The new era, symbolized by President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, arrived with an agenda unlike anything Lebanon has known for more than a quarter of a century. The era of the catastrophic “people, army, and resistance” trilogy has ended. The Iranian regime, through its local proxy, forcibly dragging Lebanon into the Gaza “support war” has drawn the contours of this agenda: the legitimate authorities must monopolize “violence,” thereby restoring its status as the sole reference point, and with it restoring the state capable of protecting its people and its land.
The “Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities” between the Israeli enemy and Hezbollah carried, in its preamble, the features of this agenda, which is based on disarming all illegitimate weapons throughout Lebanon and restricting arms to six legitimate bodies: the army, the Internal Security Forces, General Security, State Security, customs, and municipal police. For the record, the presidential oath address was defined by this very objective, and it was then enshrined in the government’s ministerial statement. It is on this statement’s basis, the government gained confidence, even from the “Shiite duo” that is represented in the cabinet and parliament.
It goes without saying that Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri was the negotiating party, and Naim Qassem approved this.
The Lebanese president said that 2025 is the year of ridding the country of illegitimate arms and ending the era of turning Lebanon into an open arena serving the interests of others. However, developments generated fearmongering about civil war, as Hezbollah disavowed the agreement, refused to hand over its weapons to the army, and threatened strife. Accounts began to emerge about its rebuilding of its capabilities, its “overcoming” of the Israeli breaches in its ranks, and its readiness to confront Israel “at the appropriate time.”
Lebanon does not have the luxury of time amid the criminal displacement of hundreds of thousands of southerners, the transformation of buildings into ashes, and Israel’s threat to establish a security belt that would guarantee what it calls “forward defense.” Despite their historic decision to restrict weapons to the state on August 5, the authorities delayed using the power of legitimacy against illegitimate forces and forces of foreign interference. They were late in discovering the influx of members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps members into Lebanon, which was facilitated by the decision of the Najib Mikati government to allow Iranians to enter without a prior visa.
They also dragged their feet in implementing their decisions on disarmament, in fulfillment of the Taif Agreement, the constitution, and the ministerial statement. No normal state can accept a parallel military force - and bear in mind, Hezbollah is an integral part of Iran’s military and security apparatus. This means that its existence is a clear assault on the Lebanese state, as the late minister Mohammad Chatah put it.
For months, the defeated faction frightened the authorities from taking its weapons. For a time, a state of terror arose at the mere thought of using the power and arms of legitimacy. This fearmongering about the bad led the country to worse when the IRGC dragged Lebanon into Iran’s “support war” on March 2. Then came the decisions banning Hezbollah’s military and security activities, and the decisions to expel Iranian advisers, some of whom were found to possess forged Lebanese passports.
After “Black Wednesday” on April 8, came the decisions to make Beirut a safe city free of illegitimate weapons. A “disarmed Beirut” was supposed to be the most important card in the hands of Lebanese negotiators when US President Donald Trump initiated Lebanese-Israeli negotiations with American partnership. But hesitation in its implementation took precedence over everything else.
Disregarding smear campaigns and accusations of treason, slander, the negotiations - despite the catastrophe inflicted on Lebanon, and on the south in particular - managed to neutralize Beirut, infrastructure, and the southern suburbs. It became clear that the “tripartite statement,” since it is a translation of the “catastrophe of the two support wars” that the “party of Iranian weapons” denies and refuses to acknowledge, was the best agreement possible. It affirms the United States’ support for Lebanon’s territorial integrity. This will undermine Israel’s pursuit of perpetual occupation in the south.
Meanwhile, the move toward “pilot zones” that expand successively and from which the Israeli enemy would withdraw so that the army could take over and “clean” of the weapons and infrastructure of the “Lebanese Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp,” was rejected by the IRGC and then by Naim Qassem. This rejection is a rejection of the return of the state to exercising authority, thereby restoring its role and responsibility as the exclusive decider of security and sovereign questions.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in crisis, but he was rescued by Qassem’s rejection of the ceasefire, giving Israel the pretexts to maintain its destructive approach, move the “yellow line” toward the western Bekaa, and begin to encircle the cities of Nabatieh and Tyre. This comes after the two cities issued an appeal to make them open cities and restrict weapons to the state. This is the clearest rejection yet by Shiite elites of the nonsense espoused the “party of Iranian weapons,” and a condemnation of its claims of “resistance,” while the Israeli enemy exterminates land and people, and bulldozing reaches all urban areas to sever people’s connection to their land.
Hezbollah, acting on behalf of its operators, wants a ceasefire to be announced in Islamabad; in other words, it wants a deal that perpetuates its illegitimate weapons, leaving Lebanon between hammer and anvil: Israeli occupation of Lebanon's land, and Iranian confiscation of Lebanon's decision-making. It is an approach that brings together forces harmed by the rise of the national state project. They are betting on the IRGC hindering Lebanon’s path toward a safe future, complete sovereignty, and an end to the era of impunity. But whatever the obstacles - and they are real and serious - the old order has changed.
