Breaking the curse of geography

Lebanon has spent much of its modern history arguing about whom it belongs to and remarkably little time deciding what it wants. Are we part of Syria’s natural political space? Are we the front line of the Arab-Israeli conflict? Are we a bridge between the Arab world and the West, or an arena where every regional struggle eventually arrives?

These questions have produced parties, militias and political identities. They have not produced a coherent doctrine of Lebanese national interest. This is the real curse of Lebanon’s geography. It is not simply that Syria surrounds us from the north and east, or that Israel lies to our south. It is that Lebanon has repeatedly approached both neighbors through identity, loyalty and fear rather than through institutions capable of calculating national interest.

Syria must either be loved as a sister or feared as an occupier. Israel must either be fought eternally or imagined as the answer to all our problems. Between submission and permanent confrontation, there is little room for the colder question states are supposed to ask:

What serves Lebanon?

But answering that question requires more than replacing ideology with optimism. Borders do not become productive simply because trade resumes, fighting stops or an economic zone is declared. Comparative experience shows that a peace dividend depends on at least three conditions: a credible political settlement, a state capable of implementing it and an economic mechanism that connects the opening to domestic firms and external markets.

Lebanon has repeatedly pursued agreements without these conditions. That, more than geography itself, explains why proximity has so often produced dependency rather than prosperity.

What other conflicts teach us

Colombia illustrates why ending violence is not enough. Research comparing municipalities historically controlled by the FARC with areas influenced by another armed group found that violence fell substantially after the FARC ceasefire, but several indicators of economic activity did not improve. The study attributes this partly to weak local institutions and the failure of the state to establish sufficient administrative capacity in territories previously shaped by armed actors. Peace reduced violence, but economic development did not automatically follow.

The relevance to southern Lebanon is direct. A ceasefire or withdrawal may make investment possible, but it cannot substitute for courts, policing, infrastructure, effective municipalities and public administration. Where the state remains absent, the vacuum may be filled by political parties, private networks or new forms of armed authority. The absence of war is a precondition for development, not development itself.

Jordan’s Qualifying Industrial Zones offer a different warning. The zones gave Jordanian products duty-free access to the American market when they included Israeli inputs. That external incentive helped expand exports and attract investment. Yet World Bank assessments found that the zones developed few links with the wider Jordanian economy and generated limited indirect employment; at one point, most workers inside them were foreign rather than Jordanian.

The lesson is not that economic zones fail. It is that exports, foreign investment and factory numbers can rise without generating substantial domestic productive capacity. A zone contributes to national development only when it purchases from local suppliers, trains local workers, transfers technology and creates firms capable of competing outside it.

Northern Ireland demonstrates a third condition. Cross-border cooperation did not emerge spontaneously from the ceasefires or the Good Friday Agreement. It was supported by institutions, external guarantees and long-term financing. The first three European Union PEACE programmes received approximately €1.3 billion between 1995 and 2013, while parallel programmes financed cross-border infrastructure and socioeconomic cooperation.

The comparative lesson is therefore clear. Colombia shows that peace without state capacity may bring little economic transformation. Jordan shows that zones without domestic linkages may generate exports without building the national economy. Northern Ireland shows that cross-border development requires political legitimacy, institutions and sustained external support. Lebanon cannot copy any of these experiences. But it should learn from all three.

Syria: a position, not a reconstruction fantasy

No serious Lebanese economic strategy can pretend Syria does not exist. Lebanon shares a 375-kilometre border with it and depends on Syrian territory for overland access to Jordan and the Gulf. Yet proximity has produced far less value than geography would suggest. Lebanon and Syria accumulated more than 40 agreements covering trade, investment, taxation, visas and standards under the Assad era. Nevertheless, annual trade, which once approached $800 million, had fallen to approximately $250 million by 2025. Lebanese exporters continued to face unequal tariffs and logistical barriers.

The failure was not a lack of agreements. It was the structure within which they operated. “Special relations” gave Syria extensive influence inside Lebanon without building a reciprocal relationship between sovereign states. Political access often mattered more than competitiveness, while weak border administration and informal networks undermined formal trade.

Lebanon must therefore avoid describing Syria’s reconstruction as an opportunity without defining what it can realistically do. The World Bank estimates Syria’s physical reconstruction costs at $216 billion, almost ten times its projected 2024 gross domestic product. Lebanon cannot compete with Turkey or the Gulf in financing power stations, purchasing ports or rebuilding entire cities. A more credible Lebanese role would be as a specialized subcontracting, services and procurement base for selected projects in western and central Syria. Lebanese engineering, architectural, legal, financial and project-management firms could enter larger Gulf, European or international consortia. Tripoli could support parts of this activity through logistics, warehousing, light assembly and equipment services.

