After Syrian President Ahmad Al Shara’s successful recent visit to Washington, many Lebanese wondered what it meant for their country. They may have recalled what the US envoy Tom Barrack said last July, speaking of the Lebanese: “I honestly think that they are going to say ‘the world will pass us by’. Why? You have Israel on one side, you have Iran on the other, and now you have Syria manifesting itself so quickly that if Lebanon doesn’t move, it’s going to be Bilad Al Sham again.”

There are three broad approaches to the Levant today – that of the US and Israel, that of the Arab Gulf states and that of Iran. While Syria has sought to be part of the first two, and has firmly rejected the third, a divided Lebanon is caught in a twilight zone among the three, and risks paying a heavy price for its uncertainty.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Mr Al Shara formally joined the anti-ISIS coalition, bolstering his anti-terrorism credentials with the Americans. Reportedly, he also committed to combatting Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Lebanon, meanwhile, is being accused of failing to disarm Hezbollah, which the US regards as a terrorist organisation. In early November, a US Treasury delegation, accompanied by the White House’s senior director for counterterrorism, Sebastian Gorka, visited Beirut to look into ways of cutting off Hezbollah’s sources of financing.

Lebanon is being buffeted by all sides in the region, with limited capacities to satisfy any one of them. This requires a new approach. The Lebanese have to move urgently on several fronts, while regional countries must remember that, unless Lebanon is stabilised, it may become a potentially dangerous hub for regional rivalries.

The problem Lebanon faces is the profound divisions in its society. While most communities agree that only the state must hold weapons, Hezbollah opposes this because Iran rejects such an outcome. For Tehran, the group’s disarmament would constitute the loss of a valuable regional card, after the Iranian defeat in Syria.

Complicating matters, the Islamist government in Damascus, which many in Lebanon’s Shiite communities view as hostile, has further hardened Hezbollah’s and its allies’ refusal to disarm. They fear that Syria may be used by outside countries to squeeze the community, for instance by mounting raids into Shiite areas of Lebanon.

The curse of divided societies is they are often torn apart by regional and international rivalries. An example is Ukraine. The late Henry Kissinger warned that if anyone tried to impose the victory of one side in Ukraine – the largely Catholic, Ukrainian-speaking west or the mainly Russian-speaking, Russian Orthodox east – the result “would lead eventually to civil war or breakup”. Lebanon is no different.

Kissinger noted that what was necessary was a compromise between Ukraine’s two sides. “The test is not absolute satisfaction,” he argued, “but balanced dissatisfaction.” The same holds true for Lebanon. Hezbollah is too militarily weak and isolated to revive the hegemony it exercised over the country. But nor can Lebanon advance if it fails to find a middle ground with the group.

With this in mind, Lebanese leaders and regional countries can do more to insulate Lebanon from regional tensions. The solution is not to persist with the bad idea of disarming Hezbollah by force, which will only divide Lebanon further. And it will definitely not come by subcontracting Lebanon to Syria, as Mr Barrack implied.

The first aim must be to place Lebanon in a situation of de facto neutrality, isolating it as much as possible from regional rivalries. A major step in this direction must be to secure an Israeli withdrawal from the south, while agreeing to security arrangements along the border that permanently end Hezbollah’s cross-border attacks. The last time Lebanon reversed itself on a withdrawal agreement with Israel, in March 1984, the Israelis occupied Lebanon for an additional 16 years.

This shouldn’t happen again. Therefore, the Lebanese debate today over whether military personnel or civilians must negotiate with Israel is utterly sterile. Lebanon can make clear it refuses normalisation with Israel, but has to form a military-civilian team to discuss security arrangements, as it did in 1949.

An essential hinge in this is to rebuild areas of Lebanon that Israel destroyed. The Gulf states are considered central to this endeavour. Yet no money will be forthcoming for as long as Lebanon’s financial lobbies hold the country hostage to their interests by blocking reform. Here President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have to push much harder. Without progress, Gulf states are unlikely to assist Lebanon.

Rebooting the economy and rebuilding towns and villages would also help undermine Hezbollah’s financial hold on the Shiite community. At the same time, Lebanon has to initiate a dialogue with the main Shiite parties to discuss political reforms that improve Shiite communal representation in the state, and show that disarmament need not ultimately threaten the community’s overall influence.

A third prong, in which both Saudi Arabia and Turkey would play a leading role, is to accelerate Lebanese-Syrian reconciliation, which has only progressed slowly. Only once the two countries improve their ties, finalise border demarcation and settle outstanding issues, such as Syrian detainees held in Lebanon, would this reassure a Shiite community that fears Syrian revenge for Hezbollah’s role in Syria’s conflict.

Such things can be addressed even before Hezbollah’s disarmament. This may not be easy, but both Mr Aoun and Mr Salam have to focus on what is achievable today. If Hezbollah pushes back, let both men welcome a political confrontation that helps to clarify Lebanon’s detrimental ambiguities.