Faced with two nuclear options, Lebanese president Joseph Aoun has one exit strategy that he seems to be slowly inching toward.
While Syria is surely making headways - Al-Sharaa will soon be received at the White House, among rehabilitation policies for Syria to re-integrate the community of nations - Lebanon continues to wallow in very turbid political swamps .
The first option that the US and the Europeans are giving Aoun is for him to unleash his under-equiped and fragile army (the LAF, for Lebanese Armed Forces) against Hezbollah to force the latter to surrender its weapons. Despite decades of the US claiming it is arming the LAF, it has only given it used weapons from world-war II vintage, and it prohibits it from acquiring weapons from other sources. The American argument is that the Lebanese Army cannot have weapons that might threaten the eternal and exclusive victim south of the border that has shown it can reach anyone anywhere thanks to its American Mommy Dearest's largesse.
Aoun does not want a confrontation between the LAF and Hezbollah, as this means a civil war, the possible breakdown of the army along sectarian lines, and the very likelihood that the Army's under-armed 60,000 troops (60% of whom are Shiite Muslims with potential affinity for Hezbollah) are no match to Hezbollah's well-armed 40,000 fighters.
The second option, the Americans tell Aoun, and barring the first option, is to let Israel do the "cleanup" after its war against Hezbollah a year ago that ended in a tenuous ceasefire. In other words, a second Israeli war against Lebanon whose goal would be to completely obliterate Hezbollah, in which case massive destruction of Lebanese infrastructure and targeting of Lebanese army and government facilities would ensue if Aoun did not do the cleanup himself.
This may also be a pretext for Israel to not only steal some land in the Lebanese south as a "buffer zone" - I cannot remember how many times Israel has protected its northern border with "buffer zones" that always failed - but this time to permanently annex the south, including the Phoenician cities of Sidon and Tyre that were visited by the supremacist Jewish extremist, the rabbi Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 15:21-28 Mark 7:24-30). In those passages from the Gospels, Jesus clearly abhorrs non-Jews, says he came only for the master race, the Jews, while the lowly Phoenician-Greek gentiles are mere dogs who are prohibited from sitting at the table with the Jewish masters, and can only eat from the crumbs that fall from their masters's tables. Jesus is for his time what Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ban-Gvir are for ours.
The cost of an Israeli invasion similar to that of 1982 will be enormous, because as in 1982, Israel would want a hefty price for playing the exterminator, including the political subjecting of Lebanon to a master-slave relationship with Israel.
Still, there are questions, the least of which is what to do with the Shiites - apparently solidly behind Hezbollah. In 1982, the Palestinians were "foreigners" to the Lebanese. Therefore, exiling them to Tunisia was acceptable. But Hezbollah's Shiites are Lebanese, even if only on paper as they are more affiliated ideologically and religiously with Iran than with their own country.
But overall, regardless of how and by whom Hezbollah is obliterated, the overarching objective of this tragic play is to bring peace to the 60-year old Lebanese-Israeli stalemate, draw final borders, and invite massive Arab and Western aid to help Lebanon regain a normal standing on the international scene. All fine objectives. The Lebanese are simultaneously incentivized with promises and pledges of economic salvation, and pressured with destruction if Hezbollah is not out of the picture by the end of this year. So, as long as Hezbollah exists, Lebanon will continue to rot and degrade both from within and from without.
Be that as it may, President Aoun has a third option I would call the Anwar Sadat option. Aoun can turn the table on everyone, since he has nothing left to lose: He should get on a plane from Beirut Airport, fly to Jersualem, and engage in peace and normalization talks with the Israelis. Virtually everyone - except the Shiites - are for a final settlement with the Israelis and for an end to Iran's dominion, via Hezbollah, over Lebanon. If such a move irks Hezbollah to the point of pushing its goons in the streets and engaging in violence against the State and its institutions, that would comfort those who thought a war with Hezbollah was inevitable anyway.
In making such a move, Aoun, just like Sadat in 1977, would force all those who are now pressuring him and referring to his country as a failed state to come to his assistance. If this assistance requires military aid to defeat any insurrection by Hezbollah, then such a battle or war would be blamed on everyone, not just on the Lebanese. Aoun continues to play all his cards with the assumption that the longer he tergiversates, the more the likelihood that someone else will trigger the war, in which case he cannot be blamed for it. But this can only work this much. At some point, he will have to play a stronger hand, despite the risks involved. Sadat was assassinated two years (1981) after he signed peace with Israel in 1979.
