regions had been tending to the wounds left by a criminal Israeli assault and Israeli forces were advancing into the city of Bint Jbeil - one of the largest towns in the south - dozens of "resistance" employees came together to expose the secret that Lebanon's prime minister has been keeping from the world: "Nawaf Salam is a Zionist."
It was clear, from this collage, that the real issue is independent diplomacy. Diplomatic decisions, like decisions of war, ought to remain the prerogative of Iran. While brandishing furious sectarian ignition was employed to achieve this end Salam, on the other hand, became more closely associated with the idea of independent diplomacy and the direct negotiations it entails - whether or not these lead to peace - than any other figure. This necessarily requires removing the sword of Iranian tutelage from Lebanon's foreign policy, and most Lebanese understand and enthusiastically seek this.
The only alternative to diplomacy and direct negotiation that the slanders propose is a program that effectively advocates collective self-annihilation: an occupied and devastated south, a capital sinking deeper into collapse, aggravated displacement, and the deterioration of civic relations as the Lebanese remain trapped in a war that they have no say on amid increasing poverty, despair, and migration ravage them. Reason itself is reduced to narrow, obscene folklore about "the enemy" and "the martyr" that fattens up the prey, the Lebanese people.
Accordingly, we could say that today, Lebanon is waging a battle for diplomatic independence, which is of pivotal importance for small nations. There are many precedents of states who were compelled to compensate for their small size and limited military capacities by investing in diplomatic activity - cases often referred to as "small-state diplomacy" or "soft power strategies."
With some variation, this applies in part or in full to countries like Switzerland, Norway, Singapore, Costa Rica, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, all of which have sought to increase their weight as diplomatic actors, whether through neutrality, mediation in conflicts, or hosting global organizations.
The Lebanese experience of recent years, in turn, presents a case of the exact opposite. Instead of pursuing diplomacy to compensate for a lack of power, power - Hezbollah's and its patrons' power - was used to compensate for a lack of diplomacy. It did not take long, however, for this power to be exposed as pure weakness that has brought back occupation and left Lebanon with neither power nor diplomacy.
By declaring Nawaf Salam a "Zionist", Hezbollah is probably signaling its willingness to go the distance in obstructing Lebanon’s diplomatic independence, after having spared no effort in its obliteration of the power-balance in the broad sense of the word. Here, the full picture emerges: the challenges facing diplomatic independence and the gravity it demands.
