Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s historic meeting with President Donald Trump in the White House on Tuesday went spectacularly well, delivering almost everything Beirut had hoped for. But Mr Aoun’s real test lies at home, where he must persuade a wary public that disarming Hezbollah will not drag Lebanon back into civil war.
Mr Aoun came to Washington with the objective, or at least hope, of securing three things from Mr Trump: his continued political investment in Lebanon, pressure on Israel to co-operate on withdrawing from Lebanese territory and his support for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). He nearly got all three (I say nearly because there are obvious limits to the second).
Now, the onus is on Mr Aoun to build on this momentum and show how serious he is about disarming Hezbollah, the biggest obstacle to Lebanon’s political and physical rehabilitation.
I have known Mr Aoun personally since his days commanding the LAF. I am confident he is determined to do everything he can to regain the Lebanese state’s sovereignty. But the reality is that the Lebanese government as a whole has been cautious – indeed too cautious – with its approach to disarm Hezbollah because of its perceptions of the risks involved.
Like parts of Lebanese society, the Lebanese government worries that an uncompromising approach to Hezbollah’s weapons could lead to two scenarios: the return of civil war and the disintegration of the LAF along sectarian lines.
When I saw him the day before his White House meeting, Mr Aoun told me he didn’t believe those risks were high. But it’s not enough for him to believe that. He needs to communicate that to the Lebanese people and to everyone involved in implementing the Framework Agreement with Israel including the leadership of the LAF.
Mr Aoun deserves credit for conducting fruitful personal diplomacy with Mr Trump, putting Lebanon on the US agenda and launching negotiations with Israel. But he mustn’t neglect the home front, which remains core to any kind of lasting stability. A weak or divided Lebanon can easily torpedo any progress Mr Aoun makes abroad.
As much as he hates it (and I know he does), Mr Aoun has to get his hands dirty in Lebanese politics and build a large enough political coalition and support base to be able to keep pressing on Hezbollah’s arms.
There’s no better way to do that than by speaking directly to the Lebanese people and dispelling the myths of the return of civil war and the split of the LAF.
The memories of Lebanon’s long, bloody and traumatic civil war from 1975 to 1990, which led to approximately 150,000 fatalities, are enough to paralyse any Lebanese leader.
But today, no one in Lebanon, not even Hezbollah, can afford a return to arms on such a large scale. All sides understand the enormous costs of such a gamble. Contrast this with the past when Lebanese militias, sponsored by foreign countries, believed they could gain from fighting.
For all its military might, Hezbollah doesn’t have enough men to occupy or govern the country. Its combat power has suffered as a result of Israeli strikes over the past couple of years. Several of its political leaders and military commanders have been killed by the Israeli military. Its freedom of movement in southern Lebanon is much reduced due to frequent Israeli attacks, and its supply routes are vastly constrained following the loss of a friendly regime in Damascus in 2024.
Hezbollah is also in relatively bad financial shape with more Lebanese banks restricting doing business with it, which could constrain its recruitment capacity. The group may also have to contend with Syrian President Ahmad Al Sharaa’s fighters should it do battle with Lebanese Sunnis. The Syrian leader wasn’t enthusiastic about Mr Trump’s proposal of sending the Syrian army to Lebanon to take on Hezbollah (which he repeated in the Oval Office today), but he could change his mind if a holy war is imposed on his Lebanese co-religionists next door.
Lastly, the Lebanese army will be a factor in any renewed civil war scenario. It has enough capabilities and professional training, courtesy of the US, to impose significant costs on the group and prevent it from achieving its objectives in a national fight.
The Lebanese army disintegrated along sectarian lines in the civil war because all of its components – Muslim, Christian and Druze – opted to follow their communal leaders and join armed militias. Today, while Shiites comprise a large minority in the army’s rank and file, and more still in the units now deploying to the south, only those personally loyal to Hezbollah are likely to break ranks. Unlike in the past, the Lebanese army can survive a split from some representatives of a single sectarian community.
None of this means, of course, that sectarian unrest is unlikely. Continued political instability and localised sectarian clashes can be expected under the current circumstances, but they are unlikely to expand and escalate because many of the conditions that fuelled civil war in the past including foreign intervention and the militarisation of Lebanese society do not exist today and are unlikely to reappear.
Now compare all this with the scenario of allowing Hezbollah to keep its arms. Already, the costs, which must be calculated over the last couple of decades, have been enormous. Thousands of Lebanese have been killed, more have been injured and displaced, all because of Hezbollah’s pointless wars with Israel. Homes, schools, power plants and physical infrastructure have been destroyed in the south, in the Bekaa and in the southern suburbs of Beirut. All of this has resulted in tremendous economic pain contributing to financial collapse.
This will continue and most probably get worse should the issue of Hezbollah’s arms continue to be managed. Israel will keep occupying vast swathes of southern Lebanon and bombing the country whenever it perceives a Hezbollah threat. More Lebanese will die, flee their homes, and be unemployed. More southern villages will vanish. More buildings in Beirut will collapse.
With Hezbollah disarmed, Lebanon has a chance at a new life. With it staying armed, Lebanon will remain mired in conflict, debt and despair. There are risks to disarming Hezbollah but when compared to the alternative, they are more bearable. Mr Aoun shares this conviction, but he needs to clearly relay that message to nervous Lebanese.
