Lebanon and its suspended sovereignty: Generations between power and paralysis

No country in the region exposes the fragility of sovereignty more starkly than Lebanon. A nation that mastered the luxury of political theory before acquiring the ability to protect its own borders, a country that built a unique democratic model in a turbulent environment yet failed to monopolize force and remained for decades a state torn by competing loyalties and a people suspended between overlapping identities.

Here, the question of sovereignty is not limited to geographical borders or uncontrolled weapons; it stretches deep into political philosophy itself:

How can a state rise when the meaning of allegiance never settles?, Can a country ever be free if its division is treated as an inevitable political fate? How does a state lose its sovereignty, and can it endure without the ability to monopolize legitimate force, secure its borders, and make its own decisions?.

These questions are not new to Lebanon. Since its modern founding, the country carried the seeds of its contradictions. Some envisioned it as a bridge between East and West; others as part of broader ideological or even transnational projects, whether Arab nationalist, internationalist, or supra-nationalist. Lebanon never possessed the capacity to isolate itself from the region, nor to merge with it entirely. It remained searching for its definition, and in that search, a large part of its ability to function as a sovereign state was lost.

Political philosophers from Hobbes and Rousseau to Hannah Arendt wrote extensively on state sovereignty. But the Lebanese case adds a layered dimension that goes beyond state authority over territory and population. Here, sovereignty intertwines with identity, sectarian balances, and an open regional conflict. Lebanon did not experience a temporary sovereignty crisis, but a long trajectory that turned it into an arena for others’ battles more than a state capable of defending itself.

Thomas Hobbes argued in “Leviathan” that sovereignty is a social pact that protects society from chaos; Rousseau asserted that it is the will of a free, unified people; while Max Weber declared that the state is the only entity authorized to monopolize legitimate violence.

By this measure, any breach by non-state actors or foreign dependencies amounts to a practical erosion of sovereignty.

By all such standards, Lebanon deviated from statehood at crucial moments of its modern history since the mid-20th century.

Sovereignty... A concept lost before it was born

From the earliest years of the republic, sovereignty was rarely realized. The newborn state was bound by a sensitive sectarian equation that distributed power structurally and made external allegiances natural extensions of internal identities. The “outside” was not only a source of political influence; it became part of how communities imagined themselves and their interests. In such a context, the state never succeeded in becoming the sole reference. After each central turning point, the contradictions deepened between the state's logic and the logic of power outside it.

1958 the first rift. A clash of identities

In the summer of 1958, Lebanon faced its first profound national crisis since independence. President Camille Chamoun sought to extend his mandate, while Arab nationalism under Gamal Abdel Nasser swept the region. The country is split between two poles: supporters of the pro-Western, U.S.-aligned project and advocates of the Nasserist and Soviet-backed camp.

Political tension slid into limited armed conflict, prompting U.S. Marines to land in Beirut under “Operation Blue Bat” to preserve the government and prevent state collapse. The crisis ended with a compromise, bringing Fouad Chehab to power and launching developmental reforms across regions. Yet the core questions remained unanswered: To whom does Lebanon owe allegiance? To the state or to the Arab nation? To the West or the East? What shape should Lebanon take?.

Thus began the long journey of fractured identity between an incomplete national identity and political identities pulled by external poles.

The Cairo Agreement. The state cedes authority

In 1969, Lebanon signed the Cairo Agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization under Egyptian mediation, granting Palestinian factions the right to operate militarily from southern Lebanon and inside refugee camps, beyond state control. This merely formalized a reality that had begun in 1963, when Palestinian guerrillas launched operations from Lebanese territory, triggering Israeli retaliation, including the 1967 Beirut airport raid.

The agreement effectively acknowledged that Lebanese sovereignty was no longer intact. Instead of monopolizing weapons, the state shared authority: nominal power in Beirut, absolute armed control in the field across “Fatahland” in the south, the mountains, the Bekaa, Beirut, and beyond. It was the first official legitimization of non-state arms, a precursor to scenes that would be repeated over the decades with other actors.

1975.. When Lebanon became a full arena

The spark in Ain al-Rummanah was merely the explosion of accumulated tensions: widespread Palestinian arms clashing with the Lebanese Army, localized refusal of weapons versus support for them elsewhere, and the military mobilization of political parties under the watch of a paralyzed state. Regional and global forces -Nasser’s Egypt, Assad’s Syria, NATO, and the Soviet bloc- were already deeply involved.

