When Lebanese President Joseph Aoun announced in October that his country was prepared to engage in indirect negotiations with Israel, it marked a rupture with decades of political taboo—and was a tacit admission of how precarious Lebanon’s position has become. The move was not in response to a sudden diplomatic opening. It reflected something more unsettling—a convergence of regional and international pressures that, together, are steadily narrowing Lebanon’s room for error. Negotiations, in this context, are less a diplomatic initiative than an attempt to buy time as the strategic landscape around Lebanon shifts and the slide toward a broader confrontation accelerates.
Domestically, Aoun’s announcement has sparked a debate that goes beyond the permissibility of talks with Israel—long considered out of bounds. The deeper question is over the state’s ability to exercise its sovereignty as actors from Iran and Syria to Israel and the United States recalibrate their own priorities with little regard for Lebanon’s fragility. Thus, negotiation has become a tool for carving out space for maneuver before war becomes inevitable.
The Lebanese president is operating in a complex environment, as events unfolding on the ground intertwine with the strategic calculations of major powers. In southern Lebanon, Israel has shifted from limited tactical strikes to operations with clear political objectives, as leaks in the media suggest it may expand its military actions to lock in certain gains before any diplomatic settlement is reached.
By contrast, the Trump administration appears keen to avoid a full-scale confrontation in Lebanon. America’s regional interests appear central to this calculation. Following Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s visit to Washington and his pledges to tackle Hezbollah’s influence, the Trump administration has an additional motive to prevent a war that could disrupt the broader political process it is working to establish in the Levant.
This divergence—between Israel’s desire for a decisive outcome and an American approach centered on containment—has left the Lebanese state a narrow margin of maneuver, and turned negotiation into a vital means of achieving strategic depth.
Crisis Management or Producing a Settlement?
Discussions underway in Beirut suggest that negotiations are largely seen in this vein—as a mechanism for risk management rather than a pathway to a comprehensive political settlement. As options dwindle and military and political alternatives grow costlier, the government appears to be opting for crisis management within its increasingly unpredictable environment. This posture is reinforced by the lack of clarity over Israel’s aims. Some indications are that those aims are limited to resetting the balance of power on the ground. Others signal a grander intention to change the rules of engagement in Lebanon or more tightly link Israel’s northern front to the confrontation with Iran.
Faced with this uncertainty, Lebanon’s decision-makers have adopted a more pragmatic approach to negotiations, focused on defining the identity of the parties involved, the composition of the negotiating committee, and the ceiling beyond which talks cannot proceed without producing outcomes unacceptable to the state of Lebanon. Negotiations, in this sense, are an attempt to re-engineer mechanisms for managing the conflict at a time when traditional tools are no longer able to contain the escalation.
As such, Lebanon’s appointment of its former ambassador to Washington, Simon Karam, to head its delegation to the ceasefire monitoring committee carries political significance beyond its procedural role. It reflects a deliberate effort to emphasize the civilian and diplomatic character of the process, and to insulate the negotiations from direct military dynamics. Beirut is clearly seeking to prevent the “mechanism” from becoming an instrument for exerting pressure on the ground or a platform for imposing ill-considered political realities.
The appointment also sends a dual message: to the international community, Lebanon is willing to engage through controlled political channels; and to its domestic audience, the state is attempting to control the negotiation process without moving toward a comprehensive settlement or making concessions beyond its capacity to bear.
Israel Applies Pressure to Undermine Lebanon’s Position
Israel’s military brass appear increasingly concerned that Hezbollah could rebuild some of its depleted operational capacity, thereby re-establishing a more costly and complex threat environment. From this perspective, time is working against Israel, and maintaining the status quo will eventually allow weapons stocks to regenerate and Hezbollah to regain operational readiness.
Based on this logic, Israel has returned to pressure tactics: issuing warnings to civilians, carrying out ground maneuvers and incursions, and threatening expanded operations in the Bekaa Valley. All this culminated in the November 23 assassination of Hezbollah military commander Haitham Tabatabai in a southern suburb of Beirut. Ramping up such immense coercive pressure is not merely aimed at improving Israel’s negotiating position, but also at depriving Lebanon of the ability to use time to prepare while forcing the government to “negotiate under fire.”
The U.S., meanwhile, views southern Lebanon as part of a broader picture in the Eastern Mediterranean, which is in the process of being redrawn. Repeated references to a “realistic mechanism” reflect a conviction that any settlement cannot be separated from the issues of natural gas and export routes, Syria’s position following the fall of the Assad regime, and Hezbollah’s role in any regional conflict.
It was within this context that Egypt’s intelligence chief, Major General Hassan Rashad, visited Beirut in late October to launch a new mediation initiative. Cairo is presenting itself as a go-between that can communicate with all sides and provide Arab cover for de-escalation arrangements. Yet the initiative is narrowly security-focused, aimed at preventing a full-blown explosion by facilitating implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, or an expanded version of it, rather than articulating a comprehensive political vision. It also remains unclear whether Egypt is acting with full American backing or within a narrow margin afforded by the need to maintain border stability.
Hezbollah’s Shift in Narrative
Despite Hezbollah’s firm refusal to negotiate, the positions of its leadership reveal a clear shift in narrative. In a recent speech, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem moved away from the discourse of “existential conflict” toward one focused on “protecting Lebanon.” Resolution 1701, which the movement had previously opposed, is being reintroduced as a potential buffer against escalation.
These shifts do not indicate a change in ideology. Rather, they reflect a repositioning imposed by regional developments, especially with the altered security environment in neighboring Syria following al-Sharaa’s visit to Washington, and the shrinking of Hezbollah’s room for maneuver on the Syrian side of the border. Hezbollah also understands that any American or Israeli strike on Iran could set off an entirely new phase of confrontation. This has prompted it to manage the risks rather than engage in fighting with unpredictable outcomes.
Three possible scenarios are likely to emerge over the coming weeks. The first is that indirect negotiations are launched involving the U.S., Egypt, and France, leading to an agreement on implementing Resolution 1701 and new arrangements south of the Litani River. The second is a gradual escalation, in which Israel uses military pressure to impose conditions intolerable to the Lebanese state, in a unilateral attempt to redefine the border environment. The third scenario is the collapse of the diplomatic track entirely, folding Lebanon back into the broader confrontation with Iran, and repositioning the south into an arena of regional conflict.
No matter the outcome, these possibilities demonstrate that Aoun’s announcement on negotiations was not a routine measure, but a recognition that Lebanon is entering a new phase of defending its existence. Either the government succeeds in building a political framework that can mitigate the mounting risks, or it confronts a war that could spread far beyond the south. Negotiation, however fraught, appears to be the country’s only option to steady itself before the regional balance of power is redrawn by force of arms.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Middle East Council on Global Affairs.
