Hezbollah’s options are running out Will a new president save Lebanon?

Joseph Khalil Aoun. He’s mostly unknown outside his native Lebanon, but is already helping transform the Middle East. Having previously served as the head of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), the new Lebanese President has been quick to make his ambitions clear, pledging to tackle corruption, improve judicial independence, and bolster institutions like the country’s internal security forces, as well as negotiate the withdrawal of Israeli troops from his country’s territory.

Enjoying the backing of both the US and Saudi Arabia, Aoun certainly has more hope of success than his predecessors, even as the Lebanese themselves are desperate for change after years of political sclerosis. In the end, though, Aoun will likely be judged on one policy alone — his implicit promise to finally disarm Hezbollah, integrating it into the Lebanese military infrastructure. It likely won’t happen as quickly as Aoun would like. But if the political environment truly begins to shift in that ambitious direction, even with outside help, Lebanon’s exhausted people may finally have something to be optimistic about after all these years.

Given Hezbollah’s long dominance of Lebanese politics, Aoun’s plan would have seemed like a pipedream mere months ago. There’s a reason “The Army, the People, and the Resistance” remained a maxim here for generations. But having been forced to accept an embarrassing ceasefire with Israel, even as its Baathist allies are ousted in Syria and its masters in Tehran are floundering, Hezbollah now has no choice but to accept bad deals like Aoun’s presidency.

Other parties have more reason to cheer. For starters, the Gulf States have gained a foothold in the upper echelons of Lebanese politics. They’ll inevitably use this influence to nudge Beirut away from Hezbollah, and its Iranian paymasters, and toward their own spheres of influence. This process is already underway: Aoun’s first overseas visit as President will be to Riyadh, while the United Arab Emirates has announced it will be reopening its long-shuttered embassy in Beirut. After the end of Lebanon’s civil war in 1990, the wealthy Sunni oil monarchies of the Arab Gulf, particularly Saudi Arabia, started pouring billions into developing Lebanon’s financial sector while propping up powerful proxies in the country’s Sunni sector like the once influential Hariri family. Yet as Hezbollah and Iran’s influence grew and Lebanon’s economy became increasingly toxic, the Gulf states decided to cut their losses — which makes their apparent desire to re-engage now all the more telling.

Especially on the eve of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, meanwhile, the US will gladly use this momentum to pursue its own goals. Washington had been pushing for Aoun’s election even before the November ceasefire that silenced the guns, and his ascension to the presidency is an implicit part of the ceasefire arrangement. As the Biden Administration had rightly perceived, the Israel-Hezbollah war was a rare opportunity to flex its muscles in a Lebanon where the militants had long precluded US influence.

While Iran and its proxies have historically benefited from gaps in formalised state authority in Lebanon, the US and its allies have projected power by centralising governance. With Aoun now at the helm and a tacit new political compact among the Lebanese elite in the making, the US may be able to push the country’s politicians to actually govern — expanding America’s avenues of influence in the process. The impact of this shift is already becoming apparent as, a mere four days after Aoun’s arrival in office, Lebanese parliamentarians have already coalesced around a candidate for Prime Minister, International Court of Justice chief Nawaf Salam, whom Hezbollah had opposed. In the words of one Hezbollah lawmaker, the group had “extended its hand” by allowing Aoun to rise to the presidency, only to find that “hand cut”.

Israel, for its part, has opportunities here too. Though Aoun, the scion of a Christian family from war-ravaged south Lebanon, has spoken passionately about deterring the Jewish State, his words about reinstating the the government’s monopoly on violence were music to Tel Aviv’s ears — which sees his closeness to the US as a vital insurance policy against Hezbollah. Tel Aviv also likely views Aoun’s elevation as a prerequisite for any arrangement that would end its ongoing occupation of southern Lebanese towns, and its continued one-off strikes against alleged Hezbollah targets, potentially opening the door for a longer-term settlement after the ceasefire runs out later this month.

Both Hezbollah and Israel are continuing to drag their feet on fulfilling their ends of the deal by withdrawing north of the Litani River and south of the Lebanese border respectively. And with less than two weeks to go before the ceasefire deadline, tension is rising. But Aoun, with his deep connections across the Lebanese Armed Forces, may be exactly the right person to convince Hezbollah to keep the peace, allowing the LAF to continue moving into areas formerly governed by the militants.

