Who needs a strong Lebanese state?

Lebanon’s sovereignty is a right. Securing the cooperation needed to exercise it is a political task. After Nawaf Salam’s week at the United Nations, the harder question is whether Lebanon can give other governments practical reasons to prefer a capable Lebanese state. Sympathy can produce statements. A durable strategy requires partners whose interests would suffer if Lebanese institutions failed.

In his address to the General Assembly on September 25, Salam connected three challenges: restoring citizens’ trust, recovering national decision-making and recovering occupied territory. He reserved the authority to speak and negotiate for Lebanon to its constitutional institutions. His account of recovery brought together exclusive state control of weapons, Israeli withdrawal and restored public confidence. These commitments offer a standard against which his diplomacy should be judged.

Read together, Salam’s speech, bilateral meetings and discussions about recovery suggest an effort to give that position practical force. The strategic possibility is to build relationships in which other governments acquire reasons to support effective Lebanese authority. This requires identifying shared interests and negotiating reciprocal obligations. The visit can be assessed through that question: how far did Salam define an approach capable of turning recognition of Lebanon’s sovereignty into cooperation that helps it exercise it?

Salam’s meeting with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa provides a concrete place to examine that possibility. After their talks in New York, Salam spoke of completing the review of bilateral agreements, preparing the first meeting of the new joint higher committee and developing connections in electricity, railways and energy. The committee had been established through an agreement signed in Beirut in July. These remain commitments to further work. Their significance depends on the terms eventually agreed and the capacity to implement them.

Lebanese memories of Syrian domination raise the standard these arrangements must meet. A different president is insufficient; the relationship needs rules that remain useful when goodwill runs out. Dependable borders, energy connections and legitimate trade could give both countries reasons to cooperate. Clear obligations and procedures for resolving disputes would determine whether those connections expand Lebanon’s choices or expose it to new forms of pressure. Cooperation would require constraints that both governments accept.

Salam carried a similar principle into his September 24 meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. He called for relations between states based on sovereignty, non-interference and common interests, and invited Iran to nominate a new ambassador. He also stressed that Lebanon did not want to serve as an arena for regional conflicts or the exchange of messages. These were the positions conveyed by the Lebanese government; the readout does not establish Iranian agreement to their practical consequences.

Placed alongside his meeting with Sharaa, the exchange with Pezeshkian gives Salam’s position greater consistency. Damascus and Tehran have different interests, and the agreements available with each will differ. His stated approach nevertheless gives both relationships the same starting point: Lebanon engages through its constitutional institutions and expects its sovereignty to be respected. The diplomatic test is whether that position can shape subsequent dealings with each government.

New York offered a setting in which those regional conversations could take place alongside discussions about international security and financing. The opportunity for Salam was to connect what Lebanon needs with what different partners are prepared to support. Their interests will never fully coincide. A Lebanese strategy must identify where they overlap and secure commitments that remain useful when priorities change.

This also gives the discussion over a successor to UNIFIL a strategic dimension. In his UN address, Salam called for avoiding a vacuum through an international force preserving monitoring, reporting and liaison functions. Such a presence would require participating governments to commit personnel, funding and political backing. Its durability would depend on how they understood their own stake in Lebanon’s stability, alongside a clear mandate and realistic responsibilities.

The difficulty is that Lebanon must negotiate these arrangements while its ability to implement them remains constrained. International assistance and reciprocal action could help expand that ability. This calls for an agreed sequence in which the responsibilities of Lebanon and its partners are explicit, and progress on each side can be checked.

Salam’s call for reciprocal, phased implementation, a timetable and verification in negotiations with Israel reflects this need. Lebanese responsibilities must be specified alongside the withdrawal and security commitments required of Israel. A workable arrangement would identify what each side must do, when it must act and how compliance will be established. Lebanon’s negotiating position would improve if its partners were willing to use their influence to uphold those commitments.

Recovery support offers another test of whether diplomatic engagement can produce a sustained commitment. At the event convened by Lebanon, the European Union and UNDP, Salam said: “International support should strengthen the State’s ability to act, not build parallel systems around it.” This would require assistance to leave Lebanon better able to implement reconstruction and recovery programmes, with financing and responsibilities clear enough for partners to coordinate their efforts.

The EU’s adoption of €505 million for 2026 and 2027 gives that discussion a concrete financial dimension. Announced on the margins of the General Assembly, it is the second tranche of the package pledged in 2024. Its value now depends on implementation: how commitments become programmes, how projects are sustained and whether cooperation continues beyond the immediate emergency. The announcement provides something against which subsequent progress can be assessed.

The meetings with Syria and Iran, the discussions about an international presence and the recovery agenda are separate negotiations with different counterparts. Their coherence has to come from the Lebanese position. Across them, Salam is asking for recognition of the state’s authority and support for its capacity to act. The practical measure of progress will be the commitments partners make in response, and Lebanon’s ability to meet its own.

Salam has set out what Lebanon seeks from the international system. His government must now negotiate what others will undertake to help make it possible, alongside the responsibilities Lebanon accepts itself. The strategic achievement would be relationships that give partners reasons to uphold their commitments when doing so becomes inconvenient. That is when the interests discussed in New York would begin to give Lebanese sovereignty practical force.