If Israel is allowed to defeat Hezbollah soundly, there may be new life for the dangerously failed state of Lebanon
Imagine two diplomats in smoke-filled rooms in wartime London and Paris, poring over maps of the Ottoman Empire. Mark Sykes, representing Britain, and François Georges-Picot, were not renowned cartographers nor great experts on the Middle East. But the clandestine map they signed in 1916, together with some agreements in the years that followed, created the unhelpful map of the Middle East today.
It essentially divided up the region into British and French protectorates (Russia, the other element in the Great War’s “Triple Entente,” imploded in civil war and lost its chance to control Istanbul). There was little concern for the realities on the ground—the tribes, religious communities, and ethnic groups that had been lorded over by the Ottomans.
The lines they sketched lumped diverse populations into hastily imagined nations. This is how we ended up with Iraq, a melding of Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds who hate each other. That is why we have Syria, similarly a fake country which blew up in a ruinous civil war. Imperial machinations are why Jordan even exists – that had to do with offering compensation to a tribe that did not get handed Saudi Arabia.
There are some countries in the region that have a viable case and robust history. Egypt is one – a major civilization that always flourished in the Nile Delta. Iran is another – Persia is as old as the Bible. Israel, despite the complications of the Jews’ exile and controversial return, is a real thing – and Christian Lebanon could have been the same.
The Maronites, an ancient Christian ethno-religious group with roots in the Phoenician and Hellenized communities of the Levant, ended up on the French side of the Sykes-Picot line, they were offered a chance to set the foundation for a small, manageable state in the Mount Lebanon region. But their leadership, driven by a vision of “Greater Lebanon,” sought to expand the borders to include the Bekaa Valley in what is now the country’s northeast, Tripoli on the northern coast, and the south. In doing so, they greedily and stupidly absorbed Muslim-majority regions into the new state.
The hope was that the Maronites’ wealth, education, and connections with Europe would allow them to maintain control over a larger and more diverse country. Instead, this sowed the seeks of Lebanon’s descent into becoming a dangerously failed state.
For a time, Lebanon made its case for being the coolest Arab country – a place of nightlife and cuisine that drew European tourists to the beaches and boulevards of the “Paris of the Middle East.” But the Maronites lost their demographic majority, and the delicate balance of power between Lebanon’s many religious and ethnic groups began to unravel. The Muslim population, initially willing to accept Maronite leadership, gradually became resentful as the political system heavily favored Christians. This resentment exploded into civil war in 1975, a conflict that would last 15 years and devastate the country.
Many Christians emigrated, being the more mobile and cosmopolitan population, and those who remain now form perhaps a quarter of the population. Over the past decade, over a million Muslim refugees from Syria’s civil war arrived, and many seem set to remain.
The biggest group is the Shiites with perhaps 40% – and they spawned, with Iranian connivance, the Hezbollah militia that has taken over much of the country. It claims 100,000 fighters — more than the Lebanese army, which is at this point almost irrelevant — and it enjoys funding, arming and training from the aggressive Islamist theocracy that in turn has hijacked Iran. Via Iran it pays off the families and communities that attach to them, and thus it has bought some support among the Shiites. Everyone else basically hates it.
Every now and then Hezbollah sparks a war with Israel, because that’s what Islamic radicals backed by Iran just do.
The story Hezbollah tries to sell idiots is that it is a “resistance movement” protecting Lebanon from Israel, even though Israel has zero demands of Lebanon except that it not be attacked. Israel did control a “security zone” in southern Lebanon — a few kilometers wide — until 2000. But it gambled and pulled out, and basically that gamble has backfired. Hezbollah seized the border and began to burrow tunnels through which to invade Israel.
Hezbollah is actually there to allow Iran to control a territory on Israel’s border, from which to either attack Israel or deter it from, let’s say, bombing Iran’s nuclear factories before a weapon is achieved (with which to threaten Israel). That’s why Hezbollah has guided rockets whose only purpose is to reach Israel’s cities (or, if need be, Europe’s).
