There are moments in the life of a country when history does not knock politely on the door, but kicks it open and asks a very simple question: are you ready to act like a state or are you still pretending that survival is a strategy?

Lebanon may be approaching one of those moments if President Donald Trump’s expected invitation to President Joseph Aoun to come to the White House for talks on peace becomes a reality. Many in Beirut will try to drown the moment in slogans and fears, but the truth is simpler. Joseph Aoun is the president of Lebanon, and the Lebanese constitution gives him the authority to represent the Lebanese state and negotiate on its behalf.

That alone should be the starting point, because for too long Lebanon has behaved as if sovereignty is a sentimental poem rather than a legal and political responsibility. Aoun does not need permission from Hezbollah to defend Lebanon’s future, nor does he need Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri’s blessing to discover that the region has changed beyond recognition. The presidency is not a decoration in Baabda, and it is certainly not a waiting room for whichever militia, foreign capital or parliamentary broker decides when Lebanon is allowed to breathe.

But Aoun should not deceive himself. Hezbollah and, by extension, its most important political ally Nabih Berri, will not play nice. Even if Aoun goes out of his way to repeat parts of Hezbollah’s rhetoric, even if he speaks of occupation, deterrence, dignity and resistance, it will not be enough. Hezbollah does not fear the language of sovereignty; it fears its implementation. It can live with speeches, committees, indirect formulas and endless “national dialogue.” What it cannot live with is a Lebanese state that finally decides that weapons, war and peace belong to the state alone.

This is why Aoun must understand that the old Lebanese habit of buying time will not work in Washington, especially not with Trump. The American president is not a patient man, and he has never pretended to be one. If Aoun goes to the White House merely to stall or perform balance, he will be treated as another Middle Eastern leader trying to escape a decision. Lebanon has mastered the art of postponement, but postponement is not diplomacy. It is decay with better lighting.

Aoun must also be clear-eyed about Iran. Tehran does not care about the Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory in the way Lebanon cares, or should care. Iran cares about leverage, pressure points and bargaining chips, and Lebanon has been one of its most useful cards for years. If the Israeli presence in the south serves Iran’s narrative, it will use it. If peace threatens the utility of Hezbollah’s weapons, Iran will oppose peace while pretending to defend Lebanon. Aoun should say what many Lebanese know but too many officials avoid saying: Lebanon’s land cannot be liberated by turning Lebanon itself into an Iranian platform.

The president also needs to grasp that whether Benjamin Netanyahu is physically present in the room is not the central issue. Lebanon’s deeper problem is not that Israel has acted like Israel. The deeper problem is that the Lebanese state has too often failed to act like a state. It has outsourced war, tolerated armed autonomy, hidden behind excuses and allowed non-state actors to decide the fate of millions. Peace, security or even a serious ceasefire cannot be built on a fiction. The fiction is that Lebanon can negotiate as a sovereign state while part of its territory, decisions and military future remain controlled by an armed party loyal to a foreign axis.

This is where Aoun must double down on Prime Minister Nawaf Salam. Salam’s sovereign ideas have helped protect what remains of the Lebanese state, not because they are poetic, but because they are basic. Lebanon cannot demand respect abroad while accepting humiliation at home. Aoun and Salam do not have the luxury of rivalry. They either stand together around the idea of the state, or they will be picked apart separately by those who prefer Lebanon weak, negotiable and permanently afraid.

And because Aoun is a former commander of the Lebanese army, he more than anyone should know that slogans about sovereignty are worthless without an executable plan. Disarmament cannot be a wish, a headline or a foreign demand repeated in Arabic. It must be a serious Lebanese plan, led by the state, anchored in the army and explained honestly to the public. The argument that disarmament will automatically lead to civil war can no longer be used as a national veto. Of course there are risks. Every serious decision carries risks. But there is also a risk in doing nothing, and Lebanon has been living inside that risk for decades.

Aoun does not need to go to Washington as a dreamer. He needs to go as a president who understands that peace is not an emotion and sovereignty is not a slogan. He must remember that Lebanon’s problem was never a shortage of clever formulas; it was a shortage of courage to implement them. The region has changed, the rules have changed, and the patience of the world has changed. The only question left is whether Lebanon’s leaders have changed with it.

If Joseph Aoun is expecting peace, he should expect resistance from those who profit from war, impatience from those who want results, and suspicion from a Lebanese public that has been disappointed too many times. But he should also expect something else: a rare chance to restore the meaning of the Lebanese state. If he misses it, history will also blame the president who had the authority to act, saw the moment clearly, and still chose the comfort of hesitation over the burden of leadership.