EastWest Magazine met with Ronnie Chatah in Beirut to discuss the ongoing talks between Lebanon and Israel, benefiting from his insight as a highly regarded analyst and political commentator. His long-form podcast The Beirut Banyan, discusses Lebanon’s modern history, politics, and society. He is also the founder of WalkBeirut, a walking tour that uses Beirut’s streets to explain the country’s history and civil war. Chatah is the son of the prominent Lebanese economist, diplomat, and former Finance Minister, Mohamad Chatah, who was assassinated in 2013 in a car bombing. He has written extensively about the killing and the absence of accountability.

Has Lebanon been moving from a system of co-existence between the state and Hezbollah to a state monopoly on force? Or are we simply entering another phase of co-existence?

“The use of the term ‘co-existence’ is interesting when referring to a state within the state. I believe the term is misapplied to communities. The direction we are moving in is not one of divorce between the state and a sub-state.

Rather than co-existence, this is a type of de facto reality, and the state cannot confront the issue. On the other hand, I don’t think the Israelis are invested in the disarmament of Hezbollah, and their presence in the South will probably end sooner than we expect.

There will never be co-existence in Lebanon it’s rather a case of forced acceptance of a sub-state infrastructure that threatens even the state. While co-existence implies positive agreement, this is not the case. It is simply a reality.

How do you see the Shia community politically should Hezbollah’s military role end. What would it take for this community to have faith in the state as opposed to Hezbollah?

Politically the community remains exactly where it is. What Hezbollah is able to do in terms of security is something else. I believe something more dramatic took place.

The group has severed to a large degree all other options, and this includes groups that fought Hezbollah, such as the Amal Movement, which still defends Hezbollah’s interests. I believe that leverage has faded to an extent.

Hezbollah does not have the community’s interests at heart; it has a security dilemma: defending the Iranian regime from an unpopular location. Furthermore, to think of Hezbollah as representative of the community does damage to the community. This group had spent four and a half decades eliminating its opponents within the community, a mere reflection of how it operated in Iran. It’s a forced, violent high jacking. It’s a monolith but not stagnant.

Do you believe the vision of March 14^th, its project revolving around sovereignty and ‘one state-one authority’ with no regional interference has finally become viable?

March 14^th was violently destroyed by Hezbollah, and I do not think it is a viable plan today. Despite the government’s use of various terms, including the demand for disarmament (unthinkable before), and President Joseph Aoun’s neutrality message, I doubt we are going to achieve that. These are sounds. If anything, we are moving in the opposite direction.

Does a weakened Iran sustain its path in Lebanon, as it has for years, especially now the bridge with Syria is gone?

The group will never return to its pre-2023 status. That type of military capability, will never return. However, the Iranian regime is holding on to what it built here and is refusing to let go.

I sense that even without a friendly regime in Syria and a nominally friendly government in Lebanon, Iran will continue to hold some leverage in this country, and that remains a sticking point for the regime.

While I do not know what the group will look like in the future, I suspect that the smaller it gets the more capable it will be of operating in ways as it did in the 1980s, blowing up buildings and conducting kidnappings. If there is any good news, I believe it’s that Iran has lost some of its foothold in Lebanon.

I doubt the Israelis will stay longer once a victory for them is reached, and I sense that they have nearly reached it. This is because a depopulated and destroyed south does not require soldiers on the ground. I think they will leave and Hezbollah will remain armed.

However, it is important to highlight that wether Israelis are in Lebanon or not this does not directly mean that Hezbollah will become weaker or stronger. Iran has other uses for this group.

For a decade Syria was its primary concern, and Hezbollah had to re-brand itself locally as a defender of community concerns which was not the group’s objective in the 1990s or the 1980s. Essentially, the group redefines itself according to what is needed from the Iranian regime to survive long-term.

This is what Hezbollah is about, not more than that. It is the Iranian regime’s lifeline. Iran can negotiate nuclear technology, but it cannot negotiate Hezbollah, that is the burden of being here.

Can Lebanon reach a durable settlement with Israel without a full withdrawal from its territory?

It depends on what you intend with the term “settlement”. If it is an armistice in the making, we are already there. However, diplomatic ties and full-fledged relations between Lebanon and Israel are not something that will happen any time soon.

A ceasefire does not require Hezbollah’s disarmament; it only requires the group to be unable to fight the Israelis from here. For full relations to take place, this will occur under a set of very different circumstances.

The current negotiations in Rome I don’t think are going in this direction. The technicalities are being discussed: the verification process in the pilot zones, the presence of third-party countries in the south etc.

This is not the Lebanese President, Joseph Aoun and the Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, meeting and shaking hands. It’s about getting the Israelis to leave. This is why from the second week of the most recent round of fighting, Hezbollah has supported Aoun’s ceasefire to get the Israelis out.

How long can Lebanon survive without resolving its political contradictions?

Overcoming the status quo requires a lot more than loud rhetoric or even regional understanding. The only country to have this kind of leverage, forcing Iran to let go of its hold and influence on Lebanon, is the United States.

It comes down to how do you neutralize Lebanon and what do you offer Iran in return, and is it willing to do so, or are there other options. I think that for Iran not to rearm Hezbollah, track two diplomacy is required. It would require Lebanese officials meeting with Iranian officials, perhaps not in public, which used to happen in the past.

If there is any progress it is found there: to have Iranians rethink the role of Lebanon. It is impossible to ask the Lebanese state to disarm Hezbollah. It is the largest paramilitary project ever accomplished, and the most sophisticated terrorist organization known to humanity.

It has accomplished a lot more than any other Lebanese group could ever dream of, and if anything, this is because it is not a Lebanese phenomenon, it is something bigger. International efforts are needed, Aoun cannot be asked to achieve the group’s disarmament.

What are the internal security issues in Lebanon today that stand as an example of the core issues still deciding the country’s policies?

We have the issue of the Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon who, after being declared persona non grata by the Lebanese Foreign Minister, has now been allowed to stay in Lebanon not as diplomat but as an Iranian national.

This shows how, despite the attempt to expel him, the larger security institutions and concerns do not seem to adhere to the relatively new agency. Essentially, you can have a political process that is willing unusual measures today against the Iranian’s regime interests, trying to hold the Iranian regime to account. In this case this meant the Iranian Ambassador not being given his credentials.

However, even when you have politics and diplomacy operating in the same direction, the security affairs in Lebanon still favor the Iranian regime. This is a small example of what you see at a larger level, the story is not about policy, culture or economics: this country still bends to the Iranian regime’s needs in Lebanon.