Lebanon is facing a defining choice between rebuilding a sovereign State capable of delivering security and prosperity and remaining entangled in regional conflicts, Kataeb Party leader Samy Gemayel said.

Speaking in a wide-ranging interview with CNN Arabic, Gemayel said Lebanon's future depended on restoring the State's exclusive authority over weapons, enforcing the law across the country and preventing the country from being used as a platform for conflicts driven by regional powers.

"There is no future for Lebanon, the Lebanese people or any of the country's political leaders if Hezbollah is not disarmed," Gemayel said.

He argued that Lebanon was part of a broader regional contest between Arab states seeking economic development, investment, technology and peace, and Iran, which he said continued to pursue an ideological and expansionist strategy through armed proxies.

"There are countries in the Gulf and beyond that want to move toward the future — toward prosperity and peace," he said. "They want their people to live in developed countries, embrace technology, make it easier to deal with the state and attract global investment."

Iran, he said, was moving in the opposite direction.

"The problem is that while one part of the region is moving toward development, there is a country called Iran that insists on going against the traffic," Gemayel said. "It does not simply want to move in the opposite direction itself. It wants the whole region to fall behind and become destabilized."

Gemayel stressed that the problem was not with the Iranian people but with the Iranian system and its regional policy.

"Our problem is not with the Iranian people," he said. "Our problem is with the system and with the aggressive and expansionist approach Iran has adopted toward the Arab world, and Lebanon in particular."

Gemayel said Hezbollah had been created by Iran to establish a military foothold in Lebanon and use the country as a strategic card in wider regional confrontations.

"Iran created Hezbollah in Lebanon to control Lebanon and to turn it into a military base," he said.

The scale of that military infrastructure, he added, became apparent during the latest war.

"We discovered during the last war that we had been living in a weapons depot, with arms above ground and missiles underground," he said.

"What we saw during the war made us realize where we had been living. There was a Lebanon above ground that Lebanese people knew, and another Lebanon underground that Iran had created — a network of missile depots stretching from north to south."

Gemayel said the weapons had effectively made Lebanon an Iranian bargaining chip, allowing Tehran to confront Israel and the United States through its regional allies while keeping the Lebanese people exposed to the consequences.

When Iran itself came under attack, he said, those allies were activated.

"As soon as Iran was attacked, its regional arms were mobilized, and Hezbollah opened the Lebanese front," he said.

For Gemayel, the main objective is therefore to end the existence of an armed power operating outside the State and establish a normal state capable of protecting its people and pursuing its own interests.

Gemayel described U.S. President Donald Trump as an unconventional leader who has discarded many of the assumptions that shaped American diplomacy for decades.

"President Trump is unconventional," he said. "He believes that the taboos that existed in the presidency simply don't apply to him."

Trump, Gemayel said, appeared more concerned with achieving results than following established diplomatic practices.

He accused Iran of establishing militias in Arab countries, threatening neighboring states and promoting anti-American and anti-Western rhetoric.

"The Iranian threat is also a threat to Europe," he said. "I am surprised that Europe has not understood the seriousness of this."

Gemayel said regimes built around violence could not necessarily be restrained through negotiations alone.

"Totalitarian regimes that kill their own people eventually kill other peoples as well," he said. "At some point, they have to be restrained."

At the same time, he said violence should be condemned regardless of who commits it.

"We have to condemn violence absolutely," he said. "If Israel committed an excessive and irrational response in Gaza, that must be condemned. Everyone has the right to defend themselves, but everyone must also be held accountable when they go beyond the limits of self-defense."

Asked about Israel's upcoming elections, Gemayel said he did not expect Tel Aviv's broader policy toward Lebanon or Iran to change significantly regardless of the outcome of the country's next election.

"There is a general policy in Israel that is not going to change," he said. "If you listen to the political debate — including the opposition to Netanyahu — you find that on issues such as Iran and Lebanon, there isn't a huge difference."

A new government could alter personal relationships between Israeli leaders and their foreign counterparts, he said, but not necessarily the underlying strategic approach.

Gemayel said the emergence of stronger defense cooperation among countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan reflected a wider regional effort to protect states from external threats.

He said Iran's regional activity had disrupted the global economy and created fear in Gulf countries that had enjoyed decades of stability.

"The Arab economy has paid a very high price for this war," he said.

For Lebanon, he argued, the lesson was that the country could not continue to absorb the costs of conflicts over which it had little control.

Gemayel said the central confrontation shaping the region remained the conflict between Iran and the United States.

"In my view, the fundamental battle is the battle between Iran and America," he said. "Everything else is affected by that central confrontation."

If fighting escalated and led to the collapse of the Iranian system, he said, the consequences would reverberate throughout the region. A negotiated settlement that allowed the Iranian system to survive under strict conditions would produce a different outcome.

Such conditions, he said, could include restrictions on Iran's regional proxies, its nuclear program and its ballistic-missile capabilities.

Gemayel said Washington appeared to be making repeated efforts to avoid a return to war.

"The United States is doing everything it can to avoid more destruction and bloodshed," he said. "The American president has given Iran opportunity after opportunity to avoid a return to fighting."

But he said the region could not indefinitely remain vulnerable to Iran's ability to disrupt Gulf security or the global economy.

"No one will accept Iran holding the Gulf hostage," he said. "No one will accept Iran holding the global economy hostage in this way."

Gemayel also rejected the idea that Lebanon should wait for a U.S.-Iranian agreement before addressing the issue of Hezbollah's weapons.

The Lebanese State, he said, must assume responsibility for its own sovereignty regardless of the outcome of negotiations between external powers.

Gemayel said Lebanon had reached an important moment in which the government had taken decisions aimed at consolidating weapons under state authority.

