Raja’a is a displaced 63-year-old widow from south Lebanon who has been praying for a ceasefire deal to end the devastating war between Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah and Israel. To date, the conflict has killed thousands and caused over 1 million Lebanese to flee their homes. As the winter months set in on the Lebanese mountains Raja’a, whose name means hope, grew more desperate. Her phone calls have become more frequent. “Firas my dear, do you think peace is near? I’m cold.”
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]The U.S.-brokered truce that Lebanon signed on to and Israel’s war cabinet backed today, is a far cry from any kind of “divine victory” Hezbollah proclaimed after its last major war with Israel in 2006. A leaked draft indicates the group will be required to withdraw its heavy weaponry from south Lebanon, a key Israeli demand. The deal also creates an American-led monitoring and enforcement mechanism to verify that withdrawal, and to prevent Iran from replenishing the group’s historically formidable arsenal.
But will U.S. supervision and guarantees bring lasting stability to this volatile Lebanon-Israel border? Or will it prove to be just another intermission between wars as Hezbollah regroups now that its leadership has been decapitated?
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Israel is skeptical. The arrangement that ended the July 2006 war, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, was largely left unenforced. In its wake, Hezbollah grew exponentially stronger as Iran furnished it with ballistic missiles and precision-guided munitions while U.N. peacekeepers and the Lebanese Armed Forces looked the other way.
To address these concerns, the U.S. has reportedly provided Israel a side-letter of assurance that consents to continued aerial reconnaissance over Lebanon, and Tel Aviv’s right to strike at emerging threats if the monitoring and enforcement mechanism fail. Senior Israeli officials have privately told their American counterparts, “We will do less if the mechanism does more, but we will have to do more if it ultimately does less.”
But Washington’s assurances and the U.S.-led monitoring mechanism can only do so much without a willing and capable partner in Beirut, a Lebanese government that is ready to work with the international community to expand the state’s sovereignty, enforce border controls, and curb what remains of Hezbollah’s military might.
The Lebanese army is the most respected institution in an otherwise diverse and sectarian country. But it cannot be the required partner without political directives from a sovereign-minded President. Even if the two-year-old presidential vacuum in Lebanon comes to an end, the country cannot possibly work with international donors to undertake the mammoth task of reconstruction without a reformist government—one that no longer consents to Hezbollah’s brandishing of Iranian arms under the rubric of resistance to Israel.
Amos Hochstein, the charismatic U.S. envoy leading the ceasefire talks, has largely shied away from Lebanon’s archaic internal affairs and the question of the day after. Much more is required, not only to reboot the stalled political process in Beirut, but also to prevent Lebanon from backsliding into civil strife, as it did following the last major Hezbollah-Israel war. In 2008, the militant group launched a military assault against a Lebanese government that tried to limit its power.
Lebanon is a country that will need active management to achieve any sustained progress. Before Washington is fully consumed by the inauguration of Donald Trump in January, Hochstein would do well to enlist the help of France and Saudi Arabia, U.S. partners who have traditionally wielded significant influence in Lebanon and who have a long track record of mediating between the bickering Lebanese parties.
France has been grudgingly watching from the sidelines as Hochstein asserted American leadership at the expense of French diplomacy over its former protectorate. But in the days ahead, as the guns finally fall silent, Hochstein should support Paris and encourage it to resume talks with the disparate Lebanese factions to end years of political gridlock that have crippled state institutions and left the economy in tatters.
The Saudis, who hosted and facilitated the talks that ended the 15-year Lebanese civil war in 1990, have also been hands-off, foregoing a role in Lebanon to focus on their country’s unprecedented economic and social transformation. But they too now have an interest in stepping up, realizing that progress on their vision of regional integration and normalization with Israel will depend on durable ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza.
Both the Saudis and the French maintain a pragmatic, if still largely adversarial, relationship with Iran. This will matter for the politics surrounding a diminished, but still significant Iranian role in Lebanon and the region.
When French President Emanuel Macron visits Saudi Arabia on a landmark state visit in early December, he should propose co-hosting a post-war national dialogue of Lebanese leaders under American, French, and Saudi patronage to reboot Beirut’s stalled politics, and to set clear conditions for the billions of U.S. dollars needed for reconstruction. And as Trump returns to office next year, appointing a capable successor to Hochstein to work with all the parties should be a foreign policy priority.
The Italian political philosopher Antonio Gramsci famously warned that a great variety of morbid symptoms appear in the interregnum that occurs when the old is dying and the new cannot yet be born. We must beware of what might follow a much-anticipated Israel-Lebanon ceasefire if Beirut is left unattended.
If the millions like Raja’a, a second mother to me, return to shattered villages with no prospect of rebuilding and little hope of a dignified existence, Hochstein’s ceasefire won’t last long.
