Next week, Lebanese and Israeli officials are expected to meet in Washington for separate talks aimed at preventing a wider war and setting the parameters for a possible political arrangement. The talks come as Israel intensifies its military operations across southern Lebanon, expanding strikes, deepening destruction, and pushing further displacement across the country.

For Lebanon, the Israeli escalation is undeniably catastrophic. Entire border villages have been reduced to rubble. More than a million Lebanese remain displaced. Civilian infrastructure is collapsing under repeated bombardment, while fears continue to grow that the conflict may evolve into a longer and more devastating regional confrontation.

But equally alarming is something else: The complete absence of a Lebanese state strategy.

At a moment that requires national clarity, political initiative, and institutional leadership, the Lebanese state remains largely passive, reacting to events rather than shaping them. There is no serious public roadmap for reconstruction, no timeline for the return of displaced populations, no national security doctrine capable of addressing the postwar reality, and no meaningful political discussion about how Lebanon intends to prevent this cycle from repeating itself yet again.

Instead, Lebanon appears to be waiting for external negotiations – whether in Washington, Tehran, or Islamabad – to determine its future. Worse, it seems to be betting on the rationality and goodwill of Hezbollah and the IRGC to eventually disarm. This is not a strategy. It is an admission of paralysis.

The Lebanese people cannot continue betting their survival on regional diplomacy while their country collapses in real time.

Israel has been clear that whatever happens at the negotiating table will not alter its stated objective: Implementing Resolution 1701 and restoring security to its northern border. In practice, this means maintaining military pressure until Hezbollah is pushed back and the Lebanese state is forced to assume responsibility for its own territory. For Israel, the option is not only military. It is also political. It is using destruction, displacement, and diplomatic pressure to force a new reality on Lebanon.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, continues to gamble with the country. It is not refusing negotiations outright, but it wants Iran to negotiate on behalf of Lebanon. It continues to operate as an armed extension of the IRGC, using Lebanese civilian infrastructure, border villages, and displaced communities as tools in a regional confrontation over which the Lebanese people have no say.

This is the core of the crisis. Iranian occupation has invited Israeli occupation. Lebanon is trapped between two external powers, while its official institutions remain too weak, divided, or compromised to reclaim national decision-making.

Even if a ceasefire is reached, the crisis will not end. The villages of southern Lebanon have not merely been damaged; many have been razed. Homes, roads, farms, schools, and public infrastructure have been erased. Many of the displaced will not simply return when the guns fall silent, because there may be nothing left to return to.

A US-Iran deal, should one emerge, will not save Lebanon. It may restrain Israel for a moment or alter the diplomatic calendar, but it will not erase the ruins now stretching across the south. Those destroyed villages will remain as evidence of a deeper national failure: what happens when a country allows others to decide its wars, negotiate its fate, and dictate its future.

And no serious investor, donor, or international institution will finance the reconstruction of Lebanon if the same military structure that caused the devastation remains intact. Humanitarian aid may arrive. Emergency relief may be distributed. But long-term reconstruction will remain limited, conditional, and temporary unless Lebanon restores the monopoly of arms to the state.

This is not simply an Israeli demand. Nor is it merely an American or Gulf condition for assistance. Increasingly, it is becoming a Lebanese demand as well.

There is a growing recognition across large segments of Lebanese society that Hezbollah’s military role has become incompatible with the survival of the Lebanese state. Even among communities once willing to tolerate the “resistance” framework, many now understand that Lebanon cannot repeatedly sacrifice its villages, economy, and civilian population for regional wars decided elsewhere.

Hezbollah is certainly weakened. It has lost commanders, positions, and much of the aura it cultivated after 2006. But weakened does not mean finished. As long as it retains its arms, it retains enough power to control Lebanon’s political system, intimidate its opponents, and decide when the country goes to war. Through sectarian politics, and through its alliance with the Amal Movement and the speaker of parliament, Hezbollah continues to claim that it alone represents and protects Lebanon’s Shia.

In reality, it has isolated them, endangered them, and turned their towns into battlefields.

The Lebanese state cannot allow this to continue. The constitution is clear: the monopoly over arms belongs to the state. The duty of the Lebanese president, government, and army is not to manage Hezbollah’s weapons, justify them, or wait for Iran to bargain over them. Their duty is to protect the republic and all Lebanese citizens, starting with the Shiites of the south.

The illusion today is that reconstruction can precede sovereignty. That money will arrive first, and the difficult political decisions can be postponed. But the opposite is true. Without a clear process for consolidating all arms under state authority, every reconstruction project will remain hostage to the next escalation.

The Lebanese state must therefore move beyond paralysis. It must present a national strategy that includes security reform, reconstruction mechanisms, economic recovery, and a realistic timeline for restoring state authority across all Lebanese territory.

Netanyahu may prefer a depopulated buffer zone in southern Lebanon. Israel may seek to reshape the border through force. But Lebanon’s response cannot be rhetorical defiance disconnected from reality.

If Lebanon wants its displaced citizens to return home permanently, it must confront the conditions that repeatedly produce war. That begins with disarming Hezbollah and restoring sovereignty to the state.

Not because foreign powers demand it. Not because Israel wants it. But because without it, there may soon be very little left of Lebanon to rebuild at all.