President-elect Donald Trump vowed to end Lebanon’s “suffering” and “destruction,” promising to “get it done properly so it doesn’t repeat itself every 5 or 10 years!” The temporary ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, primarily brokered by President Joe Biden’s Special Envoy Amos Hochstein after the 2024 U.S. presidential election, marks a first step toward that goal. However, it is only a short-term measure and, if treated as a definitive solution, risks the return of endless war and intervention.
For nearly two decades, Washington’s preference for de-escalation over long-term solutions has undercut U.S. policy toward Lebanon, allowing Hezbollah to tighten its grip and expand Iran’s influence across the Middle East. By accommodating the status quo, U.S. diplomacy inadvertently enabled the conditions it aimed to contain and ensured Lebanon would become a theater of regional war: a war that has shattered Lebanon, causing around 4,000 casualties, inflicting billions of dollars in damages and losses, and forcing over 1.3 million people to leave their homes.
But more than a year of conflict has also reshuffled the region’s security landscape in ways that require fresh thinking from Washington. Hezbollah has come out of this war significantly weakened—its leadership systematically eliminated, its arsenal degraded, and its supply-lines compromised following the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria. Though beaten, an armed Hezbollah still wields the power to hijack Lebanon’s future and help rebuild Iran’s network of proxies. Washington’s preferred playbook will only give space and time for Hezbollah and Iran to regroup, reproducing the same results that brought the region to the brink the past year.
The new U.S. administration stands at an inflection point, strategically positioned to deliver on President-elect Trump’s promise and decisively pull Lebanon free from Iran’s sphere of influence and sever its ability to destabilize the region. By combining pressure on Iran to concede Hezbollah’s disarmament with support for local leadership committed to reforming and rebuilding the Lebanese state, Washington can give the Lebanese a fighting chance to reclaim their future free from political violence. And it is a fight worth having. A strong Lebanese state committed to disentangling the country from regional war is key to securing a stable day after in Lebanon and beyond.
Fragile Ceasefires are First Steps, Not End-Goals
The seeds of Israel’s ongoing conflict with Hezbollah date back to the 2006 July War. That war ended with United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1701, which aimed to de-militarize southern Lebanon by strengthening the role of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the stationed UN peacekeepers, UNIFIL. What kept hostilities at bay in the time between the two conflicts, however, was not any commitments to the resolution, but a bet that the rules of engagement between Hezbollah and Israel would hold.
Decades of piecemeal diplomacy since then, including turning a blind eye at the failure to implement UNSCR 1701, set the stage for the 2023-2024 conflict. By continuing to rely on the voluntarily compliance between Hezbollah and Israel to uphold a new security framework, the deal brokered in late November 2024, which has already seen repeated violations, risks making the same mistakes.
The deal aims to implement UNSCR 1701, with some notable changes. Like UNSCR 1701, the Biden administration’s deal stipulates a buffer zone between the Litani River and the de facto border between Israel and Lebanon, known as the Blue Line, to be maintained by the LAF and UNIFIL. To reach this goal, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters, as well as security infrastructure from this area will take place over a sixty-day period. One notable difference aimed to bolster the deal’s implementation capacity is that the United States will lead a five-member state committee to oversee compliance with the deal.
The flexibility for Israel and Lebanon to maintain their self-defense leads to limited trust in this process. Some progress has been made toward the gradual movement of the belligerents, but repeated violations of the deal, including a tit-for-tat that risked unravelling the entire deal in December—highlight its fragility. Importantly, while the deal has yet to completely fall through, the bombing of Hezbollah targets by Israel citing a failure of compliance, foreshadow a new phase of lower intensity but protracted conflict.
The de-escalation of violence is a welcome reprieve, especially for displaced families and war-torn communities. However, it is only a credible political solution focused on structural change that can free the people of Lebanon from the constant threat of war and ensure lasting security.
Military Victories Do Not Last
Military victories, even decisive ones, are not guarantees of long-term stability. Israel has largely achieved its short-term military objective of weakening Hezbollah’s capacities, delivering decisive blows to Hezbollah’s command structures, eliminating its leadership, and degrading its arsenal. However, a military solution or protracted low-intensity conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is not sustainable. Without a legitimate and functioning Lebanese government, the door is opened for Iran to exploit the instability for its own gain.
Iran has long benefited from Lebanese instability and the U.S.’s fluctuating interest in Lebanon. Israel’s invasion of Beirut in 1982, for example, may have succeeded in expelling the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), but ultimately became a longstanding and strategic victory for Iran and Syria. Soon after the invasion, both countries were able to exploit the absence of a functioning Lebanese state to assert their influence—the Assad regime became the main security hegemon in Lebanon up until its withdrawal in 2005, a vacuum then quickly filled by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
Lebanon Cannot Endure While Hezbollah Holds the Power to Destroy It
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 demonstrates that while military victories can secure short-term objectives, they do not necessarily deliver the structural conditions that enable long-term stability. Additionally, Lebanon’s experience after the 2006 July War underscores that Hezbollah is unable to survive without political power. To maintain this political power, Hezbollah wields its arsenal to obstruct the implementation of any resolution that challenges its coercive dominion, as well as dismantle the Lebanese state from within. Hezbollah’s weapons are not just instruments of war; they are tools of coercion used against Lebanon. With Iran’s backing, Hezbollah has effectively captured Lebanon’s future, ensuring that no political solution can take hold.
