When President Joseph Aoun walks through the doors of the White House on July 21, it will not simply be a meeting between a Lebanese president and his American counterpart. It will be an enfeebled state — long stripped of control over its most vital decisions — trying to convince the world’s leading power that it is still worthy of support.
The visit is therefore significant well beyond its diplomatic and ceremonial dimensions. It comes at a particularly perilous moment for the region, marked by the collapse of U.S.-Iran talks, the multiplication of flashpoints, and the ever-present risk of Lebanon once again being drawn into a conflict beyond its control. Above all, it takes place at a moment when the country is engaged in a decisive struggle: restoring the authority of the state and gradually reclaiming its exclusive right to decide questions of war and peace.
Aoun is not traveling to Washington from a position of strength. Lebanon lacks both the economic weight and the military capabilities that would allow it to negotiate as an equal. But that weakness is not his own. If the president finds himself negotiating today with so few cards in hand, it is because Lebanon’s have been steadily squandered by those who seized the state’s strategic decision-making, tied the country’s fate to regional agendas and ultimately dragged it into a war whose outbreak its institutions neither decided nor were able to control.
This is why the accusations now being leveled against him amount to a striking reversal of responsibility.
Jaafari Mufti Ahmad Qabalan, who is close to Hezbollah, accused the president of placing Lebanon in an “American bazaar” and “leading the country to its ruin.” But who has truly made Lebanon dependent on foreign powers? The man negotiating openly on behalf of the state, in accordance with the Constitution, or those who tied the country’s fate to a regional strategy devised elsewhere.
Who has led Lebanon to ruin? The president seeking to persuade Washington to secure an Israeli withdrawal, support the Lebanese Army, and spare the country another war? Or those who spent years treating Lebanon as a military platform serving a regional axis?
And who has isolated an entire community? The state seeking to restore a single legal authority across its territory, or those who have trapped that community in a state of permanent mobilization, exposing it to war, displacement and destruction?
Qabalan’s call for a national dialogue is equally paradoxical. Dialogue presupposes that all parties recognize the authority of the state. Yet for years, the central issue — the state’s monopoly over arms — has been placed beyond the scope of any genuine dialogue.
Hezbollah did not negotiate the existence of its arsenal; it imposed it. Nor did it ask the Lebanese whether they were willing to bear the consequences of its choices; it imposed it on them.
Supporting Aoun’s efforts does not, however, mean giving him a blank check. In Washington, the president will have to secure concrete commitments: a timetable for Israel’s withdrawal, sustained military support for the Lebanese Army, and economic assistance that will enable the state to rebuild southern Lebanon, strengthen its institutions and prevent others from stepping into its role.
But U.S. President Donald Trump, too, will be seeking guarantees. He will want to know whether Lebanon is truly prepared to turn the page on a system that has made its territory an extension of regional conflicts. He will demand a roadmap, clear timelines and firm commitments demonstrating the state’s ability to uphold its monopoly over arms.
It is here that Aoun’s responsibility becomes even greater. He is asking the United States to believe in the Lebanese state’s project. The best way to convince Washington is to show that this project is already beginning to take shape in Lebanon.
Since taking office, Aoun has favored dialogue with Hezbollah. That choice was understandable and, in all likelihood, necessary at the outset. The country was emerging from a devastating war, and the specter of internal conflict still loomed large. The president and the prime minister sought to avoid any abrupt rupture and to persuade the party that the world had changed, that the balance of power was no longer the same, and that its own interests now lay in a gradual reintegration into the state.
But this policy of openness and responsibility cannot become a permanent doctrine of restraint, let alone one of accommodation.
This is not a call for confrontation with a Lebanese political actor. It is a call for the rule of law to prevail. Hezbollah must be treated like any other political party: neither excluded nor granted special status, but subject to the same rules as everyone else. No party can indefinitely claim to participate in democratic life while retaining the attributes of a military exception.
Aoun must therefore be supported in his diplomatic efforts, but he must also be encouraged to overcome his domestic hesitations. The president cannot ask Trump to take a chance on the Lebanese state if that very state continues to waver in the face of those who challenge its authority.
The success of this visit will not depend solely on what Washington is willing to offer Lebanon. It will also depend on what Aoun does upon his return. For it is in Beirut that the Lebanese state’s true test will be decided.
This editorial originally appeared in French on L'Orient-Le Jour and was translated by Sahar Ghoussoub.
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