Lebanon’s Precarious Future
In late November 2024, an eerie silence fell over Lebanon’s southern border. Amid some of the heaviest fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in months, with Israeli airstrikes hitting Beirut and Israeli troops pushing deeper into southern Lebanon, a ceasefire was reached. Hezbollah—once hailed across the Shia world as the vanguard of “resistance”—lay in ruins. Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, dead; its heavy military infrastructure obliterated; its political grip shattered. The force that had defined Lebanese politics for two decades was no longer the dominant power in Beirut.
What comes next for Lebanon—a country forever suspended between reinvention and ruin—is anything but clear.
Lebanon did not choose this war. As in so many of its crises, the country was pulled in by the ambitions of others. On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a brutal surprise attack on Israel, reigniting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Less than a day later, Hezbollah began striking targets in northern Israel, in solidarity with Hamas. By September 2024, Israel had launched a series of preemptive and devastating strikes—including the “pagers” operations—that decimated Hezbollah’s leadership, crippled its arsenal, and broke its psychological footing. When the ceasefire was signed on November 26, Hezbollah had lost thousands of fighters, its chain of command, and—most crucially—its aura of alleged invincibility. Its promise to protect Lebanon’s Shia community had proved hollow.
Iran, for decades Hezbollah’s patron and protector, proved powerless to intervene, its failure branding it a paper tiger and undermining its credibility across the region. Then came another seismic shift: In December 2024, the Assad regime in Syria—long a junior partner to Iran and a vital conduit to Hezbollah—collapsed. Together, Lebanon and Syria now face the most dramatic upheaval in their political and sectarian landscapes in half a century.
The Iranian-led order is no more. A new one has yet to emerge. Antonio Gramsci’s oft-cited phrase captures the moment with uncanny precision: “The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”
Hezbollah will remain an important actor in Lebanese politics, but not a hegemon. The old order—marked by Iranian influence and Shia ascendancy—has crumbled. Lebanon now stands at a crossroads: the chance to reclaim sovereignty and pluralistic politics or the risk of another descent into fragmentation and chaos.
To understand Lebanon’s predicament, one must start with a fundamental truth: Lebanese politics is a perpetual ethnic conflict. Lebanese identities and political allegiances are defined more by sect than by ideology or class. The country’s political drama is less a debate between ideologies than a contest between deeply rooted ethno-religious communities—the three biggest, Christians, Sunnis, and Shia—each with its own history, loyalties, and political parties.
This sectarian reality drives every significant political development. Leaders rise not on the strength of a policy platform but by commanding popular allegiances within their respective sects. Major political parties function as communal power centers, frequently linked to foreign sponsors who tip the internal balance when needed.
For decades, Lebanon’s Christians have looked to the West, particularly France and the United States. This was already true during the Crusades, when many Christians dwelling on Mount Lebanon welcomed the Crusaders as liberators from the Muslim yoke and fought on their side. The Sunnis have historically turned toward the Arab world and identify with its causes, namely Palestine. And the Shia have increasingly looked to Iran, whose support helped transform Hezbollah from a fringe militia in the 1980s into the most powerful nonstate military actor in the world. Shia historical relations with Iran go back to at least the 16th century, when imams and scholars traveled from the Shia hinterland in Lebanon to help the Safavids convert Iran to Shiism.
Foreign interventions have long informed Lebanese politics. The fortunes of local communities are tightly bound to the strength—or collapse—of their foreign patrons. When France was defeated by Germany in World War II, it quickly became vulnerable to British pressure in the Levant. That pressure eventually forced France out of both Lebanon and Syria, weakening its allies: the pro-French Maronite Christians in Lebanon and Alawi factions in Syria. In contrast, France’s departure empowered the anti-French Sunni communities in both countries, who had long been organizing against the colonial mandate imposed in 1920.
Decades later, the Islamic Republic of Iran transformed Lebanon into a satellite state. With Iranian money, missiles, and training, Hezbollah built a parallel society in Lebanon: hospitals, schools, banks, and even grocery stores—all infused with ideological loyalty. It was a state within a state, and it paid well. It is estimated that some 50,000 Lebanese Shia families relied on Hezbollah for income, social services, and status. In return, Hezbollah demanded—and enforced—loyalty. Its critics, including fellow Shia, were met with threats or worse. Assassinations of journalists, MPs, and even a prime minister are widely attributed to the group or its allies. It is no exaggeration to say that at the height of Hezbollah’s power, from 2005 to 2024, political assassinations targeting the group’s enemies became the default way of doing politics in Lebanon.
Hezbollah protected—and was protected by—the corrupt Lebanese political elite. When Lebanon’s economy collapsed in 2019—after years of corruption and mismanagement—Hezbollah shielded the country’s oligarchs in exchange for continued political cover. As long as Lebanon’s oligarchs legitimized Hezbollah’s armed status, under the pretense of “resisting Israel,” they were free to plunder the state. This Faustian deal was straightforward: Hezbollah turned a blind eye to what could be called Grand Theft Lebanon, i.e., the ruthless plundering of the country by politicians operating essentially as organized crime figures, who then, in exchange, legitimized Hezbollah’s arms under the guise of fighting Israel, even though Israel had withdrawn from Lebanon in 2000. This pact contributed directly to Lebanon’s economic collapse. By 2021, the Lebanese lira had lost 95 percent of its value, and GDP had been halved—from $52 billion in 2019 to $23 billion just two years later. All of this, of course, in the name of “resistance” against Israel.
