Lebanon: America’s bargaining chip in its standoff with Iran

Lebanon, home to millennia of human history, is being flattened as it is being used as a bargaining chip in the US-Iran standoff. President Donald Trump this week halted an Israeli onslaught on the capital, Beirut, claiming that he had managed to reinstate a ceasefire agreement between the pro-Iran Hezbollah and Tel Aviv, under which the militant group would suspend its drone attacks on Israel’s north in exchange for an Israeli commitment not to bomb the Lebanese capital.

This agreement does not include the Israeli bombardment of southern Lebanon and its military takeover of large swaths of territory in the south, which has so far displaced more than 1.2 million Lebanese, many of whom have seen their towns and villages erased from the map.

From an Israeli perspective, ceasefires are a cover for selective, one-sided military operations — the barely holding Gaza ceasefire being a case in point. In reality, the Israeli advance into Lebanese territory, in retaliation for Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel, goes beyond the current diplomatic stalemate between Washington and Tehran — a confrontation that has elevated Lebanon from battlefield to bargaining chip. While the Trump administration believes taking Lebanon hostage and using it as a pawn in its showdown with Iran will eventually force the Iranians to make concessions, the Israelis have other plans.

It was Hezbollah’s grave miscalculation following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on southern Israel that created a domino effect that sucked Lebanon into a deadly vortex. The Israeli response was devastating. It killed the group’s top leadership, destroyed most of its Beirut base, eroded its capacity to fire missiles into northern Israel and carried out a major incursion into Lebanese territory, the likes of which had not been seen since 1982.

Using Lebanon as a bargaining chip through Washington’s Israeli proxy is Trump’s way of leveling the playing field

Osama Al-Sharif

And even when a fragile ceasefire deal was reached following last year’s 12-day Israeli-American strikes on Iran, the group — politically and militarily rattled — was already preparing for another round of fighting. So, when the US and Israel waged a surprise war on Iran in February, killing its supreme leader and top brass, Hezbollah retaliated and reopened the Lebanese front. This gave Israel the pretext to push further into Lebanon’s south, creating a so-called defensive buffer from which it could launch lethal incursions, even crossing the Litani River. In the process, Israel applied its Gaza playbook — destroying entire villages and forcing tens of thousands to evacuate.

Only recently has Washington seen an opportunity to weaponize Lebanon in its confrontation with Iran. Tehran shocked the Trump administration by closing the Strait of Hormuz, creating a global economic backlash. Negotiations between the two sides appeared to favor the Iranians, much to Trump’s frustration and dismay.

Using Lebanon as a bargaining chip through Washington’s Israeli proxy is Trump’s way of leveling the playing field: the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for Lebanon. The Iranians are well aware that Hezbollah is a valuable asset in their confrontations with both Israel and the US. And, regrettably, Hezbollah has brazenly subordinated Lebanon’s survival to Iran’s strategic calculus, even though it is recognized as a political party and is represented in the Lebanese government.

So, while Trump has convinced the Israelis not to attack Beirut for now, the ceasefire he announced does not include Israeli military operations in southern Lebanon. Israel’s bombardment of Lebanese cities and towns, including the historic city of Tyre, continues without pause, as do the evacuation orders. Hezbollah is retaliating but is unable to stop the Israeli advance. Lebanon is paying the ultimate price in this latest round of war amid regional and international silence.

Like in Gaza, Israel has not spared mosques, churches, hospitals, schools or residential buildings. The mass destruction of southern Lebanon is deliberate and carries long-term consequences. Israeli officials have openly declared that they intend to stay, that residents will not be allowed to return and that, even if the war ends, the south will be held hostage until Hezbollah is fully disarmed.

Lebanon is paying the ultimate price in this latest round of war amid regional and international silence

Osama Al-Sharif

The scale is staggering: Israel launched more than 1,840 attacks on Lebanon between March 2 and April 7, forcing about a fifth of the country’s entire population — including 350,000 children — to flee their homes, creating what experts describe as one of the world’s fastest-growing displacement crises.

Meanwhile, the US has forced the Lebanese government into direct negotiations with Israel in Washington, with the final goal of signing a peace treaty. The talks proceed while Israel destroys Lebanese cities and towns and expands its occupation. The Lebanese government is being asked to deliver the impossible: disarming Hezbollah. The Washington talks are not a parallel track toward peace, they are a performance of a process designed to buy time for facts on the ground. Israel will not withdraw from the Lebanese territory it occupies, rendering the negotiations a theater of the absurd.

Israel is in a strong position. It has the full backing of Washington, even as it openly declares objectives that differ sharply from those of America. Under the far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu, it seeks territorial expansion into both Lebanon and Syria — annexing buffer zones, entrenching military positions and redrawing the map of the Levant. The Americans may believe that a peace deal, if reached, would persuade Israel to withdraw. That is fantasy.

On the other hand, Hezbollah is losing sympathy even among Lebanon’s Shiite population, who have suffered the most. The group has attacked the government for engaging in peace talks with Israel, yet has offered no path toward national reconciliation, disengagement from Iran or the integration of its forces into the Lebanese army. Unless Hezbollah commits to this path, Israel will continue destroying Lebanon, entrenching its occupation and pursuing what many now fear is its ultimate objective: the demographic and territorial partition of Lebanon.

This is not merely a war between Israel and Hezbollah. It is the convergence of three tragedies: American cynicism that turns a country into collateral, Israeli territorial ambition disguised as security doctrine, and Hezbollah’s catastrophic miscalculation that has dragged Lebanon into an existential battle it cannot win — and did not choose.

The international community’s silence is not neutrality. It is complicity.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.

X: @plato010