Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has fulfilled his promise. The official June 6 announcement to begin developing and operating President René Moawad Airport in Qlayaat marks a foundational step that has been delayed for decades. The issue is not simply the addition of a new aviation facility to Lebanon’s infrastructure, nor merely a development project for northern Lebanon. Rather, it is a geo-economic act that reconnects Lebanon to the regional and global transformations taking shape around it.
For decades, geography in the Arab Mashreq did not operate according to its natural logic. Ideological and security considerations transformed it into a landscape of closed borders and obstructed corridors. The historic routes linking the Gulf to the Levant, Anatolia, and Europe became hostage to political barriers and struggles for influence, while Syria, during the decades of Baathist rule, was turned into a buffer wall separating the Eastern Mediterranean from its Arab and Asian hinterland.
Yet the transformations that followed October 7, 2023, and the subsequent fall of the Assad regime have reshaped bilateral alliances and multilateral partnerships, opening the door for geography to recover its original function. From Riyadh to Islamabad to Ankara, passing through Cairo and Doha and extending to Damascus and Baghdad, the region has gradually begun moving from an era of military axes to an era of economic corridors.
In this context, Qlayaat Airport does not appear to be an isolated event, but rather part of a larger picture. In recent years, countries across the region have revived connectivity projects that had been dormant for decades: railway links stretching from Türkiye toward the Gulf; Iraq’s Development Road and New Levant initiatives connecting the Gulf to Europe through Iraq and Türkiye; and renewed discussions about reactivating historic energy routes, from the Iraqi oil pipeline to the Lebanese and Syrian coasts to a reassessment of the viability of old export lines leading to the Mediterranean.
Economic interests have rediscovered what the peoples of the region knew for centuries: that this geography was meant to be a space of transit and exchange, not a permanent network of front lines. The Hejaz Railway, severed by Lawrence of Arabia more than a century ago, is now returning in new forms. China has replaced the ancient Silk Road with the Belt and Road Initiative, while global trade once again seeks the shortest and safest routes. Even the India-Europe Corridor, promoted as a strategic alternative, saw the fragility of the assumptions underpinning it exposed by the crisis that followed the Gaza war.
Amid these transformations, attention has been fixed on Beirut, awaiting its political and economic recovery and its emergence with the least possible damage from the costly “support wars”. The Qlayaat step, followed by Saudi Arabia’s decision to resume imports of Lebanese goods and preceded by the development of a more balanced relationship between Damascus and Beirut, confirms that Lebanon has not lost its geographic inevitability and that it can reclaim its role if it reads the regional moment correctly.
Moreover, when PM Salam insists that the state must regain exclusive authority over decisions of war and peace, he is also insisting on safeguarding southern Lebanon, its people, and its resources, so that it may assume its natural role in the region’s transformations - transformations that are not contingent upon the terms of the relationship with Israel.
Some had nearly concluded that Lebanon’s ports and airports had permanently lost their role in favor of other Mediterranean ports, and that the Port of Haifa would become the natural alternative. Others went further, questioning the value of investing in Lebanese infrastructure altogether. Yet the ongoing transformations suggest precisely the opposite. The ports of Beirut and Tripoli, together with Qlayaat Airport, can form - alongside the Syrian hinterland - a maritime and air gateway for the Levant, Iraq, and Jordan, and a transit hub linking the Gulf to the Mediterranean.
Accordingly, the real challenge no longer lies in geography itself, but in the Lebanese people’s ability to capitalize on its return. Geography has reclaimed its role, the corridors are beginning to reopen, and the region is shifting from arenas of conflict to networks of shared interests. The question that remains is this: Will Lebanon succeed in becoming a partner in the economy of the new Mashreq, or will it once again be content to watch the trains and airplanes pass around and above it?
