BEIRUT — High atop a hill overlooking the Mediterranean, the Baabda Palace stands as a modernist monument to a state that is currently struggling to exist. It was here, just last August, that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun a man who describes himself as a born optimist laid out a vision for a country where the state held a “monopoly on arms.”
Today, that optimism is being buried under the rubble of “Black Wednesday.”
As Lebanon is once again engulfed by a multi-front war involving Israel, Hezbollah, and the shadow of Iran, the central government finds itself in a familiar, tragic position: responsible for a population it cannot protect and a militia it cannot control.
The Illusion of the Ceasefire
The current carnage follows the collapse of a fragile November 2024 ceasefire. While that deal was intended to end the skirmishes between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, it never truly took hold. Israel continued “precision” strikes; Hezbollah maintained its presence.
The spark that turned a simmer into a boil occurred in February, when the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East was upended. Following the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a US-Israeli bombardment of Tehran, Hezbollah abandoned all pretense of a ceasefire, launching massive rocket barrages into Israel.
The Israeli response has been a relentless ground invasion and an aerial campaign that has displaced over 1.2 million people—nearly a quarter of the Lebanese population.
A President with No Cards
President Aoun, a former army chief, has attempted to navigate the impossible. He has proposed direct negotiations with Israel a radical move for a nation that technically remains at war with its southern neighbor. However, the reality on the ground renders his diplomacy nearly toothless.
The Disarmament Deadlock
The fundamental crisis remains Hezbollah’s arsenal. While a recent Gallup poll suggests that nearly 80% of Lebanese want only the national army to carry weapons, the country is split along deep sectarian lines:
- Christians, Druze, and Sunnis: Overwhelmingly support disarmament.
- Shia Muslims: More than two-thirds oppose it, viewing Hezbollah as their only defense against Israeli occupation.
“You can’t come to the Shia community and impose this by force,” explains Michael Young of the Carnegie Center in Beirut. “The army doesn’t have the capacity to go into every home. The government is without any cards.”
The “Resistance” vs. The State
For Hezbollah, disarmament is an existential impossibility. The group is the crown jewel of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance.” Analysts argue that any decision to lay down arms would be made in Tehran, not Beirut.
With Israeli forces now pushing to create a “buffer zone” in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah’s narrative—that the state is too weak to defend its own borders only gains more traction among its base.
“If you remove the military component, the organization becomes something else entirely,” says Nicholas Blanford, author of Warriors of God. “This is its beating heart.”
A State of Permanent Crisis
In Beirut’s Ain Mreisseh neighborhood, the exhaustion is palpable. Residents who survived the 2006 war and the 2020 port explosion now watch as “Black Wednesday” brings destruction to areas previously considered safe.
“All my life, I’ve had the feeling that we’re in a continuous war,” says resident Mohammed Hamoud, staring at a collapsed apartment block.
As ambassadors prepare to meet in Washington this Tuesday, the question remains: Can a ceasefire hold if the Lebanese government cannot guarantee the actions of the most powerful force within its own borders? For now, Lebanon remains a country caught between a “resistance” that won’t retreat and an invasion that won’t end.