But even this narrower ambition requires tools that Lebanon currently lacks. Firms need access to tender information, assistance in forming consortia, recognized technical certification and protection against payment and political risks. Trade requires predictable tariffs, digital customs, enforceable contracts and agreed technical standards.

Tripoli itself provides a warning. Lebanon established the Tripoli Special Economic Zone by law, but the World Bank stressed that its viability depended on reliable infrastructure, efficient customs, credible management and links with the domestic economy. Declaring a zone was easier than constructing the institutions required to make it productive.

The success of a Syrian strategy should therefore not be measured by the number of trucks crossing the border. It should be measured by the contracts won by Lebanese firms, the services provided from Lebanon, the local suppliers integrated into larger projects and the skills that remain after the reconstruction contract ends. Lebanon’s objective should not be to claim that it will rebuild Syria. It should be to secure a defined and defensible position within Syria’s reconstruction economy.

Israel: no peace dividend without a mechanism

Lebanon’s experience with Israel demonstrates why the design and legitimacy of an agreement matter. The May 17 Agreement of 1983 was negotiated while Lebanon was divided by civil war and occupied by both Syrian and Israeli forces. It attempted to terminate hostilities and arrange Israeli withdrawal, but its implementation became tied to Syrian withdrawal, while the Lebanese state lacked the capacity and domestic consensus necessary to enforce it. It was annulled the following year. Its collapse is often treated as proof that negotiation itself is surrender. A more careful conclusion is that agreements reached under severe asymmetry, without sufficient legitimacy or implementation capacity, are unlikely to survive.

The 2022 maritime boundary agreement offers the opposite lesson. It succeeded because it was narrow, technically defined and materially reciprocal. It did not try to settle every historical dispute or demand diplomatic recognition. It established what the agreement itself described as a permanent and equitable resolution of one maritime dispute. Any wider settlement must therefore be sequenced. Israeli withdrawal, border arrangements, security guarantees and the restoration of Lebanese state authority must come before economic integration. Reconstruction must come before claims of a peace dividend.

The need is immense. The World Bank estimated Lebanon’s recovery and reconstruction requirements after the 2023–2024 conflict at $11 billion, with much of the private financing required in housing, commerce, industry and tourism. Southern Lebanon cannot remain trapped in a cycle of destruction, partial reconstruction and renewed destruction.

But a Southern Economic and Development Zone is not automatically the answer. The Jordanian experience shows that a zone needs more than peace and tax incentives. It needs a market.

Jordan’s zones attracted firms because they offered preferential access to the United States. Lebanon would require a comparable economic mechanism: preferential access to European, American or Gulf markets, internationally financed infrastructure and rules guaranteeing Lebanese employment, procurement and ownership. Without such incentives, a southern zone would compete against better-established zones in Jordan, Egypt, Israel and the Gulf.

The Northern Irish comparison is equally important. Cross-border cooperation became viable because it was embedded in a recognized political settlement and supported by long-term institutions and financing. Lebanon cannot leap from conflict to commercial cooperation while leaving sovereignty, security and domestic consent unresolved. A southern zone should therefore be understood not as the natural consequence of peace, but as a negotiated economic instrument. Its viability would depend on international guarantees, external market access, transparent governance and measurable links with Lebanese firms and workers.

Lebanon should neither make peace as a favor to Israel nor maintain war as a favour to Iran. But national interest is not produced merely by choosing negotiation. It is produced by negotiating arrangements that the Lebanese state can implement and from which Lebanese society can retain value.

The state before the zone

Lebanon’s geography is neither inherently a curse nor automatically an opportunity.

Syria may become a reconstruction market. An agreement with Israel may eventually make southern development possible. Lebanon’s diaspora may provide capital, expertise and access to international firms. None of these assets, however, will organize themselves.

Diaspora money cannot replace shareholder protections, transparent funds or credible courts. Human capital cannot replace firms capable of bidding for contracts. Ports cannot replace efficient customs. Economic zones cannot replace a political settlement. And peace cannot replace the state.

This is the central lesson Lebanon should draw from other post-conflict and border economies. Economic openings create possibilities, but institutions determine who captures them. Without institutions, cooperation with Syria risks reproducing political privilege and informal trade. Without domestic legitimacy and external guarantees, an agreement with Israel risks repeating the failures of imposed settlements. Without local linkages, free zones risk becoming enclaves in which foreign capital, products and labor circulate while little national capacity is created.

Syria will remain to Lebanon’s north and east. Israel will remain to its south. No ideology, election or military victory will alter these facts. The choice is not whether Lebanon accepts its geography. It is whether geography will continue to be managed by militias, patronage networks and foreign powers, or by a state capable of defining, negotiating and implementing a Lebanese interest. We do not need better neighbors. We need institutions strong enough to know what to do with the neighbors we have.