Excessive burdens being placed on the shoulders of Lebanon - its people, its army, and its authorities – are too great for the country withstand.

It is not fair to put the region’s afflictions on a fragile entity like Lebanon, which had itself been born of historical settlements that begin with the “Eastern Question” and do not end with the Israeli “peace by dominance” effort sweeping across the Middle region.

It is extremely unjust to oblige Lebanon to bear the sins of the region’s politicians, the mutual hostilities of its components, and the repercussions of the struggle between its occupiers and external powers seeking control, especially as it has only recently emerged from a civil war in which foreign influences played a profound role.

A few days ago, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned what he described as Lebanese actors giving “mendacious tip offs” about their own government foreign capitals. It did not take long for the outcome of these “tip offs” to become manifest with the cancellation of Army Commander Rodolphe Haykal’s visit to the United States. However, the issue goes further back than this particular incident, Senator Lindsey Graham’s discontent with Haykal’s use of the term “the Israeli enemy,” or the “discomfort” of envoy Morgan Ortagus at any assertion in Lebanon that could hurt the feelings of the Likud government in Israel.

In fact, “tipping off” and other activities of Lebanese sectarian figures in Europe and later in the United States have been well documented by historians and researchers, with records of such actions dating back to the 19th century.

Here I recall an interview I had conducted with a seasoned diplomat and intellectual who had completed a doctoral dissertation in France on Lebanon’s strife and civil wars. A Beirut magazine asked him why he had omitted important events that other researchers later addressed. He replied that publishing all the documents he possessed “would light the fuse of sectarian strife,” adding that the Lebanese “have neither learned nor changed.”

Another conversation also comes to mind. A few decades ago, I spoke to an elderly member of my family who had lived in the United States in the early 20th century. We spoke about the divisions among Lebanese emigrants there. My relative explained that during the “Great Syrian Revolt” of 1925, impulsive figures in the “Lebanese community” decided to gather volunteers in the US and send them to fight alongside the French Mandate forces.

When news of this effort spread in southern Ohio, where my relative lived along with an enthusiastic young man hoping to fight alongside the French, supporters of the revolt gathered and visited their local priest in Cincinnati to inform him of what was happening. In the priest’s presence, one of them proposed “abandoning the idea of long-distance travel and its hardships and instead showing support for the French Mandate by fighting the supporters of the revolt here in Ohio!”

Of course, many of us still clearly remember the “activities” of certain “Lebanese–American lobbies” and their role in influencing the policies of President Ronald Reagan’s administration in 1982. At the time, these lobbies were not merely supportive of direct American military intervention but also took a favorable view to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Later, with the Reagan administration fully adopting Menachem Begin’s conception of the Palestinian dimension of the Lebanese war, ignoring its intra-Lebanese dimension, the seasoned diplomat Philip Habib (of Lebanese origin) was appointed to “solve the crisis” and rid Lebanon of “Palestinian occupation.”

However, this “solution” never materialized: president-elect Bachir Gemayel was assassinated in September 1982, and Washington failed, during the term of his brother Amine Gemayel, to prevent the consolidation of the opposition forces supported by Syria and Iran. Then, following two major turning points - the Taif Agreement, which restructured Lebanon’s political formulas, and the emergence of Hezbollah as a significant military force in Lebanese reality - the Lebanese landscape changed both politically and demographically. Even during the “2023 war,” in which Hezbollah’s involvement led the Israeli right, under Benjamin Netanyahu, to change the “rules of the game,” Tehran remained a key player on the Lebanese stage.

In truth, when Washington’s “Likudists” of all backgrounds pressure Lebanon’s government today, they are, in effect, showing indifference to their country’s security, sovereignty, or coexistence; their priorities lie elsewhere.

In 1982, everyone knew that there was no “Iranian occupation” in Lebanon. There was a “Palestinian resistance,” which had been born of the international community’s failure to find a humane and moral solution to the occupation of Palestine.

Today, as the Likud government threatens an “occupation war” in Lebanon, and as Washington’s extremists escalate against what remains of the country’s “state institutions,” these lobbies’ goal is to dismantle Lebanon’s state structures, thereby paving the way for their conspiracy to partition and seize the country after destroying the logistical infrastructure that had supported an Iranian proxy.

The prudent citizens of Lebanon understand this. They must all reach a minimum common ground to safeguard against strife and save the country’s future.

Without doubt, Hezbollah’s arms, which have long been a point of contention, have now lost their capacity to “deter” Likudist bullying. On the contrary, they are now a compelling pretext for them to many inside and outside Lebanon. Yet, in parallel, the Lebanese and their Arab brethren have a duty to agree on a shared discourse that alerts Washington to the gravity of allowing the “Likudists” to impose their terms on the Middle East.

The simmering unease with the excesses of the Likud hardliners in the US, even within the ranks of the Republican Christian right itself, has become patently obvious. It has truly reached, in some cases, the point of mutiny. And it would be wise for Washington to learn from the mistakes of the past... so as not to repeat them and pay their heavy price in the future.