2025: From hope to the brink once again

As 2025 began, a long-awaited glimmer of hope appeared on the horizon for the Lebanese. After years of war and collapse, Hezbollah’s declining influence following the military defeat it sustained led to the breaking of the prolonged presidential vacuum with the election of General Joseph Aoun as president of the republic. His inaugural address was not a mere ceremonial statement; it clearly articulated the Lebanese people’s dream of a genuine state one that restores its authority and sovereignty over all its territory and embarks on a serious path of administrative, economic, and financial reforms to emerge from the dark tunnel. Most importantly, it brought back to the forefront a fundamental demand without which no recovery is possible: holding accountable those who looted public funds and squandered citizens’ deposits, as a foundational step toward restoring trust and building a future worthy of Lebanon and its people.

The appointment of Judge Nawaf Salam to form the first government of the new presidential term added a further dose of optimism, aligned with the very direction the Lebanese had long dreamed of and awaited. With his judicial record and image of independence, Salam came to symbolize, for many, the promise of a different phase one expected to place the country back on the path of statehood and the rule of law.

Yet as days and then months passed without translating these promises into tangible executive action, mounting questions began to surface, opening the door to doubt over whether Presidents Aoun and Salam were truly prepared to move from rhetoric to action, from promises to decisions.

These hopes, however, soon began to turn into accumulated frustration, as a clear shift emerged in the official approach to Hezbollah’s weapons. After a high-ceiling sovereign discourse, it became apparent that the authorities had, in practice, adhered to the boundaries drawn by Hezbollah for both the state and the Lebanese army: discussion of restricting weapons south of the Litani River was permissible; north of it was a red line off-limits even for debate.

The decisions of August 5 and 7 briefly revived optimism, only for the government to reverse course at its September 5 session one Hezbollah was quick to label as “corrective,” undoing what it considered to be the mistakes of August 5 and 7. From that moment on, official positions accelerated toward convergence with Hezbollah’s stance, culminating in near-total alignment, particularly through the adoption of an approach to “contain” weapons north of the Litani: keeping them in Hezbollah’s hands in exchange for a pledge not to move or use them. This approach can only be described as smoke and mirrors empty rhetoric that contradicts the most basic notions of sovereignty and statehood.

This newfound harmony between the authorities and Hezbollah did not merely deepen domestic disappointment; it also prompted the international community to escalate its warnings to Lebanese officials. These warnings were conveyed clearly, whether in bilateral meetings or through media platforms, underscoring that the Lebanese state is failing and unwilling to assume its sovereign responsibilities. Continued inaction, they warned, could open the door to Israeli military escalation and a renewed confrontation with Hezbollah, under U.S. cover, to carry out what the state has refrained from doing: dismantling what remains of Hezbollah’s weapons and military apparatus, even at the cost of Lebanon’s stability once again.

President Aoun’s recent remarks from Bkerke during Christmas celebrations further heightened both frustration and anxiety. His declaration that the decision to restrict weapons had been taken, but that its implementation was postponed until “appropriate circumstances,” did little to reassure the Lebanese. Instead, it reopened fears and increased the risk of sliding back toward war. Talk of “circumstances” is incompatible with the concept of state authority and sovereignty; a real state enforces its authority without hesitation or delay.

It is worth noting that Hezbollah only relinquished its weapons south of the Litani after a devastating war that decimated much of its leadership and imposed heavy costs. Is it conceivable that the Lebanese authorities remain abdicated from their sovereign responsibilities, waiting for another war to plunge the country into further destruction so that what the state has failed to do is imposed by force? This concern is all the more pressing as attention turns to the anticipated meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where Hezbollah’s file is expected to be a central item on the agenda carrying serious indications of a potential major military escalation against the group.

Beyond the political authority’s failure to act decisively on the sovereign front, its inability or complicity has become equally evident in its handling of administrative, economic, and financial reform. It quickly became clear that the logic of the state had not advanced an inch, while the logic of sectarian power-sharing once again came to dominate decision-making, at the expense of competence and integrity, in administrative, judicial, military, security, and diplomatic appointments. It is as though the new presidential term, born amid promises of change, chose instead to reproduce the same system with different tools and more polished slogans.

The draft “financial gap” law represents the latest chapter in the authorities’ failure to honor their reform promises. Prepared at the expense of depositors’ rights, the bill is based on a haphazard approach devoid of justice or reform logic, rather than on a comprehensive forensic financial audit that would uncover illicit funds and distinguish between a depositor whose life savings were stolen and one who accumulated wealth through corruption. Only then could it have been possible to determine who deserves full restitution and whose assets should be confiscated and prosecuted, regardless of whether their accounts exceed or fall below one hundred thousand dollars.

In conclusion, 2025 began in the aftermath of a war and the new equations it produced equations that brought Joseph Aoun and Nawaf Salam to power and yielded an inaugural address and a ministerial statement with a sovereign and reformist ceiling that would not have been possible without Hezbollah’s defeat in that war. That phase also carried promises of accountability, state reform, and the recovery of depositors’ funds. Yet the troubling reality today is that, as we approach the end of 2025, Lebanon finds itself on the brink of a new war that could accompany the early months of 2026, driven by Hezbollah’s intransigence.

Lebanese citizens continue to place their hopes on the political authorities to assume their sovereign responsibilities by confining weapons to the hands of the state and sparing the country another war. They also continue to bet on officials honoring their pledges on reform, anti-corruption efforts, and putting an end to the logic of power-sharing, backroom deals, and patronage.