Lebanon 'on the Edge of a Knife'... Explosion for the Region or Thaw

It is not normal for Lebanon to be forced to live on the “edge of the sword,” whether war with Iran erupts or de-escalates, since this front has effectively become the master of its reality. There is a fear that Beirut’s official insistence on prolonging the management of the “Hezbollah” weapons file through appeasement, hoping that the fate of the “parent front” will become clear and thus facilitate the task, may instead turn the small nation into a hostage to intersecting and contradictory calculations, potentially making it the weakest link in any reconciliation process. This is especially true because the strongest card in any political “settlement” for a diplomatic resolution lies in Tehran’s hands, while Lebanon will not “escape” the consequences if a final clash occurs.

Although Lebanon “slipped away” about six months ago by launching direct negotiations with Israel under US sponsorship, thereby evading Tehran’s attempt to cement its orbit in both war and peace by insisting on linking its path to the Islamabad talks to secure a place for itself on the “day after” on its front and a seat at the table of the region’s new power delineation, the “headwinds” accompanying these talks—caused by Tehran and Hezbollah withholding the weapon card from the state and subsequently “digging under” its negotiating chair, culminating in the shuffling of cards brought about by the Knesset election results and the US midterm elections—have made the risks of war and settlement in the region nearly equal for a country that often finds itself caught in crises like a “saw,” paying the price for both being drawn into them and exiting them.

At a highly sensitive transitional moment domestically in the US and Israel, amid the great ambiguity enveloping the Iran front—which Marco Rubio describes as “unproductive” and whose demands are “absurd”—and with President Donald Trump linking the possibility of a return to military operations to the outcome of negotiations, Lebanon “from above” appears to be watching from a distance the reshaping of the political reality inside Tel Aviv, the appointment of Gadi Eisenkot to form the government, and the White House’s renewed efforts to organize its house and administrative ranks to confront the Democrats in both chambers of Congress, without wasting all the work done in the first half of his second term, particularly regarding the Middle East and the Tehran file.

Meanwhile, “from below,” Lebanon’s anxiety grows that it may find itself “caught between the jaws of a vice” if Trump, before January 3, opts for a military choice. Such a move could only take one of two forms: either similar to what has occurred since the confrontation escalated, which will not change Tehran’s stubbornness, as it now treats the US President as “defeated and cornered” after the November 3 defeat; or it could take the form of a crushing strike that leaves no room for survival for Iran and its regime, without any...

Lebanese political circles no longer hide their concern that a partial US confrontation with Tehran, as a prelude to an understanding on “US withdrawal” from the war, could have negative repercussions for Lebanon. This is because failing to counter Iran’s “non-nuclear” instruments of influence in the region through its proxies will place the “Islamic Republic” in a more comfortable position to manage these proxies with the mindset of “the great power could not prevail over me,” thereby striking at the very “political structure” of Lebanon’s narrative, which was built on a choice between an “Israeli war to end Hezbollah’s weapons” and a “civil war to remove them.”

In this scenario, namely a half-confrontation with Iran, Israeli officials—most likely Benny Gantz—will likely be no less tolerant than Benjamin Netanyahu regarding weapons that threaten Israel’s security. Meanwhile, the internal clash in Lebanon may stem from an attempt by Hezbollah to compensate for the atrophy of its political standing and to undermine the process of dismantling its arsenal, which is governed by government decisions, particularly if the US “withdrawal settlement” has opened the door to exchanges and understandings that grant Israel security and Hezbollah restored internal influence, at the expense of the long-awaited state sovereignty.

As for the “Big Explosion” scenario, it is fraught with the risk of Iran activating all its arms, down to its last strategic missile and drone, in a “kill or be killed” battle. There is a conviction that the cost of this confrontation for Lebanon will be the highest, given that Israel has defined the geography of its incursion up to Sidon and resumed targeting Beirut’s southern suburbs. Whether Gantz, who engineered the “Southern Suburb Doctrine” about 20 years ago, forms his government in the coming hours and days, or whether Netanyahu remains in a caretaker capacity, the horizon of such a scenario remains open to even worse possibilities for Lebanon, both on the Israeli front and domestically.

At a time when Prime Minister Nawaf Salam reiterated that “the priority at this stage is to protect Lebanon and preserve its security and stability, and to avoid dragging it into any new war,” these circles viewed calls for bilateral dialogues “between every two parties that have differences between them,” as quoted from Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, as an extension of an attempt to address the issue of Hezbollah’s arsenal from a political rather than an executive perspective, based on government decisions that have become a benchmark of the Lebanese state’s commitment. This approach aims to encourage external actors, whom Beirut wants to pressure Israel to withdraw from the south and facilitate the implementation of the trilateral “Framework Agreement” signed under the umbrella of direct negotiations between the two countries. It suggests that Washington’s interest in the Lebanese reality may take a regressive turn in light of new domestic priorities in the United States and a hardline stance on all matters related to Hezbollah and those who condone it.

The expulsion of Lebanese Consul in Michigan Ibrahim Sharara (following statements and digital posts praising the bombing of the US Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut in 1983) was considered the first sign of a new protocol in dealings with Beirut. According to information cited by the Central News Agency, the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, since the beginning of reports about Sharara publishing positions on the platform X supporting Hezbollah, as well as his participation in certain events such as the AAPAC dinner and electoral meetings contrary to diplomatic traditions, activated the relevant departments, which decided to summon him to issue a warning in this regard. However, the US State Department preceded Lebanon by declaring Sharara a person persona non grata.

According to this information, Foreign Minister Youssef Raji immediately dispatched Ambassador Sami Al-Munir to Detroit following the US decision, on a mission related to completing consular affairs and following up on the affairs of the large Lebanese community in the city of Michigan, in respect of the US decision and Lebanon’s commitment to international agreements and diplomatic protocols stipulated in the Vienna Convention.