He described those decisions as a historic step, but said they would have meaning only if they were implemented.

"The State has taken decisions," he said. "Now it has to be up to the task and assume its responsibility."

He said the government, the presidency and the Lebanese Army should receive support as they work to translate political decisions into action.

For Gemayel, the central test was whether the Lebanese State could demonstrate to both its citizens and the international community that it was capable of enforcing its own laws.

He rejected the claim that the army enforcing State authority would automatically trigger a civil war.

"I support the Lebanese Army enforcing its authority," he said. "I want the Lebanese Army to do what it needs to do to disarm Hezbollah."

The alternative, he warned, was allowing the State to remain too weak to enforce its decisions, potentially creating the conditions for renewed internal conflict.

"What is the army for?" he asked, arguing that if the army had assumed responsibility for resolving the armed conflict involving Palestinian organizations in 1975, Lebanon might have avoided the civil war that followed.

At the same time, Gemayel said the army should not be dragged into a new regional war initiated by Hezbollah. Involving the Lebanese military in a conflict beyond its capabilities, he argued, could weaken or even destroy the institution Lebanon needs to protect its sovereignty.

Gemayel said Lebanon could not rely exclusively on its own capabilities in a region marked by powerful states and competing military alliances.

He called for international partnerships that would strengthen the Lebanese Army and the country's economy while providing Lebanon with a broader security framework.

No country, he said, could guarantee its own security entirely on its own in today's world.

He argued that Lebanon should take advantage of international support, particularly U.S. backing for the Lebanese Army and efforts aimed at securing an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory.

The goal, he said, should be to build an international safety net while gradually developing Lebanon's own capacity to defend itself.

Gemayel rejected comparisons between the current framework agreement with Israel and the May 17, 1983 agreement negotiated during the presidency of his father, Amine Gemayel.

"You cannot compare the May 17 agreement with the one reached today," he said.

The circumstances, he argued, were fundamentally different. The Soviet Union still existed, Arab countries had a different position toward Israel, Syria was a major force inside Lebanon, the Palestine Liberation Organization controlled parts of the country, Israel controlled other areas and Iranian influence was beginning to emerge.

"Lebanon was divided, and the Arab world was in a completely different position," he explained. "Today, we are in a completely different situation."

Gemayel said a broad majority of Lebanese now favored disarming Hezbollah and ending the cycle of conflict with Israel, while Arab countries and the United States were also encouraging that direction.

"Today, perhaps more than 70% of Lebanese are united around the need to disarm Hezbollah and end the state of conflict with Israel," he said.

He therefore argued that the current framework agreement had a much greater chance of succeeding than May 17, adding that the circumstances today were fundamentally different.

Gemayel deplored the fact that Israel still occupies parts of southern Lebanon but refuted the argument that Israel's presence necessarily demonstrated a long-term plan to annex Lebanese territory.

He pointed to Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 after more than two decades of military presence.

He further argued that if Hezbollah gave up its weapons, Israel would have little justification for remaining in Lebanon.

"On the day Hezbollah hands over its weapons, Israel will highly likely leave Lebanon," he said.

But if Israel remained, he said, the Lebanese people would have the right to resist as a national movement rather than through an armed group tied to a foreign power.

The priority, he added, should be both the disarmament of Hezbollah and Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory.

His objective, he said, was to protect Lebanon and its people from another cycle of war.

"I want the people of the south to live," he said. "That's the difference between me and them."

He said Lebanon should aspire to restore the prosperity and security that once made it known as the "Switzerland of the Middle East."

"I want to return to that model," he said.

"There are people who want Lebanon to be Hanoi," he added. "I want Lebanon to be Hong Kong. I want the Lebanese people to be a people of life, not a people destined for war and death."

Gemayel also addressed Lebanon's deep political divide and the competing visions for the country's future.

He argued that public opinion cannot be freely measured while Hezbollah retains its weapons.

"Take away the weapons and hold a referendum," he said. "I will accept the result of that referendum."

"A referendum under the presence of weapons is not a referendum," he added. 

If Lebanese communities in the south genuinely wanted to continue living under permanent conflicts, he said, that preference should be expressed without the presence of an armed force outside State control.

"Either all Lebanese decide that they want to live in peace, or we move toward other options," he said.

For Gemayel, Lebanon's diversity should be an asset rather than a source of conflict. The country's ability to build relationships with the Arab world, the West and other international partners, he argued, is one of its greatest strengths.

Lebanon's diversity, he said, should be used to strengthen the state rather than to justify its fragmentation.

Gemayel ultimately framed Lebanon's crisis as a choice between two competing models: a sovereign State that controls its territory and weapons and can protect its people, or a country repeatedly drawn into conflicts determined by stronger regional powers.

He said the Lebanese State had to demonstrate that its decisions are to be applied equally to everyone and that the army was capable of exercising its constitutional role.

For Gemayel, the ultimate objective is a Lebanon that no longer serves as a battlefield for other countries.

Lebanon, he said, can once again become a prosperous country if it chooses the path of State authority, sovereignty and peace rather than remaining hostage to regional wars.

The choice, in his view, is ultimately between a Lebanon capable of protecting its people and a Lebanon repeatedly asked to sacrifice them for conflicts fought elsewhere.

Regarding Lebanese-Syrian relations, Gemayel expressed cautious optimism about signs of improvement in the bilateral ties.

He said mutual recognition of the sovereignty of Lebanon and Syria and a commitment to non-interference in each other's internal affairs represented encouraging developments.

At the same time, he stressed the importance of obtaining information about the assassinations that have taken place in Lebanon, saying that unresolved questions surrounding those cases could not simply be ignored.