“Lebanon Debate” – Political Editor
There are multiple negotiating paths and intertwined international and regional references concerned with the Lebanese file, while the “Tripartite Cell,” “Quartet Operations Rooms,” and “Mechanism” portend more internal complications, which pushes towards transforming Lebanese territory into external centers of influence led by the United States of America, and perhaps the return of “old Lebanon” or Lebanon before the establishment of the central state.
This entanglement leads Lebanon to “negotiated” chaos, as the writer and political analyst Ali Hamadeh calls it, who considers that the establishment of a cell to resolve disputes between “Hezbollah” and Israel in Lebanon constituted a step that practically led to the re-introduction of Iran into the Lebanese equation officially and with American consent, after it became part of the stability and security management system in the country, while in return, Israel will withdraw from some of the sites it still occupies in the south as a gesture of good faith toward Washington, but it will retain other sites for a while. For a long time, which means the continuation of the reality of partial occupation and the continuation of tension on the southern border.
Hamada told “Lebanon Debate” that the scene of sharing influence is starting under the American umbrella, as Israel will remain in control of the south militarily and security-wise, while Syria is being encouraged by America to play a greater role, allowing it to put pressure on the “soft flank” of the party in the Bekaa.
This new distribution of roles will lead to redrawing the map of influence within Lebanon, and Hamadeh reveals that the south will remain an open arena for the Iranian-Israeli conflict, while the Bekaa will be subject to increasing pressure linked to the Syrian situation, and the northern regions will be directly affected by the ongoing transformations in Syria.
As for Mount Lebanon, Hamadeh believes that it will turn more and more toward self-reliance under the titles of the state and its institutions, the presidency of the republic, respect for the law, the regular army, and tax regulation, while other regions will remain outside this framework or “unruly.”
Regarding the Iranian role, Hamadeh asserts that talk about the return of unilateral Iranian influence in Lebanon is no longer realistic, because Israel will never allow a return to the equation that existed before October 7, 2023, and it is prepared to go to an all-out war if necessary to prevent Lebanon from once again being established as a purely Iranian arena of influence. Therefore, any return to “Iranian Lebanon” will be governed by new balances imposed by Israel and the United States.
Hamadeh links this path directly to the trends adopted by US President Donald Trump, considering that the current US administration’s interest in Iran exceeds its interest in the Arab world, and that its approach is based on managing balances with Tehran more than seeking to confront it or radically limit its influence.
From this standpoint, Hamadeh expects Lebanon to turn into a common space of influence shared by several regional powers, including Iran, Israel, and Syria, even though Damascus still suffers from major weaknesses at the political, economic, and military levels. He believes that this result constitutes a natural extension of the understandings currently being worked on, especially those being discussed within the current negotiating path in Switzerland.
Hamadeh acknowledges that the arms control issue seems farther away than ever before from being achieved today, while he describes what is happening in Iraq at the level of militia weapons as a “theatrical play,” as a result of Washington’s retreat from the goals it raised during the last war, and its transition from a policy of pressure to a policy of managing balances and understandings.
Regarding internal profit and loss calculations, Hamadeh confirms that the party did not emerge victorious from the last confrontation, but Israel also did not end the war, as the occupation will continue for parts of the south, while large areas will remain destroyed without actual reconstruction, which makes the return of a large number of southerners to their villages extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Accordingly, Hamadeh expects that the south will remain a candidate to be an arena of open confrontation between Iran and Israel, which sometimes calms down and sometimes flares up, within a new security and political equation that may be produced by President Donald Trump’s understandings if they continue in the current direction.
The essence of the crisis, according to Hamadeh, lies in the multiplicity of negotiating tracks. There is a track in Switzerland that focuses on dispute resolution mechanisms and field understandings in Lebanon, compared to a political and security track in Washington. Even the US administration is witnessing a division of responsibilities, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio supervising some political tracks, while Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are pursuing other tracks related to regional understandings.
But the multiplicity of references and paths does not produce solutions as much as it produces more ambiguity, and gradually leads to the consolidation of the reality of power-sharing within Lebanon, as Hamadeh expects it to return to being an arena for settling external scores, instead of being a state capable of determining its fate on its own.
