Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was presented as an attempt to move the tripartite framework from principles to implementation. Salam called for reciprocity, a clear timetable, credible verification, Israeli withdrawal, and exclusive state control over weapons. These demands are legitimate. Together, however, they reveal the growing danger that Lebanon’s ruling establishment is turning the framework into another exercise in buying time.

This is not primarily a criticism of Salam. The prime minister is operating within a political system that has perfected the art of replacing decisions with formulations. His recent address before the United Nations reflected that constraint. He defended the principle of exclusive state control over weapons but failed to name Hezbollah – the organization that usurped the state’s authority to wage war and dragged Lebanon into repeated catastrophes.

Lebanon’s problem is not an unidentified collection of weapons. It is Hezbollah’s Iranian-backed military structure.

The greater responsibility rests with President Joseph Aoun and the political circle surrounding him. Articles and arguments circulated by advisers close to the presidency suggest an effort to revise the logic of the framework, or at least postpone its implementation. The language is increasingly familiar: Israel must withdraw first, conditions must improve, guarantees must be secured, and only then can Lebanon address the weapons outside state control.

This is not strategy. It is procrastination dressed up as caution.

The apparent calculation is that time may produce a more favorable international environment. Some in Beirut seem to be waiting for the outcome of the American midterm elections and the Israeli parliamentary elections, hoping that a political setback for Benjamin Netanyahu will soften Washington’s approach or alter Israel’s security doctrine.

That expectation is dangerously naïve.

Israel’s position on Hezbollah is no longer merely Netanyahu’s personal policy. It reflects a broad security consensus formed after years of cross-border escalation and the collapse of previous arrangements. Netanyahu’s rivals may disagree with him on many issues, but they are unlikely to accept the restoration of Hezbollah’s military infrastructure along Israel’s northern frontier.

Nor is this consensus limited to Israel and the United States. The Arab Gulf states are equally clear that Hezbollah must be disarmed. They have experienced Iran’s proxy network not as an abstract ideological project, but as a direct assault on their sovereignty, security, and internal stability. Hezbollah has been an integral part of that network – politically, militarily, and operationally.

Lebanon therefore risks losing more than Western support if its leaders continue to evade the weapons question. It also risks forfeiting the regional backing essential to reconstruction and economic recovery. The Arab Gulf states have not faltered in their demand that Hezbollah, and every Iranian proxy threatening the sovereignty of Arab states, be disarmed. They will not finance Lebanon’s recovery while its governing class preserves the armed structure responsible for repeatedly destroying the country’s relations with its Arab environment.

The Lebanese insistence that Israel must withdraw before the state begins implementing its own obligations is therefore both amateurish and self-defeating. It asks Israel to surrender its principal leverage in exchange for another Lebanese promise to deal eventually with Hezbollah’s weapons. Lebanon has made such promises before and failed to implement them because its leaders treated Hezbollah’s arsenal as an issue to be managed rather than a violation of sovereignty to be ended.

Reciprocity does not mean paralysis. A credible process requires parallel, verifiable steps: the Lebanese Army assumes effective control, Hezbollah’s military structure is dismantled, weapons are placed under state authority, and Israel withdraws according to an agreed timetable.
Instead, the political establishment has returned to what it knows best: bargaining over the cabinet.

While Israeli forces remain on Lebanese territory, hundreds of thousands struggle with the consequences of war, and Hezbollah retains weapons that expose the country to renewed destruction, the ruling class is preoccupied with renegotiating the government and redistributing ministerial seats. Faced with an existential question of sovereignty, the establishment responds with a discussion over portfolios.

President Aoun was elected on the promise of restoring the state. That promise cannot be fulfilled through ambiguity, nor by waiting for elections abroad to relieve Lebanon of decisions it must take at home. The presidency must state clearly that Hezbollah’s weapons are the central obstacle to sovereignty and that their removal is a Lebanese obligation – not a concession to Israel, the United States, or the Arab Gulf.

Lebanon will not recover its sovereignty by asking Israel to leave while allowing Iran to remain. Israeli withdrawal is necessary, but it cannot be separated from dismantling the armed structure that provided both the cause and the pretext for continued Israeli presence.

Time will not resolve this contradiction. It will only make its consequences more expensive. Lebanon does not need another waiting strategy. It needs a state prepared to act like one.