Civil war erupted. Syria entered in 1976 claiming to protect Christians from leftist and Palestinian forces, then turned its arms against them in the “100-day war”. Israel invaded in 1978 to push Palestinian fighters away from its border, then invaded again in 1982 to Beirut. Christians split, then united under Bashir Gemayel, only for the unification project to be assassinated with his killing. Muslims splintered among leftists, nationalists, Islamists, and Palestinian factions, sometimes fighting each other under grand slogans of liberating Palestine and resisting imperialism.

A war that lasted fifteen years, with bloodshed and kidnappings, was launched under grand causes only to devolve into fratricide across sects. And despite all the death and destruction, the question of sovereignty was not resolved, but only made more complicated: How can the state return when communities have grown accustomed to weapons and external guardians?

The Taif Agreement... Peace, then a new custodianship

The war ended in Taif under the slogan “no victor, no vanquished”, yet militias were not entirely disarmed. Syrian tutelage took hold; Damascus dictated political and security order. All militias were dissolved except Hezbollah, which was granted “resistance” legitimacy with Iranian support and Syrian facilitation. Institutions were rebuilt under Rafik Hariri, with the hope that Taif would eventually be fully implemented and Syria would withdraw. But political and security decisions remained anchored in Damascus. Michel Aoun was exiled; Samir Geagea was imprisoned under fabricated charges.

Lebanon wore the suit of a state, but its body remained governed by external power dynamics. War in the south could be ignited whenever Syrian or Iranian needs demanded leverage against Washington. Even after Israel withdrew in 2000, militia arms persisted under Syrian control.

The Beirut Spring... A chance that faded

Rafik Hariri’s assassination in 2005 ignited the streets. From the south to the north, hundreds of thousands protested, forcing Syria’s withdrawal amid favorable international momentum. A landmark moment in modern Lebanese sovereignty, but it did not evolve into a complete state-building project. Divisions resurfaced; arms remained outside state authority; the 2006 war erupted; and polarization deepened between the logic of the state and that of “resistance”. The assassinations of Samir Kassir, George Hawi, Gebran Tueni, Pierre Gemayel, Mohammad Chatah, and others sent a clear message: the sovereign project would not be allowed to mature.

2008.. Weapons decide

In May 2008, Hezbollah and its allies seized West Beirut and parts of Mount Lebanon. The event redrew the political landscape, proving that military power outweighs constitutional legitimacy. From that point, sovereignty was determined by force, not law. With Hezbollah’s intervention in the Syrian war, Lebanon became organically integrated into an Iranian-led regional axis. The state managed bureaucracy and crisis, but not sovereignty. Even maritime border negotiations with Israel ended under a political framework shaped by the same balance of force.

The people. The last wall of sovereignty

Despite collapse, Lebanon witnessed civilian resistance: the 2015 anti-corruption movement, then the October 17, 2019, uprising, which united Lebanese outside sectarian polarization for the first time. These moments did not become revolutions, but they showed that the sovereign impulse remains alive, that no camp monopolizes the national narrative. Yet consciousness alone does not build a state. Without leadership, organization, economic stability, and freedom from intimidation, these waves receded.

Today, Lebanon straddles two realities: a state with a constitution, army, and institutions, and a de facto arena ruled by regional power dynamics tied to Iran, Israel, and global alignments. Borders are porous; decisions suspended. It is not destiny, but the product of a long history of concessions, internal rivalries, and failure to forge a unified national project.

What comes next?

Can Lebanon rebuild its state? History suggests sovereignty is seized, not granted. A state rises only on a social contract that places national interest above sect, weapons, and foreign designs. Lebanese unity around a single definition of sovereignty is the only possible opening, but awareness and public will are not enough without political transformation and organized leadership. Lebanon needs a new class of leaders, a project of statehood over arena-politics, and a bold founding moment akin to 2005, only deeper and more structured.

Until that moment comes, Lebanon’s sovereignty remains more of an idea than a reality,
a dream reborn with every generation, only to collide, time and again, with the walls of weapons, politics, and history.

Yet the dream never dies in this small country.
Here, sovereignty has always been a matter of life and death, not an intellectual luxury.

Across long and bitter decades, the Lebanese demonstrated an extraordinary ability to believe in their country's independence and its right to stand as a sovereign nation, even against the harshest odds. And each time, they labored to unite, to carve out a founding moment of their own.

As if history insists on writing that the Land of the Cedars remained, until the very last instant, suspended between a nation that never fully materialized and an arena whose gates were never closed.

And still, the dream remains larger than all of it.