American endeavors in Lebanon are a waste of time and money. Lebanon is largely devoid of accountability and agency, with a government under the effective control of an internationally designated terrorist group – Hizbullah. Years of communal and elite squabbling, coupled with foreign interference from Iran and Syria, have created a dysfunctional and dystopic state and society.
Hizbullah, without the consent of the Lebanese government, launched a war on Israel beginning on October 8, 2023, a war that lasted 13 months. It produced thousands of civilian casualties in Lebanon and dozens in Israel, and displaced tens of thousands of civilians and caused extensive damage and destruction in both Lebanon and Israel. This terrorist militia’s reckless behavior compounded Lebanon’s already dismal plight. The country is in the fifth year of a financial collapse in which the Lebanese pound lost more than 98 percent of its value. Basic services like electricity are a luxury while healthcare is at a premium.
In January 2025, Lebanon’s parliament finally elected a new president, filling a void of more than two years, only after intensive pressure from the US, Saudi Arabia and others. Like his immediate predecessors, the new president – Joseph Aoun – was a former commander of Lebanon’s Armed Forces (LAF). The new prime minister, Nawaf Salam, formed the latest in a series of supposedly non-partisan “technocratic” governments, none of which has been effective. For example, neither the devastating Beirut port explosion in 2020 nor a dozen political assassinations has resulted in any convictions, let alone trials.
Results of Two US Mediation Efforts
The Biden administration engaged in several mediation efforts between Israel and Lebanon. In 2022, after Hizbullah threatened to attack Israeli offshore oil infrastructure in the Mediterranean (and launched drones to do so), Amos Hochstein of the Biden National Security staff persuaded both Israel and Lebanon to agree to a maritime border demarcation – without requiring Lebanon to sign anything directly with Israel. Rather the Lebanese and Israeli governments signed separate border demarcation commitments with the US, allowing Hizbullah to claim credit for preventing any negotiations with “the Zionist entity.” President Biden tweeted: “My Administration was proud to facilitate this deal, an anchor for regional stability and prosperity.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken proclaimed this deal showed “the transformative power of American diplomacy.”
Israel’s center-left coalition government at the time justified the maritime deal as providing Lebanon a tangible stake in good bilateral relations (Lebanon gained access to an offshore oil field). But both the Biden proclamation and the Israeli wishes turned out to be hollow. A year after the maritime deal, on October 8, 2023, Hizbullah launched its attack on Israel.
Once again, Amos Hochstein engaged in shuttle diplomacy and after 13 months, the Biden administration achieved a 60-day ceasefire. The US assumed responsibility for monitoring it.
As of the end of February 2025, the ceasefire has expired, and its stipulations remain unfulfilled. Israel did not complete its withdrawal, owing to Hizbullah efforts to re-establish a presence in south Lebanon. The LAF have not fully deployed throughout southern Lebanon.
Foreign Aid
The futility of Lebanon extends to foreign aid. Since the end of the 15-year civil war in 1990, there have been over a half dozen international conferences in Europe alone pledging billions of Euros in loans and grants to Lebanon from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France, among others. During that time, Lebanon has gone from bad to worse. Following a historic economic collapse in 2019, Lebanese officials refuse to institute the necessary reforms proposed by the International Monetary Fund in order to extricate the country from its plight.
American aid has focused especially on the LAF – which US experts see as the closest thing Lebanon has to a multi-confessional, meritocratic institution. Since 2006, the US has given the LAF over $3 billion. Even in the final days of the Biden presidency, the administration allocated roughly $200 million to the LAF (and $10 million for Lebanese farmers despite the government’s unwillingness to address the economic crisis) Meanwhile, the LAF’s record for the last 35 years is one of incompetence. The LAF needed Hizbullah’s assistance to defeat an ISIS force in 2017.
The ultimate manifestation of the Lebanese government’s absence of agency is its failure to disarm Hizbullah. The UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of 2006 requires the Lebanese government to disarm “militias.” Some politicians repeatedly talk of assimilating Hizbullah into the LAF. Others believe Hizbullah’s non-governmental nature benefits the country. The prior president, Michel Aoun, preached the merits of “Army, People, Resistance.” Caretaker foreign minister, Abdullah Bou Habib, told the world in summer 2024 that disarming Hizbullah would trigger another civil war.
For years, many Lebanese turned inward to their communities and villages out of self-interest or sheer survival. Others emigrated to the West where they lobby for international assistance and intervention to solve Lebanon’s deficiencies. Wittingly or otherwise, these emigres have helped transform the Middle East’s former banking capital and the Switzerland of the Middle East into a welfare state and war zone.
Conclusion
Lebanon’s economic collapse and political volatility have one primary cause: a terrorist group has de facto control of the government. Only the people of Lebanon can exercise the agency needed to confront Hizbullah and pay the price of its ouster. The Israel Defense Forces have helped start this process; but Israel has limited interests in Lebanon, mainly providing security along its northern border and destroying Hizbullah’s strike capacity .
Glimpses of agency have appeared at times over the last 35 years, only to be squelched by internal divisions. Squabbling stifled the March 14 movement when popular demonstrations broke out against Syria and Hizbullah in 2005, triggered by the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. A similar scenario plagued the municipal campaign/political movement called “Beirut is my city” (Beirut Medinati) in the 2010s. Economic mismanagement ignited the October 17 revolution of 2019, which dissipated amid the COVID-19 pandemic and worsening economic conditions.
To date, the new Lebanese government has shown little appetite to confront Hizbullah; instead a possible outcome would be a “national dialogue.” The finance portfolio, central to economic recovery, is in the hands of a Hizbullah ally, the same party which was in charge of finances when the economy collapsed. In other words, the charade of change endures.
The Lebanese are a capable people. One only needs to look at its rich history, educated population, and the success of individual Lebanese expatriates in the West. But until the Lebanese (re)discover those capabilities, confront Hizbullah and transform the country’s government, the United States, with finite resources, should not invest further time and money in Lebanon.
