It takes insight, a cool head, and a clear vision to penetrate Lebanon's obscurity. The Iranian axis in Lebanon increasingly borrows from the narrative Lebanese national project to describe itself despite the sharp contradiction between their positions, invoking slogans such as "sovereignty,independent decision-making," and "freedom from foreign dependence."
Iran's own decision makers are following suit, "thanking Lebanon for its great sacrifices" and placing "an end to the war on Lebanon" and "the restoration of Lebanon's occupied territory" among the priorities of the US-Iranian agreement that collapsed less than a month into its sixty-day term.
An observer from afar might ask: Has everything, then, become open to discussion and compromise? Can the Lebanese project, which is engaged in direct negotiations with Israel, be reconciled with the Iranian project, which (despite the resumption of fighting) continues to place its hopes in direct talks with the United States? Are the two merely sides of the same coin?
Absolutely not. The opposite is true. The Lebanese and Iranian projects are now at the height of an existential confrontation. The labyrinth of similar claims cannot obscure the clarity and silence the eloquence of the facts, nor conceal the depth of the struggle over the identity and future of the "Land of the Cedars."
To understand the gulf separating the Lebanese project from Iran's project in Lebanon, one need only ask the following question: Does the Iranian axis favor the withdrawal of Israeli forces from one part of southern Lebanon or another if those areas are then to be handed over to the Lebanese state proper?
Certainly not.
If the "pilot areas" currently under discussion are meant to bring back institutions of the state proper to those territories, making the state their sole administrative, security, judicial, and economic authority, then the Iranian axis would much prefer that they remain under Israeli occupation.
The uncertainty around claims that resemble one another in form but contradict one another in substance becomes clear. When the Iranians speak of Israel’s withdrawal and Lebanon's recovery of sovereignty over its territory, what it means is that Hezbollah and its allies should take control of the liberated areas. In its view, Lebanon is the Iranian axis in Lebanon, and nothing else.
That is why Axis supporters are so insistent that Iran be entrusted with negotiations to secure Lebanon's liberation, reconstruction, and every other demand. There is no room for the Lebanese state- in the worldview of the Iranian axis, it does not truly exist at all.
Its representatives have therefore declared the Lebanese-Israeli negotiations null and void from the outset, arguing that Israel is effectively "negotiating with itself."
Speaking of the state proper raises a complex problem. Soon after taking power in 1979, Iran's Islamic Revolution devoted more than four decades of immense financial, military, organizational, ideological, and media effort to achieving two major objectives.
The first was to establish a state subordinate to the Iranian axis within the state of Greater Lebanon and outside its authority. That objective was achieved.
The second was to penetrate the institutions of Greater Lebanon by every possible means, compromising them and operating through them. That objective, too, was achieved to a considerable extent.
Crucial to this success was the firm alliance between the Islamic Republic of Iran, governed under the doctrine of the supreme leader, and the Assad family's Syria. This alliance endured throughout three decades of Syrian domination over Lebanon, with American and Western authorization and Arab acquiescence.
After Syria's sudden withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005, the Iranian axis succeeded in consolidating its control over the country, particularly through the 2005 "Quadripartite Alliance," the 2006 Mar Mikhael Agreement, and the 2016 presidential settlement.
The prevailing formula was simple: give us your approval - or your silence - regarding our policies, and in return take whatever positions, deals, and benefits you desire. Those who objected were eliminated or neutralized, and the Land of the Cedars was dragged to the bottom of the abyss.
What happens now?
If the Lebanese state is to assume control of the territories freed from Israeli occupation, the Iranian axis would reject the arrangement outright. If, however, control is handed to compromised elements embedded within the state, the axis would welcome it, because matters will simply return to the way they were.
But that possibility has become almost inconceivable.
The Lebanese state must establish a monopoly over arms. It also faces an even more difficult challenge: liberating itself from the forces that have infiltrated and compromised it.
Those forces are extensive, deeply rooted, powerful, and mutually protective. Above all, they are afraid. They are afraid of accountability they never imagined they would face as regional circumstances shift and balances of power change. Their former Syrian escape route, moreover, has now been closed.
The good money is behind Lebanon's vibrant society, which will rally strongly around the state proper. This is nothing new. Since the Lebanese entity first emerged 165 years ago. Its society (not the state) has always been the engine of the country's renewal and radiance, setting Lebanon apart from the states around it.
