Lebanon Isn’t Breaking—It’s Turning the Tables on Its Bullies

Right, so I haven’t picked up on matters in Lebanon for a while and its well overdue because Lebanon is right now being squeezed from all sides, demanded to disarm Hezbollah, cede control of its security, and accept a peace that is anything but just. While Western diplomats, most notably the US envoy Thomas Barrack, dress their coercion in the language of “stability” and “sovereignty,” their real objective is strategic containment: weaken Iran by crippling one of its most formidable regional allies. At the same time, Israel continues its undeclared war on Lebanese territory, bombing civilians, targeting commanders, and refusing to withdraw from occupied land. Syria, now under the militant and unelected leadership of the former al-Qaeda terrorist Al Jolani, threatens to invade Lebanon, posturing as a regional stabiliser while eyeing renewed domination of its smaller neighbour and putting him in Israel’s good graces, the place he very much wants to be. So in light of all of this, Lebanon is being forced to dismantle its deterrence capability while no pressure is being applied on Israel to end its aggression or occupation.
Yet ironically, in their attempt to contain Hezbollah and neuter Lebanon, Israel and Syria may be laying the groundwork for their own strategic blunders amidst all of this.
Right, so the latest international push for Hezbollah’s disarmament in Lebanon has come in the form of a so-called roadmap delivered by US envoy Thomas Barrack. According to reporting by AP and Reuters, this roadmap ties Hezbollah’s disarmament to the conditional easing of Israeli airstrikes and economic aid to Lebanon. While publicly presenting this as a Lebanese-led process, Barrack's ultimatum to Lebanon in relation to Hezbollah— to "disarm or collapse" as Al Mayadeen had picked up on—was nothing less than a barely veiled threat however. This is how to negotiate with Lebanon apparently.
This so-called choice is obviously no choice at all. Lebanon’s economy remains on life support. The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) are under-equipped, and international financial institutions refuse aid without political concessions. Disarmament under such conditions is not negotiation—it is blackmail isn’t it? And it is a blackmail that omits a crucial fact: Israel remains in violation of UN Resolution 1701 by occupying Shebaa Farms, the Kfarchouba Hills, and the disputed Five Points along the border.
Barrack’s remarks were met with unease across Lebanon. While the ruling government issued cautious statements, civil society groups and independent analysts decried the roadmap as a form of foreign trusteeship. Some opposition voices, including Samir Geagea of the Lebanese Forces, warned that Barrack's language—particularly references to "Bilad al-Sham"—echoed historical justifications for Syrian occupation. Street protests were limited but vocal in Beirut and Tripoli – that’s Tripoli in northern Lebanon, not Libya - with demonstrators holding banners denouncing foreign diktats and demanding the end of Israeli violations first. Seems perfectly reasonable.
Israel’s presence on Lebanese land is at the core of Hezbollah’s justification for retaining its arms. Since the November 2024 ceasefire, Israel has conducted repeated airstrikes deep into Lebanese territory. In one of the most egregious incidents, Israeli warplanes killed a woman and injured 11 civilians in Nabatieh just last month, flattening a residential area under the pretext of targeting Hezbollah infrastructure. The Lebanon Israel ceasefire has been an utter farce, Israel have breached it literally thousands of times now and keep on getting away with it and yet here, now Lebanon are the ones concessions are demanded of.
Amnesty International has documented numerous instances of Israeli attacks on hospitals, ambulances, and medics, with over 200 healthcare workers and patients killed since late 2023. This is not collateral damage—they are war crimes. And they are committed with impunity. In December 2024, Israeli strikes killed at least 49 civilians in separate incidents across Lebanon, with no repercussions.
Even during ceasefires, Israel continues assassinations. Just last week, Israel launched a drone strike on a vehicle in Tripoli, killing a senior Hamas operative. A day later, it killed Hezbollah commander Hussein Ali Muzhir in southern Lebanon. As much as these are individuals from proscribed groups on one hand, this is clearly not restraint, nor respect for the ongoing ceasefire. It is an open-ended campaign of terror from the skies by Israel’s hands.
Israel’s occupation of Shebaa Farms and the Kfarchouba Hills dates back to the 2024 withdrawal, when it left most of southern Lebanon but retained these areas, refusing to leave.
The lack of resolution has created a permanent justification for continued resistance
Therefore Hezbollah’s refusal to disarm is based on two irrefutable facts: Israel continues to occupy Lebanese land and repeatedly violates Lebanon’s sovereignty, and the Lebanese state lacks the capacity to defend itself. Why else did Israel demand as conditions of the ceasefire that Hezbollah disarm and leave the south of Lebanon and be replaced by the Lebanese Armed Forces? Israel know who it would rather be fighting.