It’s clear the Hezbollah racket is insane – but somehow, it drags on.
UN Security Council Resolution 1559 from 2004 calls “for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias” and for “the strict respect of the sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity, and political independence of Lebanon under the sole and exclusive authority of the Government of Lebanon.” Two years later Resolution 1701 reaffirmed this, setting the goal as “disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon” and “no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese State.”
Lebanon has failed to implement this, because it can’t. The world is too scared to step in. And in any case, Lebanon’s politicians are too terrified to ask for any help. They are, in many cases, hoping Israel will do the job.
Which brings us to the present day.
Hezbollah has been rocketing and shelling Israel since Oct. 8, 2023, the day after Gaza-based Hamas invaded southern Israel, massacred 1,200 people, and carted off about 250 back to Gaza as hostages. When considering Hezbollah’s lies about solidarity with the Palestinians, note that this was over a week before Israel invaded Gaza to try to root out Hamas. After a year in which 60,000 Israelis were forced to flee their homes, it is clear that Israel has had enough – yet instead of applauding its campaign against Hezbollah, critics in Europe and elsewhere have been urging Israel not to “escalate.”
Would any of them had tolerated a year of rocket attacks? Would any of them have been sanguine about the likes of Hezbollah being arrayed on its borders at all – in violation of explicit UN Security Council resolutions? The hypocrisy is astonishing even to those who know history brims with bad behaviors.
In recent weeks Israel has assassinated most of Hezbollah’s leadership, including top dog Hassan Nasrallah, has significantly degraded its rocket arsenal, and has now sent troops into southern Lebanon to destroy the tunnels and clean out the weapons depots in seemingly every garage and chicken coup. And you know who’s happy? Most of the Lebanese. Though they’ve been scared into silence, they no more want to be run by an Iranian-backed mafia than the reader does.
They may have a chance to reclaim the country. If Hezbollah is weakened enough, Lebanon has a unique opportunity to push forward and demand of the West and the Arab world whatever help is needed to implement the UN Security Council Resolutions. Now is the time to press for the appointment of a president (Lebanon has not had one for two years), to shift the Shiite political representation from Hezbollah to the homegrown Amal group which is not dependent on Iran, and to initiate a constitutional process that creates a democratic country that does not hand out positions by an ethnic key.
Engaging France and the EU through reconstruction funds would solidify international involvement. The Gulf Arabs should also step in — indeed, Saudi Arabia has held up billions because of Hezbollah’s influence. And it is crucial to signal to Iran that its influence is not welcome in Lebanon’s internal affairs, and that any violation of this would be an act of war. That is a bit of a risk by a world community tired of the Middle East. But it is a calculated one against an Iranian regime that is weak, detested by its people, and primed to collapse.
But if these initiatives fail, it may be time to rethink everything. If I was a Christian Lebanese, I would be thinking that the experiment at a multi-ethnic country, which now has a Muslim majority, might be reversible. I’d be thinking of correcting the mistake of a century ago and trying to carve out a Christian statelet around Beirut, including parts of Mount Lebanon and coastal towns like Jounieh and Byblos.
Such a scenario, hypothetical though it be, raises numerous questions regarding the rest of Lebanon’s territory, with the significant Muslim populations – and also, of course, about defending the Christian state.
This statelet might initially function as part of a confederation. But it might also dream of independence, with the non-Christian areas eventually merging with a post-war Syria or a future multiethnic country in the region. Beirut would remain as the center of a peaceful, smaller Lebanon, ethnically more homogeneous, not fighting with Israel, reclaiming its quasi-European culture, and freed of jihadist nonsense.
Carving out a “Petit Liban” (a smaller, predominantly Christian Lebanon) would be a dramatic and highly controversial geopolitical scenario. But it would underscore wider lessons that should be rather obvious by now. Multi-ethnic countries require populations that embrace multiculturalism – and that is rare. And irrational territorial ambitions, like those that begat “Greater Lebanon,” can lead to great disaster.
