“Lebanon Debate” – Muhammad Alloush
Once again, American leaks, this time via Axios, reveal the truth about the role played by Washington in the Lebanese file. Instead of appearing as a mediator seeking to impose balanced obligations on both sides of the conflict, it appears as a party that practically adopts Israeli demands and attempts to market them in a negotiated format.
According to informed sources, the equation being pushed by the Americans is not a mutual ceasefire, but rather a ceasefire on the part of Hezbollah in exchange for reducing the level of Israeli escalation, as if the root of the problem lies in the resistance’s response and not in the ongoing aggression, occupation, assassinations and systematic destruction.
The sources believe that this formula in itself reveals the fundamental flaw in the American approach. When Hezbollah is asked to adhere to a ceasefire, and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri is presented as a guarantor of this commitment, the obvious question arises that Washington avoids answering: Who guarantees Israel? Who has the ability or will to force it to stop its daily attacks? More importantly, who will guarantee the cessation of the destruction, bombing and assassination operations that did not stop even during periods of relative calm on the front?
According to the sources, the Lebanese experience with Israel does not allow political promises or oral understandings to be treated as real guarantees. Since the last ceasefire, and since the ceasefire agreement in November 2024, air violations, security attacks, assassinations, and bombings have continued, while the United States has mostly contented itself with justifying and supporting Israeli behavior, or ignoring it at best. Therefore, any talk about new security arrangements that do not include a clear and binding mechanism to stop Israeli attacks seems closer to an attempt to extract political and security gains for the benefit of Tel Aviv under the pressure of fire.
In this context, the sources believe that the recent Israeli escalation cannot be separated from the negotiations hosted by Washington between Israel and Lebanon, and also from the course of the Iranian-American negotiation. The timing is not a detail, because Israel realizes that any negotiating round gives Lebanon an opportunity to present its political and security demands, and therefore it is keen to go to the negotiating table after imposing new field realities. It was the one that refused to hold the military negotiation session at this time. The sources consider that it is a policy based on the use of military force to improve the conditions for negotiation, and on turning fire into a direct tool for pressure on the Lebanese state and on the environment incubating resistance.
As for the United States, according to the sources, it appears as if it is using this escalation to increase pressure on the Lebanese official authority, and not just on the resistance. Every time a negotiation or political process approaches a sensitive point, whether in Lebanon or Iran, the level of Israeli attacks rises, and the state finds itself facing two bitter choices: either accept the conditions presented under the weight of a military threat, or bear responsibility for the continued escalation and the losses and damages that accompany it. In this sense, negotiations become part of the pressure system itself and not an independent path from it.
The sources believe that the problem for Lebanon is not only the nature of the Israeli demands, but rather the nature of the American sponsor of these demands. A real mediator is supposed to seek to address the causes of tension and impose balanced obligations on all parties. However, when he turns into a party that exclusively adopts Israeli concerns and ignores Lebanese concerns, his role loses the character of mediation and approaches the role of a political partner in managing pressures, and this is what America practices.
Hence, what is happening today as an American is an attempt to reformulate the rules of engagement in Lebanon exclusively for the benefit of Israel, benefiting from the extent of the destruction and the economic and political pressures that the country is experiencing. However, the basic dilemma remains the same: no real stability can be built on the basis of unilateral demands, and the Lebanese cannot be convinced of the feasibility of any agreement if it imposes strict obligations on one party and leaves the other party free to continue attacks whenever it wants. Previous experiences have proven that the problem was never the absence of a guarantor of resistance, but rather the absence of anyone who can or wants to set borders for Israel.
