Tom Barrack is no diplomat. He talks too much, says everything and its opposite, mistakes condescension for goodwill, flaunts his shaky grasp of history, and strings together clichés like beads on a necklace.
The closer his mission as U.S. special envoy for Lebanon comes to an end, the more he resembles a caricature of himself.
He has failed, and he knows it. Yet he is far from being the main one to blame.
Despite the limits of his approach and the sheer absurdity of some of his remarks, Barrack has repeatedly stuck his finger in our open wounds.
His observations are often crude, but not entirely baseless. He is right when he compares Lebanon’s trajectory to Syria’s, when he warns that time is not on our side, and when he mocks our “Lebanonism,” as being disconnected from regional and global dynamics.
Above all, he is right when he reminds us that, regardless of the blame we cast on Israel, Iran, the United States, the Arab states or even, if we must, on the Inuits, it is we who remain our own greatest enemy.
“Lebanon is a failed state,” he said.
We did not need Barrack to tell us that. Any tourist stepping off a plane in Beirut can see as much. We have known it for years, some for decades. What stings about this latest statement is that it comes when we would have wanted to believe that this time, perhaps, it could finally be otherwise.
We wanted to believe in the “new Lebanon,” despite the Israeli occupation, despite Hezbollah’s obstinacy, the mediocrity of our political class and public administration, and, above all, despite our collective moral and intellectual bankruptcy.
We wanted to believe it because Hezbollah is now undermined more than ever, because we have a president who seems less bad than those before him, because we have the best government in 30 years, and above all, because we were hoping, without truly believing it, that after the economic and financial collapse, after the 2020 Beirut port explosion, after the most senseless of wars, Lebanon would finally learn from its mistakes, emerge from the denial that engulfs each of us for different reasons, and understand that no one will save us from ourselves.
Once again, it was better to be among the cynics, those who believe this country is so sick that even a shock treatment, the war being one, will never be enough to cure it.
The “new Lebanon” is a mirage. Worse, it is a lie.
The country lies in pieces. It drifts along, with varying degrees of skill depending on the moment, but it is incapable of doing more than that, no matter who represents it. The entire system must be changed. Every mind must be repaired. The starting point must be Hezbollah, because nothing can be rebuilt as long as it remains.
Yet it is very far from being the source of all our ills.
Lebanon does not want to change. Even war, at its core, has not changed it. Hezbollah is weaker, and the state is stronger. Beirut has moved out of the Iranian orbit and must now align — willingly or not — with the U.S.-Saudi-Israeli axis.
In a country obsessed with geopolitics, such a shift should be reflected at every level.
But it is not.
Power remains just as impotent. The debates dominating the news are just as sterile. And the beliefs and certainties of each camp remain just as detached from any semblance of reality.
There are those who still believe that Hezbollah, despite the humiliation it suffered, can inflict serious damage on Israel. There are those who are too afraid to do anything, lest they provoke the movement and its supporters, as if the past decades had not already shown that such passivity has driven the entire country into a wall.
And there are those who think, or even hope, that Israel will “finish the job for us,” failing to grasp what another war would do to Lebanon. More destruction, more death, more impossibility of building a nation, more sectarian tension, more Israeli domination. Hezbollah would emerge even weaker, but at what cost? And even then, it won’t disappear.
And Lebanon would likely be forced to sign an agreement with its neighbor without being ready to face its consequences. The country would come out of yet another war — or an imposed peace — even more fragile. Yet it will do nothing, or so very little, to prevent it. Just as it did nothing to avert bankruptcy. Just as it did nothing to reform itself.
We can go on telling ourselves that Lebanon is a beautiful country, that life here is pleasant, that the sea, the mountains, the family, the warmth, the taste, the talent, the freedom, the hybridity — all these things, and many more — are too precious to give up. That we do not want to become yet another Lebanese expatriate denied even the right to vote.
But sometimes, one simply feels that this country is so profoundly damaged that it manages to make even the most hopeful spirits despair.
This piece originally appeared in French on L'Orient-Le Jour and was translated into English by Sahar Ghoussoub.
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