In 2007, a year after UNSCR 1701 was adopted, six peacekeepers were killed in a targeted explosion. By 2008, Hezbollah’s military takeover of Beirut extinguished any possibility of implementing the resolution. Hezbollah did not just seize the reins of power, it systematically dismantled Lebanon’s sovereignty. Through a combination of assassinations and government paralysis, Hezbollah effectively co-opted and compelled the country’s political establishment and cemented its authority over the Lebanese state. By 2016, the democratic backsliding that began in 2008 was certified by the election of Hezbollah-ally Michel Aoun as president, sealing a quid pro quo between the militia and a corrupt elite. This Faustian bargain was simple: the corrupt political class would grant Hezbollah political legitimacy as it advanced Iran’s forward defense doctrine and helped build up a proxy network across the region, leaving Lebanon vulnerable to the threat of war and alienated from its economic lifeline in the Gulf States. In exchange, Hezbollah reinforced the status quo with violence, opening the door to siphon off the resources of the state. This nexus between Hezbollah and a discredited political class explains why Lebanon has remained in state failure, especially after its devastating financial collapse in 2019, and why it is now a theater for regional war.
Despite this evidence, the international community maintained the illusion of de-escalation, both by turning a blind eye to Hezbollah’s hegemony and by engaging with a political class controlled by Hezbollah. The result was a series of quasi-deals, such as the 2008 Doha Accords, that rewarded Hezbollah’s military takeover of Beirut by normalizing the status quo, under which Hezbollah imposes its will through political violence. These deals effectively enabled Hezbollah’s ascent and Lebanon’s decline.
Approaches that focus solely on military victories or temporary political fixes miss a shared lesson: only a strong, sovereign Lebanese state can ensure lasting stability. No such state can emerge under the combined weight of Israeli bombardment or with Hezbollah’s weapons turned inward.
Winning the Day After
The recent war has shattered the conventional thinking on Lebanon. Evidently, Lebanon cannot survive by returning to business as usual. The United States, too, must firmly walk away from decades of policies toward Lebanon that only undermine its interests. As hostilities momentarily cease, the U.S must seize the moment to firmly break Hezbollah and Iran’s chokehold over Lebanon, rather than pursue futile agreements with actors that have demonstrated only a zero-sum approach to power in Lebanon.
For nearly two decades, Hezbollah and Iran have leveraged periods of de-escalation and low-intensity conflict to gradually dismantle the Lebanese state and regroup for the next war. But the current situation is unlike 2006. Hezbollah and Iran are losing this conflict—they must not be allowed to win the day after.
A second Trump administration, poised to revamp its Maximum Pressure strategy, aiming to prevent Iran from funding regional proxies, can exploit Iran’s fraying hand to press it to concede Hezbollah’s disarmament—a fundamental step toward decisively upending Tehran’s forward defense doctrine and empowering Lebanon to reclaim a future free from political violence.
However, despite current Iranian vulnerability, Hezbollah’s disarmament on its own cannot guarantee lasting security. Washington needs a reliable partner in the Lebanese state, one committed to firmly disentangling the country from regional war—a leadership dedicated and accountable to its people. While Washington can learn from the past by ensuring this leadership emerges free from the threat of assassinations and other forms of political violence, this gap can ultimately only be filled by the Lebanese. A recognition of the importance of Lebanese agency to deliver the transformation Lebanon needs should not be misconstrued as an invitation for continued American passivity toward Lebanon. On the contrary, only through decisive and steady U.S. engagement—dedicated to empowering locally-led efforts to establish a strong, sovereign state—can the U.S. help safeguard Lebanon’s future and counteract the spoilers working to undermine it.
The foundations for building a strong Lebanese state exist. The country has strong proponents of the state within its institutions, a population that has largely rejected this war, an active and organized civil society, and an army that commands broad support abroad and at home. Equally important, the opportunity to fill this leadership gap is within reach. Alongside France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt—partners working in a quintet to help facilitate an end to Lebanon’s protracted presidential vacuum—the U.S. can leverage robust international support for local leaders in Lebanon committed to putting reform and Lebanon’s sovereignty over consensus with Hezbollah. Although the election of a Lebanese president is fundamentally up to the Lebanese parliament, it is also caught in a tug-of-war between foreign powers. Credible international support can tilt the scale in favor of a presidential candidate and broader leadership that aligns with its people’s aspirations to turn away from perpetual war and implement the reforms needed to rebuild the war-torn country. Steadfast international support for credible reformers and strong proponents of the Lebanese state is key to helping counter Iran’s influence and Hezbollah’s unconstitutional obstruction that has left Lebanon without a president since the end of October 2022.
Conclusion
The struggle to reclaim Lebanon’s sovereignty is one only the Lebanese can truly lead. But for a leadership committed to restoring the integrity of the Lebanese state to succeed, it must be free from the threat of Hezbollah’s arms. By combining sustained pressure on Iran to concede Hezbollah’s disarmament with steadfast support for a president, prime minister, and cabinet committed to reform and ending Lebanon’s role in regional wars, Washington can give the Lebanese a fighting chance to secure their future and deliver a transformative counterpoint to Iran’s destabilizing vision for the region.
. . .
Dr. Fadi Nicholas Nassar is the U.S.-Lebanon Fellow at the Middle East Institute and Director of the Institute for Social Justice as well as Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the Lebanese American University.
Image Credit: Tbloomquist, CC BY-ND 2.0, via Flickr.
