To prevent war, Lebanon must act like a state

Arab News

2 days ago

https://arab.news/2r4ur
Lebanon risks missing its moment. That was the verdict delivered by US Ambassador Tom Barrack during his trip to Beirut last week. 'If you don't want change, it's no problem,' he said. 'The rest of the region is moving at Mach speed and you will be left behind.'
His comments cut to the core issue shaping Lebanon's future: Hezbollah's weapons. The country's promising new leadership is running out of time and credibility. With progress in nearby Syria attracting US and regional support, Beirut must heed Barrack's warning. It needs to roll out a credible, Lebanese-led initiative that demonstrates the will and capacity to see through the full implementation of the November ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel — and disarm Hezbollah before it is too late.
The ceasefire deal, brokered by the US and France, was not simply a pause in fighting but a roadmap based on two core principles: that the Lebanese state would disarm Hezbollah and achieve, through statecraft, what Hezbollah's militancy could not: Israel's full withdrawal and an end to the military strikes that suffocate any chance for the country's recovery.
The Lebanese government has so far focused on dismantling Hezbollah's infrastructure in southern Lebanon, clearing 80 to 90 percent of military sites. The regular Israeli strikes on Lebanon, however, make clear that this progress is not enough. The ceasefire agreement and UN Security Council Resolutions 1701 and 1559 require not only demilitarization in the south but the disarmament of all nonstate armed groups throughout the country.
As President Joseph Aoun vowed when he took office in January, and the new government later affirmed in a ministerial statement, the state must, and will, hold a monopoly on force. This is not only a matter of international law; ensuring it is the Lebanese state that decides matters of war and peace is a prerequisite for the rehabilitation of its legitimacy at home and abroad.
In line with that mandate, Beirut has chosen negotiation over confrontation. Aoun has called for direct talks with Hezbollah to oversee its disarmament and started the parallel process of disarming Palestinian factions in the country. But what this means in practice remains unclear. There are still no details about what such a disarmament will look like, when it will start or end and how it will be verified.
Beirut's new leaders cannot make the mistake of their predecessors and ignore the shift in Israel's security doctrine in the aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023. Tel Aviv will not accept half-measures that give Hezbollah time to regroup, rearm and threaten its future security.
While Hezbollah has largely cooperated in the south, a de facto consequence of its defeat, its leaders continue to publicly decry the calls for full disarmament. Instead, the group appears to be buying time by pursuing partial disarmament and limited cooperation until international pressure eases or spoiling opportunities emerge.
The Lebanese government finds itself in a bind. On the one hand, if it fails to fully disarm Hezbollah, an Israeli military escalation might be right around the corner. On the other, if it takes up arms against Hezbollah, it risks plunging the country into an internal conflict with no end in sight.
Disarming Hezbollah within the capital is about ending the group's ability to hold hostage the future of Lebanon.
Dr. Fadi Nicholas Nassar
Neither of these scenarios needs to be Lebanon's future, however. Its people and economy are exhausted. There is no appetite for conflict, either with Israel or between the state and Hezbollah.
The government and the Lebanese Armed Forces demonstrated the credibility of their desire not only to disarm Hezbollah's positions in the south but to keep them out of the area. Now, Aoun must build on his call for the peaceful full disarmament of Hezbollah by establishing a decisive starting point that can help rally public support: the demilitarization of Beirut.
Unlike the sprawling terrain of the south, such an effort in Beirut would demand fewer resources and personnel from the strained army. It would also carry significant symbolic weight; while disarming Hezbollah positions in the south is primarily about securing Israel's border and doing so in the north is about safeguarding Syria's, disarming Hezbollah within the capital is about ending the group's ability to hold hostage the future of Lebanon.
Beirut is the lifeline of the Lebanese economy. Demilitarizing the capital would stabilize it enough to allow investors, tourists and businesses to return. Strategically, it would also ensure that the city's airport and the Port of Beirut continue to fall firmly under the control of the state, effectively curtailing Hezbollah's efforts to regroup and rearm.
Most of all, the removal of Hezbollah's armed presence from the capital would dismantle the architecture of intimidation that continues to paralyze Lebanese politics and help generate the momentum, and precedent, to foster the political resolve needed to finish the job.
It would be an irreversible step toward nationwide disarmament, a hard but unavoidable concession made more dignified if it met with an internationally backed effort for reconstruction of the hard-hit Beirut suburbs.
Israel must take steps of its own by withdrawing from the five hilltops it continues to occupy in Lebanon and give the Lebanese state a chance to succeed. It has established escalatory dominance and achieved its primary military objectives.
Hassan Nasrallah and the founding military leadership of Hezbollah are dead. The narrative that Hezbollah's weapons can deter Israel has been replaced with the reality that its weapons have brought only war and occupation. A military escalation would yield diminishing returns for Israel, open the door for unknowns and risk the country becoming bogged down in a protracted conflict with an adversary it has already defeated.
Time is running out. But taken together, these steps can restore the trust needed to enable the full implementation of the November ceasefire agreement and ensure that the conflict it ended was the last war between Israel and Lebanon.