Bustani Seminar: Lebanon in the shadow of Gaza and in light of a new Syria

Hussein Ibish

Senior Resident Scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute                         

(AGSI)

After over two years without a president, in January the Lebanese parliament elected former Lebanese Armed Forces Chief of Staff Joseph Aoun the country's head of state. The deadlock, largely caused by Hezbollah's implausible but insistent efforts to install its ally Suleiman Frangieh, was largely broken by the extreme weakening of the Iranian-backed Shiite party in its disastrously miscalculated confrontation with Israel, sparked by the post-October 7 2023 Gaza war. This sudden degradation of Hezbollah as a paramilitary organization, and concomitant political waning, could open a new opportunity for the revival and strengthening of the Lebanese state. Yet this potential opportunity – with the necessary determination of a wide range of national leaders not yet in evidence – has come at an enormous cost to the country, especially its devastated south. And it will require not merely considerable external diplomatic and financial support, but also a favorable regional strategic and political environment. The most significant factor will almost certainly be developments in Syria following the downfall of the 54-year-long Assad family dictatorship. The emerging order in Syria will, as always, play a heavy role in what may be possible in Lebanon, with scenarios ranging from the development of a stable and tolerant new order that can play a constructive role in Lebanese as well as Syrian reconstruction, to renewed Syrian civil conflict and national fragmentation that can spread into northern Lebanon and beyond. Meanwhile, neighbors like Israel and Iran remain eager to meddle with and take advantage of any opportunities they can find in the Lebanese quest for greater state integration and reconstruction. This talk will examine these dynamics as an integrated, textured web of urgent but unanswered questions, teasing out various possibilities and imponderables that will help shape the near-term future for the long-suffering Lebanese people.