The stars may appear to have aligned in Lebanon’s favor. In reality, they have merely aligned with Lebanon’s enduring realities. Only those who misunderstand the country believe otherwise.
For more than sixty years, Lebanon’s destiny was repeatedly subordinated to regional ideologies and ambitions. Today, for the first time in generations, the country has an opportunity to return to its natural strategic place. Not through wishful thinking, but through a rare convergence of leadership, geopolitical realities, and national resolve.
For the first time in more than six decades, Lebanon appears to have found itself in the company of people who understand what Lebanon is, rather than what others wish it to be.
President Trump, Secretary Rubio, Special Representative for Lebanon Morgan Ortagus, Senator Graham (RIP), Republican congressional leaders and mainstream lawmakers, Ambassador Issa, Ambassador Moawad, Delegate Karam, countless friends of Lebanon, and many Lebanese Americans who have managed to keep both their principles and their souls exactly where they belong, have collectively helped create the conditions for Lebanon to begin breaking free from the regional shackles successively imposed by Nasser, Arafat, the Assads, and finally the mullahs of Tehran.
Ironically, preserving those shackles became the default posture of much of the Democratic foreign-policy establishment and the woke “intelligentsia” toward Lebanon.
Just as importantly, Iran – and many of its eager international enablers, President Macron among them, have increasingly found themselves pushed out of a process they spent years trying to dominate. For once, the conversation is beginning to return to where it should have been all along.
Lebanon was never naturally destined to become the Mediterranean headquarters of every revolutionary fantasy imported from the region. By history, temperament, commerce, and culture, it was always better suited to be a dependable ally of a freedom-minded Republican America, a culturally confident and strategically realistic Europe, and an increasingly modern Arab world.
That does not mean the obstacles have disappeared. But the script has finally changed.
Washington still has its share of ideological tourists. Some come from the performative left, others from the newly fashionable isolationist right. Whether they speak the language of woke morality or populist realism, too many – including figures such as Tucker Carlson, Ambassador Barrack, the task force crowd, and their Lebanese-American counterparts, continue to mistake perpetual ambiguity for sophisticated policy.
Washington remains populated by an impressive collection of people who can discuss Lebanon endlessly without ever intellectually arriving in Lebanon.
Washington remains populated by an impressive collection of people who can discuss Lebanon endlessly without ever intellectually arriving in Lebanon.
Many have built entire careers around preserving fictional “stability” while avoiding actual peace. Some do it for influence, or money, others for career advancement, and still others simply because admitting they were wrong would require an emotional skill set they never acquired. They endlessly translate Axis talking points into polished English and call it strategic thinking.
Beirut, naturally, manages to outperform Washington in this particular discipline.
Against that backdrop, President Aoun has quietly accomplished something few imagined possible. Despite operating within an establishment still burdened by ideological rot and its associated corruption, despite an entourage that too often mistakes choreography for strategy, and despite having only Speaker Berri as his indispensable negotiating counterpart, he has managed to unlock the Axis chains that have restrained Lebanon for decades.
The stars may appear to have aligned in Lebanon’s favor. In reality, they have merely aligned with Lebanon’s enduring realities. Only those who misunderstand the country believe otherwise.
The stars may appear to have aligned in Lebanon’s favor. In reality, they have merely aligned with Lebanon’s enduring realities. Only those who misunderstand the country believe otherwise.
Prime Minister Salam’s steady patriotism, Governor Soueid’s unwavering integrity, and Minister Rajji’s strategic clarity have each proven indispensable. Without them, the task would have been considerably more difficult, perhaps impossible.
Even Speaker Berri, while understandably jittery, appears to have quietly cooperated. Then again, his alternatives have become increasingly limited.
More importantly, beneath the country’s layers of ethical bankruptcy and political exhaustion still exists a relatively small but remarkably capable group of public servants, diplomats, professionals, and citizens who continue to prove that Lebanon’s fatalism has always been exaggerated.
History rarely changes because everyone suddenly becomes enlightened. It changes because enough serious people decide the old script has become unbearable. President Trump has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to discard inherited assumptions. President Aoun now appears determined to do the same.
There is little reason for apology and every reason for confidence. Professional complainers, after all, are a renewable resource.
If Lebanon’s leadership, and ultimately the majority of its people, choose to finish what has finally begun, this moment may come to be remembered as both an ending and a beginning.
If Lebanon’s leadership, and ultimately the majority of its people, choose to finish what has finally begun, this moment may come to be remembered as both an ending and a beginning.
The end of the Axis. The beginning of Lebanon.
For decades, the Axis believed Lebanon’s future was to become another province of its revolutionary project. Perhaps history simply misplaced the labels.
The end, it turns out, belongs to them. The beginning belongs to Lebanon.
Eli Khoury is the publisher of NOW and is a co-founder of the Lebanon Renaissance Foundation. He is on Twitter @eli_khoury.
