A fragile presidency in an unstable world: Lebanon at the crossroads of regional and global upheaval |
One year into the term of Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Lebanon finds itself navigating one of the most fragile and contradictory moments in its modern history. The debate over the president’s role, vision and capacity to act rages on in a political environment chronically incapable of consensus and within a society that, despite decades of war, crisis and collapse, still struggles to translate hardship into collective agreement. Yet to view Lebanon’s presidential predicament in isolation would be deeply misleading. The challenges facing Joseph Aoun are inseparable from the profound regional and global earthquakes now reshaping the international order.
At first glance, Lebanon’s problems may appear marginal when set against the scale of turmoil engulfing the Middle East and the wider world. Economic collapse, institutional paralysis and social fragmentation are no longer uniquely Lebanese phenomena. However, Lebanon’s extreme vulnerability, coupled with its geostrategic position, makes it particularly sensitive to external shocks. The country has rarely been a master of its own fate; today, it is more exposed than ever to forces well beyond its borders.
Geographically and historically, Lebanon’s immediate environment is defined by Syria and Israel, two neighbors whose trajectories have shaped Lebanese politics for decades. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria marks the end of an era that cast a long shadow over Lebanon. For decades, Damascus exercised decisive influence over Lebanese political life, often in heavy-handed and coercive ways. Syria, for all its contradictions, was perceived by many Lebanese as a fraternal or even twin entity, bound by geography, history and social ties. The collapse of centralized authority in Syria has removed one form of domination, but it has also opened the door to uncertainty, insecurity and shifting power balances that inevitably spill into Lebanon.
Israel, by contrast, has never occupied a comparable place in the Lebanese imagination. Its establishment in 1948 on the ruins of Palestine and the Nakba that followed created a foundational rupture in the........