The visit of Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Türkiye and special envoy to Syria, caused consternation in Beirut. Barrack brought home that Lebanon’s political class must do what it has been incapable of doing for the past 35 years since the country’s civil war ended, namely resolve a critical national problem rather than just buy time.
By underlining that Hezbollah’s disarmament was a priority if Lebanon is to emerge from the long period of dysfunction, division, and isolation that characterized the years of party hegemony after 2011, the envoy indicated that the clock had almost run out on the Lebanese. His latest remarks to the National newspaper only added to anxieties in Beirut, when he stated, “I honestly think that they are going to say ‘the world will pass us by.’ Why? You have Israel on one side, you have Iran on the other, and now you have Syria manifesting itself so quickly that if Lebanon doesn’t move, it’s going to be Bilad al-Sham again.”
The only difficulty is that there is no easy way to disarm Hezbollah if the party refuses to surrender its weapons. And it has made perfectly clear that it has no intention of doing so. This leaves President Joseph Aoun in a quandary. He never ceases to repeat that “the decision has been taken” for the state to secure a monopoly over weapons, but for now this sounds more like the old joke about the decision to marry top model Claudia Schiffer: “I want to marry Claudia, my parents fully agree. Now all we need to do is convince Claudia.” Everyone agrees with the president, but now all we need to do is persuade Hezbollah.
Aoun’s critics, chief among them the Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, have no better a sense of what to do about Hezbollah than Aoun does. Everyone is aware that a resort to force could quickly degenerate into civil conflict and turn into a stalemate, which would have catastrophic consequences for the country, but also for the armed forces and its unity. Barrack himself acknowledged this in his interview, when he pointed out that Aoun sought to avoid a civil war. While he accepted that the armed forces were seen as the “best, neutral, reliable mediator,” they also faced “severe funding shortages due to Lebanon’s economic collapse.” So, the envoy has been far less gung-ho than many Lebanese have, and Barrack’s use of the term “mediator,” instead of “enforcer,” in describing the military was revealing.
So, what is to be done? While Aoun has good instincts in approaching the Hezbollah problem cautiously, one thing he doesn’t seem to have is a plan. The distinct sense is that he and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam do not appear to be working in tandem on this question, which is an added obstacle. Instead, from the start, the president has said that he would engage in a dialogue with Hezbollah on his own. Now he has to put his money where his mouth is and show he can advance on this front.
However, a dialogue is meaningless if it fails to define clear targets. Aoun, first, has to determine how far Hezbollah is willing to go in accepting that the state achieve a monopoly over weapons. If the party equivocates, it means that it is effectively challenging the sovereignty of the state, on which the president cannot compromise. In this situation, it makes sense to do several things: build a consensus nationally around the state’s authority to alone hold weapons, and formalize this in a national forum that includes a wide range of political parties and civil society figures. Since the president does not want to make it appear that he is only targeting Hezbollah and the Shiite community, such a forum could address all armed groups outside the control of the state, including Palestinian groups. In that way, Hezbollah’s refusal to disarm would only isolate it further, while giving the president leverage to initiate a dialogue with a specific timetable and objectives.
In parallel to this, Aoun has to continue to narrow Hezbollah’s margin of maneuver within the state, so that it gradually controls fewer outposts than previously. Aoun has acted fairly aggressively at Beirut airport and port, as well as in the southern suburbs of the capital and in the south, but if the party resists efforts by the state to widen the enforcement of its legitimate authority, the president would be justified in raising the heat. Hezbollah may precipitate a confrontation, but all the better, since the party would come out of any such clash more debilitated nationally than it already is. It cannot afford this when the Sunni community feels a new sense of confidence, Israel continues to attack Hezbollah targets, and the Shiite community is eager to return to some sort of normalcy after nearly two years of conflict and suffering.
Aoun may hesitate to take on another important initiative, but it is necessary to communicate with Iran to discuss Hezbollah’s future. By and large, the party’s destiny is in Iranian hands, so it makes sense for the Lebanese authorities to discuss the matter with Iran at the state level. There is absolutely no reason that Hezbollah should dictate the country’s ties with Tehran. Armed with a national consensus behind its monopoly over weapons, the state should engage with a range of regional actors to fulfill this objective, which makes its deliberations with Iran so necessary. It may not work, of course, but Aoun could at least discern whether the Iranians are looking for some form of quid pro quo that facilitates Hezbollah’s disarmament, some kind of wedge that would allow the dialogue with the party to succeed.
In other words, even if Aoun does not have a clear plan today, he is in a good position to accumulate cards, both national and regional, that strengthen his hand. Sitting and talking with Mohammed Raad, the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, is not going to achieve much unless the party feels that the state enjoys both domestic and regional backing even as Hezbollah is losing ground.
The Lebanese also have to engage in a broad second track of negotiations, which will have significant influence over their dialogue with Hezbollah—this time with Syria. They have hesitated to take this path, as Aoun and Salam appear to disagree over such talks. Yet unless both men can agree on normalizing relations with Damascus and reassure Hezbollah that the state is capable of protecting all its citizens, including the Shiite community, from potential Syrian actions, Hezbollah will use the pretext of a Sunni jihadi threat from next door to hold on to its weapons.
If this means finding a quick resolution to the Syrian prisoners being held in Lebanon—a major bone of contention between Beirut and Damascus—then it must be high on the agenda. At the same time, Lebanon must intervene more forcefully against cross-border smugglers, another Syrian priority, on the assumption that this is a key dimension of the state’s efforts to regain full control over issues affecting its sovereignty. All this may not shake Hezbollah’s commitment to retaining its weapons, but it could very well weaken the foundations on which the party’s stubbornness rests, while giving Aoun and Salam valuable cards to play.
Yet there are several issues that remain unclear. Is Aoun willing to push against a Shiite community whose support his candidates would need if he decided to build up a loyal parliamentary bloc in next year’s elections? Is Israel interested in seeing the Lebanese state accomplish its goal of disarming Hezbollah, when it prefers to bring about the fragmentation of Arab countries that surround it—above all Syria but also Lebanon? In other words, would it be willing to carry out confidence-building measures by withdrawing from select locations in the south, giving Aoun more credibility by showing the state can liberate occupied land without violence?
And perhaps most importantly, where does the United States stand? Barrack refused to give Lebanon guarantees on his latest visit, suggesting the Americans will not drift far from Israel’s agenda in the country. But what does that mean? The envoy was lucid in his National interview about the difficulties Lebanon faces, so how much effort are the Americans willing to put into enabling a positive outcome in the negotiations with Hezbollah? If they are so keen to see Iran’s regional network of allies dismantled, why not make this a part of their negotiations with Iran, something they have pointedly avoided doing? Lebanese officials can surely perform better than they have until now, but they cannot resolve all the country’s problems on their own.
