'Only the Beginning of the Beginning': Why Washington's Lebanon Deal Cannot Hold

A US foreign-policy analysis finds Washington increasingly detached from Lebanon's political realities

Lebanese officials are fully aware that any agreement with Israel would unravel before it could gain domestic legitimacy, according to an analysis by the political scientist Dr. Aurélie Daher, published by the American foreign policy outlet Responsible Statecraft — which argues that the Trump administration has become increasingly detached from Lebanon’s political realities.

The framework agreement was signed by official Lebanese and Israeli delegations in Washington on 26 June amid considerable fanfare, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailing it as a first step toward “lasting peace and security” between Beirut and Tel Aviv. A month later, Trump hosted Lebanese President Joseph Aoun at the White House, where Rubio restated Washington’s twin objectives: the disarmament of Hezbollah and a comprehensive, permanent peace.

A divided administration

Rubio’s approach, in Daher’s reading, mirrors the Israeli leadership’s: a top-down strategy founded on coercion, combining military action against Iran with maximum political pressure on Beirut, in order to force the Lebanese government to sideline Hezbollah and sever the strategic link between Lebanon and Tehran.

Not everyone in the administration agrees. Vice President J.D. Vance has made clear he no longer believes American and Israeli interests are perfectly aligned and has openly advocated de-escalation with Iran. Though he has yet to set out a detailed endgame, Daher suggests his preferred course would involve an understanding with Tehran that keeps its allied movements — Hezbollah foremost among them — under control, while stabilising oil prices, safeguarding Gulf shipping, and preventing a confrontation with Iran from becoming a political liability before the midterms.

The intense focus on the Israeli-Lebanese file, she argues, has strengthened Rubio’s hand and weakened the alternative Vance appears to favour. Yet the track’s chances of success remain exceedingly slim.

The constitutional wall

The first obstacle is Lebanon’s own political architecture. Its consensual system distributes power among Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, and Christians, leaving the president with limited executive authority. Article 52 of the constitution allows him to “negotiate and conclude treaties” — but only “in agreement with the Prime Minister,” and any treaty requires the approval of the Council of Ministers before entering force.

The practical effect is that no major decision carries constitutional legitimacy without the support of all the principal components. Since Lebanon’s Shia parties rejected the framework agreement from the outset, Daher argues, it is difficult to imagine any agreement proving politically sustainable. And even were those hurdles cleared, a peace treaty would still require parliamentary ratification — a majority that, given the current composition of the legislature, is effectively nonexistent.

A record of violations

The second obstacle is confidence in Israel’s willingness to honour what it signs. Under the ceasefire concluded on 27 November 2024, Daher writes, Hezbollah complied for nearly eighteen months, until March 2026, while Israel violated the agreement more than 12,000 times in less than a year — producing a bitter Lebanese joke: “What does ‘ceasefire’ mean in Hebrew? They stop; we keep shooting.”

The destruction of southern Lebanon and the killing of civilians, she argues, failed to deliver the political outcomes Tel Aviv sought. In its ideal scenario, Israel had hoped to deepen Lebanon’s internal divisions to the point of civil war, or at least to turn most Lebanese against Hezbollah and exclude it permanently from power. The campaign produced the opposite: it restored credibility to Hezbollah’s long-standing claim to a unique responsibility for defending Lebanese territory.

The ‘new era’ that wasn’t

In January 2025, the United States and Saudi Arabia — with Israeli involvement behind the scenes — pressed Lebanon’s parties to elect Joseph Aoun as president and Nawaf Salam as prime minister, presenting them as the architects of a new era. The leadership argued that Washington would transform the Lebanese Armed Forces into a national army capable of defending the borders, rendering Hezbollah’s military justification obsolete, and that diplomacy would suffice to deter Israeli violations.

Eighteen months on, Daher writes, the army still lacked those capabilities — and was seen withdrawing, on Aoun’s own orders, before Israeli advances in the spring of 2026. Hezbollah, which Israel claimed to have destroyed in autumn 2024, resumed operations in March. None of Lebanon’s international partners proved able to restrain Israeli military action.

Salam’s initial endorsement of direct talks placed him in an awkward position within the Sunni community, which, for all its disagreements with Hezbollah, largely identifies with an Arab nationalist tradition supportive of Palestine and opposed to Zionism. Sunni MPs told Daher in late March that they had supported sending a delegation to Washington but not any agreement that might result — loyalty to the leader, they explained, does not extend to the outcomes of his initiatives.

Since the signing, Salam has quietly distanced himself, focusing instead on ties with Syria and Turkey, and referring questions about the agreement to the Presidential Palace. Army commander General Rodolphe Haykal reportedly criticised the process so openly that Washington asked Aoun to dismiss him, while Lebanese officers in the delegation refused to appear in the official photograph on the day of the signing.

Isolated at home

Under American and Israeli pressure to defend policies it privately considered unrealistic, Lebanon’s leadership rapidly lost legitimacy at home. Apart from the Lebanese Forces — successor to the wartime militia that collaborated with Israel during the civil war — few Lebanese appear to believe in what is being negotiated in Washington.

This, Daher argues, explains Hezbollah’s sweeping victories in every municipality it contested in the 2025 elections, results that prompted Western governments to press for parliamentary elections scheduled for spring 2026 to be postponed by two years.

Rubio’s optimism has cooled accordingly. Of Aoun’s latest visit, he observed only that it was “the beginning of the beginning.”

When Aoun left Beirut at Trump’s invitation, Daher concludes, he did so in profound political isolation. Across Lebanon’s political circles, regardless of sect, the prevailing sentiment was much the same: “Good luck, my friend… this will all be over by November 2028” — a reference to the next US presidential election.

Reference: Zeinab Al Saffar