By General Monzer Al Ayoubi
Translation: Dr Pierre A. Sarkis
In major wars, the facts are read not only from the resonating sounds of cannons, but also from the articles written by think tanks that try to foresee the shape of the world after the dust of the battle has dissipated.
In his article written in the Los Angeles Times, Robert Satloff put forward the remarkable idea that “the strategic goal of the ongoing war in the Middle East is to limit Iran’s influence, and that Lebanon might be the most capable arena for making a breakthrough towards peace, if Washington decides to capitalize on the political moment.”
The second complication lies in the nature of the Lebanese system itself.
Lebanon is not a centralized state with a simple decision-making process, but rather a complicated complex political entity where sectarian considerations, internal balances and historical memories of wars and internal strife intersect. Therefore, any radical shift in its foreign policy cannot be carried out by an external decision or regional pressure alone, but requires a deep internal consensus that goes beyond the immediate calculations of political forces.
The third complication is related to the calculations of the regional powers involved. For Tehran, the presence of an allied force on Israel’s northern borders constitutes a strategic deterrent card that is difficult to abandon without major political rewards, especially after the fall of the former Syrian regime. On the other hand, Israel views the Lebanese front as possibly the most dangerous missiles front, making it its primary priority to eliminate the military threat before considering any long-term political path.
At the intersection of these calculations, the area appears to be on a seismic divide. Every attempt to rebalance itself automatically opens up new questions about the future of the entire regional system. However, the mere mention of the idea of a Lebanese-Israeli peace in some Western intellectual circles carries important political significance. For decades, the country has been an arena of proxy conflict and is now emerging in some analysis as a potential conduit for broader Middle East settlements. Moreover, the region’s historical experience says that peace is born not only from a shift in the balance of power, but from a moment of collective realization that the continuation of conflict far outweighs its benefits and that it has become more costly than ending it. So far, this moment does not seem to have fully matured in all the capital cities of the different parties involved.
It remains that Lebanon, by virtue of its geographical location and its existing system, remains indefinitely at the heart of the regional equation, whether as a line of contact between competing power ventures or as a potential bridge towards unclear settlements. It is in this East that the junction of the strategies of the major powers exist. The question that imposes itself is not only whether Lebanon can become a gateway to regional peace, but whether it is able to endure its internal qualitative weight after decades of massacres and atrocities committed by the Israeli enemy, and at the same time protect and preserve its existence.
*Retired General Monzer Ayoubi
Scholar in Security and Strategic Affairs
