In the conundrum of ongoing Middle East peace talks, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun is trying to remind the warring parties in the current Middle East wars that his country is also important.
He worries because two powerful adversaries, Iran and the United States, seem to regard Lebanon as a kind of sideshow to the main event of their conflict. Iran sees its military aid and diplomatic protection of its proxy ally Hezbollah as key to its status as a regional power. “The efforts of the brave Lebanese fighters and Iran’s powerful diplomacy will guarantee the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the beloved Lebanon,” said Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran’s parliament.
US President Donald Trump does not seem to accept Lebanon’s concerns. He expresses concern about Israel’s bombing of Lebanon and complains that all Israel seems to know is to “bomb buildings.” Last Sunday, as Israel continued to bomb, Vice President JS Vance, who is overseeing peace negotiations with Iran, told Israel that it “cannot kill your way to solving every single national security problem.”
Hence Aoun’s appeal for attention. He demanded that Iran stop interfering in Lebanon through its military arms support for Hezbollah. “It’s not your country, it’s our country,” he said, adding, “You’re not trying to help us. It’s the Lebanese who are paying the price for your interests, and our interests don’t coincide with yours. We’re tired and we want to live in peace.”
After receiving a weekend phone call from Vance about the US negotiations the US was expected to hold with Iran, Aoun pointedly said: “We welcome any help to end the war, but we distinguish between help and interference in internal affairs. We are a sovereign country and nobody negotiates on our behalf.”
Lebanon is sending envoys to Washington on Tuesday, June 22, for talks with Israel. Aoun wants the focus to be on two issues: Hezbollah to disarm and Israel to leave the country.
But on Monday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Aoun’s demands on him. “My directive and that of the Minister of Defense for the Israeli Defense Forces is clear,” Netanyahu said. “Our fighters in southern Lebanon have full freedom of action to thwart any direct or apparent threat to them or to the residents of the north (of Israel). The IDF has no restrictions in this regard.”
This week’s talks mark the fourth round of negotiations that Trump ordered Netanyahu and Aoun to organize this year. Israel has proposed that the Lebanese army disarm Hezbollah. Israel, which intends to keep forces in southern Lebanon indefinitely, would provide muscle if Hezbollah resists.
Aoun says Israel’s demands are unrealistic. Lebanon’s army is ill-trained and ill-equipped. Moreover, such a move is likely to lead to internal strife. Shiites make up 40% of the force; it is unlikely that they will join a battle against Hezbollah.
“Any controversial internal issue in Lebanon can only be addressed through dialogue and conciliatory, non-confrontational communication. If not, we will lead Lebanon to destruction,” Aoun said delicately. “We cannot allow the country to descend into another civil war.”
Such fears reflect experience. The past two attempts to contain Hezbollah only exposed the government’s weakness and Hezbollah’s determination to hold on to its weapons. In the first case, in the early 1980s, the government ordered the army to crack down on Muslim militias. Shiites deserted or refused orders en masse.
In the second case, in 2008, the government ordered a secret communications network operated by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon to be dismantled. The government also demanded that Hezbollah end its use of Beirut airport as a secret transit point for weapons from Iran. Hezbollah sent its forces, along with other allies, to capture the predominantly Sunni Islamic center of West Beirut. The government capitulated.
‘Pay the price’
Mahmoud Qamati, a Hezbollah leader, has threatened that “a confrontation with political authority is inevitable after the war” and vowed that Lebanese officials involved with Israel “will pay the price for their betrayal”.
Naim Qassem, the current leader of Hezbollah, said efforts to disarm Hezbollah would lead to a “serious crisis”.
“There will be no life in Lebanon,” he added.
Lebanon’s sectarian political system, in which representation is divided between the Christian, Sunni Muslim and Shia Muslim populations, arose during the long Ottoman and French rule. It was transferred to the independence of Lebanon in 1945. The presidency is run by a Christian, the prime ministers are Sunni and the speaker of the parliament Shia. The bureaucracy is also divided along sectarian lines. Druze, a 6% minority, are guaranteed parliamentary seats and bureaucratic jobs.
Aiming to reduce confessional conflict, the system instead cemented religious-political rivalries that turned violent with alarming regularity.
Foreigners contributed to the unrest, and worse. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, to expel the Palestine Liberation Organization, based in Beirut, but also to install Christian leader Bashir Gemayel as president, in the hope that he would sign a permanent peace treaty with the Jewish state.
Syria blew up that scheme by arranging Gemayel’s assassination. The guerrillas drove Israeli forces into southern Lebanon, which they occupied for 18 years.
Enter Iran
The south is the heart of Lebanon’s Shiite population; Iran is also a predominantly Shiite country and, along with Syria, supports the Hezbollah-led revolt. Israel, unable to subdue Hezbollah, withdrew from the south in 2000.
Hezbollah did not disband, but found a new, perhaps somewhat false, mission: to drive Israel out of a small territory known as the Sheba Farms. The area is located on the edge of the Golan Heights, territory that Israel took from Syria in the Six Day War of 1967. Syria suddenly decided that the Lebanese could have a claim to Sheba Farms. Hezbollah decided to “liberate” him.
From then on, frequent border skirmishes and occasional full-scale warfare broke out between Israel and Hezbollah. Iran enhanced Hezbollah’s mission, calling it “forward protection” of an “axis of resistance” that includes Hamas in the Golan Heights and the Houthis in Yemen.
This is the story facing Aoun. Could a separate peace between the US and Iran also spell the end of Hezbollah?