Lebanon has been in constant torment for the past 60 years, thanks no less to Sunni Muslim Arab (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Libya...) and Sunni Muslim Lebanese treachery (1970s-1990s), to Western cowardice or indifference in the face of Iran (Ronald Reagan fled Lebanon when Hezbollah killed 243 of his Marines stationed in Beirut in 1983), and to Muslim Shiite Iranian state terrorism. Lebanon is a small and very diverse country. It should be relatively easy to find solutions to its problems. But as a tiny country, it needs help, especially because it is the only country that has over the past 100 years tried to find common ground between Christianity and Islam, to find ways to live together without resorting to, for example, the chronic violence between Israel-Palestine's Jews and Palestinians.
Muslim-Christian efforts at civilized coexistence hasn't always worked, but it is definitely a far more civilized approach than Zionist Israel's. Lebanon is very difficult to rule, especially when all your "friends" turn out to be your enemies or collude with your enemies. The dumb American envoy Tom Barrack is of Lebanese extraction, but he descends from that World War I generation of Lebanese immigrants who still believe in the Greater Syria fantasy, so naturally he doesn't believe that Lebanon deserves to be an independent nation and it's easy for him to call Lebanon a a failed state. He is not the first westerner to stab Lebanon in the back, pit it against irreconcilable odds, then claim that it is a "failed state". In 1983, the charlatan Zionist Abba Eban was declaring the same conclusion. Were it not for the daily shipping of sophisticated weapons and its use of highly asymmetric warfare, Israel too would be a failed state. All its takes is for the West to give Lebanon the same weapons that it gives Israel, and then Lebanon would no longer be a failed state.
Blaming his victim is the easiest cop-out of the rapist.
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Lebanon's president calls for negotiations to end continued Israeli strikes
SALLY ABOU ALJOUD
Fri, October 31, 2025
In this photo released by the Lebanese Presidency press office, Lebanese president Joseph Aoun, right, shakes hands with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, in Beirut, Friday, Oct. 31, 2025. (Lebanese Presidency press office via AP)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun said Friday that any negotiations with Israel to halt its ongoing strikes on southern Lebanon — which have continued despite a nearly year-old U.S.-brokered ceasefire — must be mutual.
Aoun made the remarks following talks with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, who was on a four-day Middle East tour and visited Beirut on his first official trip since taking office.
The visit came as Israel has recently intensified its strikes on southern Lebanon. Both sides have accused each other of violating the ceasefire, which nominally ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war last November. The conflict started after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas and the Palestinians, prompting Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling in return. The low-level exchanges escalated into full-scale war in September 2024.
Since the ceasefire, Israel has continued to carry out near-daily strikes across southern Lebanon, saying they target Hezbollah militants, weapons depots and command centers. Israeli forces have also maintained positions on several strategic points inside Lebanese territory.
Lebanese officials have accused Israel of striking civilian areas and destroying infrastructure unrelated to Hezbollah, calling on Israeli forces to withdraw and respect Lebanon’s sovereignty.
On Friday, at least two people were killed in Israeli strikes on several locations across southern Lebanon, according to the state-run National News Agency. An Israeli army spokesperson confirmed its forces killed a man, accusing him of attempting to rebuild Hezbollah’s infrastructure.
In a rare ground operation on Thursday, Israeli soldiers raided a municipal building in the border village of Blida, killing Ibrahim Salameh, a municipal employee. The raid sparked condemnation from Lebanese officials and protests by residents. Israel said its troops entered the building to “destroy terrorist infrastructure” linked to Hezbollah and fired to “neutralize a threat,” while Aoun said Salameh was killed “while performing his professional duties.”
“Lebanon is ready for negotiations to end the Israeli occupation,” Aoun told Wadephul, “but any talks cannot be one-sided — they require mutual will, which is still lacking. The format, timing and location of negotiations will be determined later.”
He added that the Lebanese army’s presence in the south will increase to 10,000 troops before the end of the year, noting continued coordination with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. The ceasefire stipulates that both Israel and Hezbollah are required to cease hostilities, with the Lebanese army and UNIFIL deploying south of the Litani River to ensure no armed groups other than the army operate in the area.
The army has since deployed in dozens of positions across southern Lebanon and is working alongside U.N. peacekeepers to monitor ceasefire violations.
Following Thursday’s Israeli ground raid, Aoun said he had requested the Lebanese army to “confront any Israeli incursion” into southern Lebanon “in defense of Lebanese lands and the safety of citizens,” although it was not clear what form that confrontation would take.
“The President’s stance in ordering the army to confront Israeli incursions is a responsible position upon which we build,” Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Naim Kassem said in a recorded address on Friday.
“The positions of the three presidents and some officials are consequential, and our stance is unified,” he added.
After meeting with Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji, Wadephul said the continued Israeli attacks on Lebanese territory were “unacceptable,” stressing the need for Israel to respect Lebanon’s sovereignty and for both Israel and Hezbollah to adhere to the cessation of hostilities arrangements.
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