Certainly, it would be in Hezbollah’s interest for Aoun to succeed — and it knows it. One of the main reasons the group’s politicians ultimately felt compelled to give him their blessing, after all, was because his foreign backers are their only path toward funding for reconstruction works in the war-battered Shi’i south. With Iran retreating across the region, Hezbollah can hardly rely on Tehran to help rebuild shattered towns and villages in its strongholds to Lebanon’s south and east, making Aoun’s connections to Gulf financiers absolutely critical. With over 99,000 homes destroyed or damaged and around $2.8 billion in looming reconstruction costs across the country, the task before the group is monumental — but just as it was after its war with Israel in 2006, Hezbollah’s ability to facilitate the recovery of its community will be central for its political future.

Hezbollah had to make a deal with the devil to keep its reputation as a protector of its base alive and well. It’s a pragmatism that seems likely to continue. Quite aside from the eclipse of its Iranian sponsor, its entanglement in Lebanese society means that it can no longer afford to let the country suffer under the combined weight of economic disaster and the ravages of war. Bowing to Western demands, at least in part, has paradoxically become Hezbollah’s only means of survival. Refuse to bend, and Hezbollah’s fundamental promise to be a guarantor of economic and political security for Lebanon’s Shi’a world may start to come apart at the seams, potentially leading some its most weary supporters to turn away from the group in disillusionment.

Nor is it merely the geopolitical runes that seem to be falling in Aoun’s favour. Internally, too, the new President’s sway seems substantial. In addition to projecting power through an emboldened LAF, he’ll have considerable power over what the next Lebanese government actually looks like — especially now that Salam has been all but officially confirmed as the country’s next Prime Minister yesterday in yet another blow to Hezbollah. Though the group is almost certain to hold seats, it and its allies are likely to be outnumbered and outgunned, especially with another leader alongside Aoun who has made a career of earning Hezbollah’s ire. With power of this sort, Aoun and Salam together may finally have the luxury of shaping Lebanon’s politics not at Hezbollah’s behest, but despite it.

Hezbollah clearly won’t wither overnight. That’s clear enough from Aoun’s recent trajectory: the President’s rise to power couldn’t have happened without the militant group’s acquiescence. Hezbollah MPs grudgingly voted for Aoun in the second round of voting, but not before sabotaging the first by submitting blank ballots. Their message was clear: however diminished, our power remains. Hezbollah may also seek to paralyse any new government formed under Salam’s auspices if it doesn’t get what it wants — notably around securing enough posts to maintain veto power — just as it has numerous times before. And even in the (unlikely) best case scenario, a strong government will not be enough to disarm the militants. The group’s weapons remain a golden calf among the group’s base, and even Aoun understands that confiscating them would almost certainly provoke civil war.

But as Hezbollah finds itself with fewer and fewer options, and as US influence continues to grow through the expansion of the LAF, it may find it harder to rebuild its arsenal and prevent the regular army from imposing its will. With the LAF steadily expanding its patrols and permanent presence in Lebanon’s south and along its frontiers, Hezbollah itself will understand that the days when it could treat the LAF like a subservient younger sibling are over, and that it will by necessity need to keep its diminished arsenal far from any areas of LAF operation.

Given how long Hezbollah has dominated Lebanese politics, and the unpredictable ways that its decline could encourage other sectarian groups, predicting the future is challenging. One obvious possibility is that Lebanese Sunni forces muscle ahead, bolstered by Riyadh’s renewed engagement in the country. Even then, there’s the question of whether Hezbollah can fully be disarmed (probably not), and whether Iran can recover from its current weakness (perhaps).

But if Aoun and the LAF do finally succeed in bolstering state authority in the south, and create a defence policy that meaningfully guards against future Israel’s violations of Lebanese sovereignty, Hezbollah may find its arsenal increasingly difficult to maintain — let alone justify politically. With Trump’s maximalist policy of support for Israel on the horizon, meanwhile, there’s hope that Aoun’s presence will guard Lebanon from his worst impulses too.

Even now, of course, disaster could still strike. Aoun’s state-building efforts may finally presage the country’s political, infrastructural, and economic recovery — but on the other hand, Lebanon’s oligarchic system could also unleash the republic’s old fratricidal demons. Change has never come easily to Lebanon, and this time will be no different, no matter which foreign forces call the shots.

---

Michal Kranz is a freelance journalist reporting on politics, society and defence in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. He runs The Eastern Flank, a Substack newsletter focused on Eastern European geopolitics.

Michal_Kranz