Lebanon’s New President Reflects Hezbollah’s Weakness

Joseph Aoun is the new president of Lebanon, a country that has gone without a president for the past two years. As required by the Lebanese Constitution, he is a Christian. And unlike his namesake and predecessor as president, Michel Aoun, Joseph Aoun is determinedly opposed to Hezbollah, and hopes to constrain its power.

More on what Joseph Aoun’s elevation means for Hezbollah can be found here: “Weakening of Hezbollah enabled Lebanon to fill 2-year-old presidential vacancy,” Times of Israel, January 10, 2025:

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The weakening of Hezbollah in last year’s war with Israel allowed Lebanon’s long-deadlocked parliament to reach a consensus around a president who has the confidence of the international community.

Lebanese Armed Forces chief Joseph Aoun, who was elected on Thursday — ending a more than two-year vacancy — signaled a readjustment of Lebanon’s foreign policy as the country works with international creditors to forge a way out of six years of deepening financial crisis.

Deadlock in parliament between pro- and anti-Hezbollah blocs had stalemated a dozen previous attempts to elect a president, leaving the country largely rudderless in its efforts to secure an emergency bailout….

Hezbollah has been stymying efforts to appoint a president who might be independent; it wanted only someone who would be the group’s lapdog, unable to stand up against it. The previous president, Michel Aoun, was such a president, but Joseph Aoun has long been known for his opposition to the group. When Hezbollah appeared militarily strong, it was able to prevent Joseph Aoun from being considered for the presidency. But now, after several months of IDF-Hezbollah combat, the Lebanese group has been greatly weakened. It has lost 80% of its once-mighty arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles. The IDF has killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, as well as Nasrallah’s likely successor Hashem Safieddine. It has killed both the commander and the deputy commander of its most elite unit, the Radwan Forces, and ten of the twelve members of the Jihad Council. Nearly four thousand Hebzollah operatives have been killed, and thousands more wounded. No wonder Hezbollah pleaded for a ceasefire in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah has been gravely weakened in two ways. First, there is the devastating military defeat it suffered at the hands of the IDF, with 80% of its major weapons destroyed and thousands of its operatives killed or severely wounded. Second, there is the loss of its once-powerful ally right next door —Assad’s Syria. Now the regime in Syria has been transformed from being an ally of Hezbollah to being its determined enemy, for the Sunni rebels who have taken over Syria will never forgive Hezbollah for the support it gave Assad during the Syrian Civil War.

Iran has suffered as, one by one, its proxies in the region have been defeated by the IDF. In Gaza, the IDF is in the last stages of dismantling Hamas. In Lebanon, the IDF has battered Hezbollah, destroyed 80% of its major weapons, and killed or wounded thousands of its operatives. In Syria, the Assad regime crumbled at once before the rebel assault led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), because it could no longer count on military assistance either from Hezbollah or from Iran. The Islamic Republic had itself been weakened by the devastating Israeli attack on October 26, that destroyed Iran’s S-300 anti-aircraft defense systems, leaving it wide open to future Israeli attacks. Syria has now become an enemy, instead of being an ally, of both Hezbollah and Iran.

The Americans, meanwhile, are working to strengthen the Lebanese National Army so that it might better confront Hezbollah. The Biden administration just announced that it was taking $75 million that was scheduled to be sent as aid to Egypt and instead is sending it to Lebanon, as part of the effort to build up the Lebanese Army.

And now the Saudis, recognizing the weakened position of Hezbollah, are willing to re-engage with Lebanon, and to support those forces that want to undermine Hezbollah still further, by pressuring it to demilitarize and forcing it to become just one more political party, unable to threaten the other groups in Lebanon. Joseph Aoun fits that bill. And that powerful group of outside powers — the U.S., France, Qatar, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia — lobbied heavily for Joseph Aoun, showing that they all agreed on the need for a Lebanese leader who would not be cowed by Hezbollah and would strive to reduce its power. And the Lebanese are in desperate need of money, in amounts that can only come from the Saudis, the UAE, and other rich Gulf states that are fiercely anti-Hezbollah.

In a possible nod to his backers, Aoun in his inaugural speech Thursday committed to “a policy of positive neutrality” and better relations with Arab countries.

What is “positive neutrality”? I take it to mean Aoun, unlike his predecessor, would not defend Hezbollah’s role as the strongest military force in Lebanon. That he would be more “positive” in his support of the anti-Hezbollah coalition. And in pledging better relations with Arab countries, he knows that that necessarily will be at the expense of their adversary Iran, and Iran-linked Hezbollah.

Aoun has now thrown down the gauntlet: he wants Hezbollah to be disarmed, and become only a political party, instead of what it is now —  an armed state within a state, with a political party attached. It must no longer possess more military power than the Lebanese National Army. In fact, it should be made to surrender its arms to the state. In Aoun’s view, the Lebanese army should have a monopoly on arms within the country.

Israel seized the so-called security strip in 1982, in a bid to stem persistent attacks by Lebanon’s Shiite Amal movement, and withdrew from there in 2000….

The IDF withdrew from its “security strip” within Lebanon in 2000, so for the past quarter-century Hezbollah has had no legitimate reason to keep its weapons; it has no need any longer to fight a nonexistent Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon.

The Shia in Lebanon, both those who support the political party Amal, and those who support the terror group Hezbollah, now understand that they need now to compromise with the Christians and Sunni Muslims, and even the many Shi’a opposed to Hezbollah. Hezbollah, weakened militarily in such a grievous fashion, cannot be resupplied by Iran because the conduit for such weapons, Syria, is now run by people who hate both Hezbollah and Iran. Furthermore, Lebanon is in a severe financial crisis, and the only aid that it might receive will have to come from the rich Sunni states of the Gulf. And that will require that the Lebanese government distance itself fromHezbollah.

As head of the Lebanese army, Joseph Aoun has been moving LNA forces in wherever the IDF, or Hezbollah, move out, and keeping the pressure on Hezbollah forces, that have proven so refractory, to move north of the Litani River, as is required by the ceasefire agreement. The army should be more aggressive in pushing Hezbollah northward, according to the IDF. Perhaps with his added power — going from being head of the army to being the leader of Lebanon — Aoun will be able to enforce Hezbollah’s removal from the south more vigorously, as the Israelis want. And Aoun is keenly aware that the Israelis are prepared to go right back into southern Lebanon if they believe that Hezbollah is not moving out fast enough or in some places, not moving at all.

[Hilal] Khashan, the American University professor, said it was now down to Aoun, with his military background, to persuade Hezbollah to lay down its remaining weapons.

Only a president hailing from the army can disarm Hezbollah, especially after Israel destroyed more than 80 percent of its [Hezbollah’s] military hardware,” he said.

“At this stage, Hezbollah has no option but to transform itself into a political party without a military component.”

Khashan is right. Aoun as a military man knows what weapons Hezbollah still possesses, and also knows the strength of the Lebanese army that he headed until last week. He can appeal to Hezbollah’s desire to survive, whatever it costs, by noting that if it does not remove itself from south of the Litani, it can only expect more devastating attacks by the IDF, and it should not count on any help from the Lebanese National Army, that wants to be the only armed force in the country. Most people in Lebanon — Christians, Sunnis, and many Shi’a, too — are horrified at the destruction that Hezbollah has brought upon the country by launching its rockets and missiles into Israel. Joseph Aoun will do whatever he must to ensure that Hezbollah’s continued assaults on the Jewish state come to a halt. And then, after decades of cross-border exchanges of fire, Lebanon will have a chance to rebuild with money from the only countries that have the wherewithal — the ferociously anti-Hezbollah Arab states of the Gulf.