Lebanese President Joseph Aoun's visit to the United States, at the invitation of President Donald Trump, carried every sign of optimism. Aoun laid out his two-point plan: first, demanding Israel’s withdrawal - gradual, even, as agreed across the five rounds of negotiations. The second was US assistance on two fronts: sustained pressure on Israel to withdraw, and support for the Lebanese army to enable it to cover the areas south of the Litani that Israel is vacating. Israel’s withdrawal in fact began on July 21 and 22.
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and army commander Rodolphe Haykal visited the village Israel pulled out of. Residents are still pressing to go in and see what has become of their homes, while officials, including the interior minister, ask them to wait until the search for victims, the cleanup, and the clearing of rubble from the roads are done.
This is the most visible side of the visit and its immediate effects. More important is what was said openly about the political dimensions and the internal arrangements. Trump told Aoun: if you wish, we are ready to talk to Hezbollah. The conversation, however, turned instead to parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Aoun praised him as a statesman; Trump took him for a good man and a patriot who would agree to the "framework agreement" - all the more so since it delivers his principal demand, a ceasefire and a withdrawal. Berri seemed pleased with the exchange, remarking: "It seems the Americans understand me better than some Lebanese!"
The idea, then, is for the Americans to help soften the objections of the duo of the Amal Movement and Hezbollah and for the American coordination committee between the two armies to work through the process of simultaneous withdrawal and advance. The crux remains, even if Berri is persuaded to be patient, the Israeli condition on disarming Hezbollah, at least south of the Litani, so that Israelis are satisfied their north is secure.
The media coverage of the visit suggests that the Americans were pleased with the president's plan for confining arms to the state. But how, and when? Is the intention for Israel to accept US presence as a guarantee for both sides, the Lebanese in particular, on a temporary basis, while weighing a permanent monitoring committee to replace the international forces that will withdraw at year's end? There are European ideas about European troops taking their place; US approval would of course be needed, along with some form of coordination with the United Nations.
There has to be talk of both the present and the future, even as the gradual withdrawal advances. The questions of the present focuses on Israel's reservations about the timing of a full withdrawal, which the framework agreement leaves unclear. On another front, regional tensions continue to rise remains amid American threats to escalate attacks and strikes, and Iran’s threat to expand the war, as seen in the Houthi assaults, in the attacks by pro-Iran Iraqi militias along Iraq's border with Kuwait, and in continuing Iranian strikes on Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan.
The Hezbollah's hand in Lebanon remains on the trigger. Iran has put the Houthis and the Iraqi militias to action. Will it push Hezbollah to act as well as its principal arm in the Arab region? The party called the president's visit to America a failure despite the positive position by Berri, whom they regard as the big brother and who ordinarily negotiates on their behalf.
Other experts believe that the party will not turn to escalation this time, as more than half a million southerners have returned home after a brutal displacement that cost thousands of lives and immense destruction. Fresh displacement could not be borne if the party resumed its provocations after the south's tragedy was brought on by seven rockets the party fired to avenge Khamenei.
Can one speak of the future? Difficult, of course. In America the Lebanese president repeated what he had said many times before. The aim of the negotiations is to achieve peace and end the state of enmity between the two states and the two peoples. This was among the things held against him, for a lasting peace requires a broad internal consensus that does not exist. It also requires coordination with the Arab states, Saudi Arabia and Syria among them. Trump, for his part, still insists that peace hinges on everyone joining the Abraham Accords.
The Lebanese president has pulled off two achievements that could not have been imagined two months ago. In its memorandum of understanding with Iran, the United States had agreed that Iran would have a role in the ceasefire in south Lebanon, owing to its ties with Hezbollah. Lebanon, however, wanted independent, direct negotiations with Israel, beholden to no one; for the first time in decades, it got exactly that.
The second achievement was his trip to America, honored and esteemed and on his own, after the original notion had been a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. The third and greatest achievement remains the Israeli army's exit from south Lebanon, if it comes without further pain.