But that resistance has now yielded catastrophe. Hezbollah’s promises of protecting Lebanese civilians proved empty as Israeli bombs leveled Shia villages in the south. Thousands fled, joining the ranks of Lebanon’s internally displaced. And as the dust settles, Hezbollah finds itself defeated by Israel—while remaining a threat to Lebanon.
What is left of Hezbollah is dangerous precisely because it is cornered. It still commands the loyalty of thousands of fanatical supporters and retains enough light weaponry to intimidate domestic opponents. The days of Hezbollah threatening Israel’s northern cities or posturing as a regional power might be over, but that doesn’t mean Lebanese who do not share the fundamentalist Shia organization’s ideology are safe.
Hezbollah currently faces a deepening financial crisis. Long its primary benefactor, Iran is struggling under sanctions and internal dissent. The Syrian regime—Hezbollah’s logistical lifeline—collapsed in late 2024, and with it, the lucrative Captagon drug trade that helped bankroll the group. Hezbollah’s vast social network, long sustained by Iranian aid and narco-trafficking, now demands reconstruction funds and welfare for thousands of widowed and displaced Shia.
In this environment, Hezbollah may look to a familiar piggy bank: the Lebanese state. The temptation is obvious, with billions in potential international aid pledged for reconstruction. And given the enduring strength of Hezbollah’s political apparatus—and the corruption of Lebanon’s other political elites—there is a real risk that this aid will be looted and not used to rebuild.
The alternatives are equally grim. If the aid doesn’t come—perhaps because donor countries like Saudi Arabia remain wary of Hezbollah’s influence—Lebanon’s economic crisis will deepen. A no-aid scenario means continued currency collapse, mass emigration (more “brain drain”), and a deepening sense of national despair. Either way, Lebanon teeters on the edge of reverting to a failed state.
Yet amid the rubble, there are signs of resistance—not from Hezbollah, but to it.
In January 2025, after nearly two years of political paralysis, Lebanon elected a new president: the former army chief Joseph Aoun. General Aoun, widely respected across sectarian lines, is no friend of Hezbollah. In his inaugural speech, he declared that only the Lebanese army would be permitted to bear arms in the country—a direct rebuke to Hezbollah’s long-standing claim that it alone could defend the nation. The new prime minister, Nawaf Salam, also hails from the anti-Hezbollah camp. And in parliament, Hezbollah’s opponents have a slim but absolute majority. Furthermore, the Lebanese Armed Forces are not under Hezbollah’s direct control, though some Shia recruits might have sympathy for the group. And crucially, American and European envoys are now back in Beirut, working with the LAF to implement the ceasefire and begin the process of demilitarizing Hezbollah.
For the first time in years, the Lebanese state has an opening—albeit narrow—to reassert control and build a post-Hezbollah future. But such a future will require Aoun and Salam to show courage and leadership and demilitarize the Shia organization. The leaders can count on vast popular support in Lebanon if they do so—but they will also need concrete international backing.
That support must come in part from Washington. Historically, American policy toward Lebanon has followed a familiar cycle: long periods of neglect punctuated by brief bursts of intervention. In 1958, Dwight Eisenhower deployed 10,000 Marines to quell an uprising directed against the Western-friendly administration of Lebanese President Camille Chamoun. In 1982, Ronald Reagan sent U.S. forces following Israel’s invasion, only to withdraw them after the deadly Marine barracks bombing in 1983 (committed by a young upstart group named Hezbollah) and the collapse of the Lebanese army along sectarian lines in 1984. The following two decades saw little engagement, until the George W. Bush administration pressured Syria to withdraw from Lebanon in 2005 following the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The logic of American indifference to Lebanon is understandable. Lebanon has no oil. Its internal politics are byzantine and seem intractable. And its instability is seen as beyond redemption—a mess best avoided. However, that logic has yielded problematic results for America and disastrous consequences for Lebanon.
Every time America abandons Lebanon, subversive actors fill the void—Palestinian guerrillas in the 1970s, Syrian occupiers in the 1990s, and Hezbollah in the 2000s. These forces then provoke Israel, inviting retaliation and regional escalation. Eventually, America is dragged back in—under worse conditions than before.
A more sustainable approach lies somewhere between intense involvement and total abandonment. Today, the U.S. should support the LAF, sanction politicians who obstruct demilitarization, and encourage a formal peace treaty between Lebanon and Israel. With the Abraham Accords now linking Israel to Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, and Sudan, there is little strategic rationale for Lebanon to remain on a perpetual war footing. Closing the southern front would deprive future radicals of their favorite pretext: “resistance” against Israel. It would give Lebanon the breathing room it desperately needs to begin healing.
After decades of wars and foreign invasions, the Lebanese understandably yearn for peace and stability. Though things remain fluid, the new regional power configuration may provide an opening to achieve such a goal. Lebanon can sink further into chaos or use Hezbollah’s defeat as a catalyst for change. Disarmament, reconstruction, political reform, and—ultimately—breaking away from the centralized system of governance and toward a federal model will all be required for the decades-long Lebanese nightmare to finally end.
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