Hezbollah has made clear that it will not surrender its arsenal until Israel withdraws from all Lebanese territory, including Shebaa Farms and the Kfarchouba Hills. This hardly seems unreasonable given this is Lebanese territory. Even those in Lebanon who oppose Hezbollah’s political influence understand that surrendering arms under threat while their land remains occupied would be politically suicidal and Hezbollah are also a political entity in case anybody had forgotten.
Moreover, the LAF is underfunded and politically constrained. The idea that it can absorb Hezbollah’s military responsibilities without massive reform and foreign guarantees is fantasy. Any unilateral disarmament would simply leave Lebanon open to Israeli air superiority—or, increasingly, to Syrian infiltration.
The most shocking development in the crisis is the return of Syrian designs on Lebanon. Since the rise of the Al Jolani led regime, Syria has shifted away from Iran and toward an aggressive Salafi-nationalist posture, religious extremists who want to align themselves with Israel and the West. While claiming to seek stability, and as The Cradle have covered, Damascus has accused Hezbollah of undermining Lebanese sovereignty and hinted at intervention if Beirut fails to disarm the group.
Al Jolani’s ideological departure from the Assad era is a stark one, even if both were reprehensible regimes. Where Assad aligned with Iran and allowed Hezbollah to operate across the Syria-Lebanon axis, Al Jolani has repositioned Syria as a block to that. He has forged quiet ties with Gulf states and framed Hezbollah as a sectarian irritant—a puppet of Tehran undermining Arab unity and there are real military implications.
This rhetoric has been backed by action. Syrian forces have begun cracking down on Hezbollah-linked smuggling routes near the border and Lebanese media has reported suspicions—though denied by the LAF—of Syrian-aligned extremist infiltration attempts as shown by The Cradle.
Syria is effectively threatening to destabilise Lebanon in order to save it from Hezbollah and Iranian influence. But a Syrian intervention would provoke not only Hezbollah but likely draw in Iran to defend Hezbollah, and potentially ignite a regional war once again. Al Jolani may believe he can reshape Lebanon in his image—but like Israel, he is underestimating Hezbollah’s capabilities and where Lebanon itself might be rather isolated, Hezbollah are not quite so much.
What makes this crisis uniquely perverse is the international response though. Lebanon is being asked to disarm the only force capable of resisting Israeli aggression and Syrian encroachment—while those very aggressors face no consequences. Israel is allowed to violate Lebanese airspace daily, to occupy disputed territory, to assassinate across borders. Syria is allowed to threaten occupation and operate with impunity.
Meanwhile, any resistance from Lebanon is framed as terrorism. Hezbollah is branded a destabiliser, not a defender. The Lebanese government is pressured to concede. The price of Western aid is submission—not to international law, but to geopolitical interests.
Ironically, both Israel and Syria may soon come to regret their current strategies. By continuing to strike Lebanon while demanding disarmament, Israel ensures that Hezbollah’s narrative remains valid and supported by the Lebanese people: that only armed resistance can defend Lebanon because nobody else is coming to their rescue. Every missile strike, every assassination, every child buried under rubble, reinforces the logic of resistance.
Syria, too, may find its ambitions backfiring. By threatening intervention, it is uniting Lebanese factions—many of whom have no love for Hezbollah at all—against a return to Syrian rule, Syria having occupied Lebanon from 1976 through to 2005. Christian parties like the Lebanese Forces have already warned of a creeping “trusteeship” (L’Orient-Le Jour, July 2025). Sunni communities fear that any Syrian entry, with extremist elements like HTS leading now, will trigger sectarian conflict.
If Lebanon collapses under external pressure, both Syria and Israel may face uncontrollable consequences. A fractured Lebanon could become a playground for rival militias, refugee flows, and regional proxy wars, a return to civil war. Israeli border communities would be less secure, not more. Syria’s attempt to project power could backfire into prolonged insurgency and international isolation. The lesson of Iraq and Syria’s own civil war should be clear: dismantling fragile states breeds monsters, Al Jolani should especially realise that, he is one.
Lebanon is not a failed state—it is a sabotaged state. Sabotaged by Israeli bombs, by Syrian ambition, by Western hypocrisy. The demand to disarm Hezbollah while Israel occupies and bombs Lebanon is not peacekeeping—it is surrender. And it is being resisted for good reason.
If the international community wishes to see Hezbollah disarmed, it must first force Israel to fully withdraw from all Lebanese land and end its air war. It must condemn Syria’s threats and reassert that Lebanon’s sovereignty is not a bargaining chip. Most importantly, it must recognize that peace cannot be achieved through coercion and double standards.
Because if this pressure campaign continues unchecked, it will not break Hezbollah. It will break Lebanon. And in doing so, it will unleash the very instability Israel and Syria and US fools like Tom Barrack claim to fear.
It’s not like these latest attempts to get Hezbollah to disarm are going to have any more luck than they’ve had previously, in fact the last attempt at this backfired on Netanyahu completely. Get all the details of that story in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch.
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