The remarkable thing about the recent statements by US Vice President JD Vance and Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is not how different they are, but how much they reveal about the assumptions that continue to shape foreign attitudes toward Lebanon.

At first glance, the contrast appears obvious. Vance reassured Lebanon’s Christians that they have friends in Washington and attributed the country’s instability to Hezbollah’s continued military presence. Ghalibaf, by contrast, openly celebrated the thousands of Lebanese who, in his words, died defending Iran, while insisting that the Shias of southern Lebanon must be restored to their villages because they had sacrificed so much for the Islamic Republic.

One statement comes wrapped in the language of friendship and diplomacy, while the other is delivered with the blunt certainty of revolutionary ideology. Yet beneath the surface, both reflect a similar inability to see Lebanon as anything other than a collection of communities whose fate can be discussed, negotiated, and ultimately determined by outsiders.

Ghalibaf’s remarks were particularly revealing because they stripped away decades of carefully constructed political fiction. For years, Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsors have insisted that their project serves Lebanon, protects Lebanon, and represents the interests of Lebanon’s Shia community. Ghalibaf abandoned the pretense altogether. In his telling, four thousand Lebanese died not for their villages, not for their families, not for their state, and not even for the defense of Lebanon itself. They died for Iran.

There could be no clearer expression of political ownership. Lebanese lives are presented as strategic assets belonging to a foreign power, while entire communities are reduced to instruments serving goals defined in Tehran. The statement was not merely insulting; it was an extraordinary admission that many Lebanese have understood for years but that foreign observers often hesitate to acknowledge.

Yet while Ghalibaf’s arrogance is easy to recognize, Vance’s remarks deserve scrutiny as well.

The vice president spoke of Lebanon primarily through the lens of its Christian population, presenting the country’s challenges as though they were fundamentally tied to the fate of one community. His intentions may have been benevolent, but the framework itself reveals a deeper problem. Lebanon’s crisis is not a Christian crisis, just as it is not a Shia crisis or a Sunni crisis. It is a crisis of sovereignty, citizenship, and state authority, created by the existence of an armed organization that answers to a foreign capital while operating beyond the control of Lebanese institutions.

When American officials speak about Lebanon principally in sectarian terms, they unintentionally reinforce the same fragmented political logic that has helped keep the country weak and ironically helped hand the Lebanese Shias to Iran. The language is different from Tehran’s, but the underlying assumption remains remarkably similar: Lebanese citizens are treated first as members of religious communities and only secondarily as citizens with equal rights and shared political interests.

This is particularly disappointing because Donald Trump and many of his supporters have spent years arguing that they rejected the failed assumptions of previous administrations. They promised a foreign policy rooted in realism rather than ideology, one capable of seeing the Middle East as it is rather than through outdated intellectual frameworks inherited from diplomats and regional experts.

Yet when senior officials continue to approach Lebanon as a collection of sectarian constituencies rather than a political problem requiring political solutions, it becomes increasingly difficult to argue that a genuine break has occurred. The rhetoric may have changed, but many of the assumptions remain intact.

The reality is that Lebanon does not cease to belong to its people simply because its institutions are weak, dysfunctional, or partially captured. The fact that the Lebanese state struggles to exercise authority over all its territory does not grant Iran the right to claim ownership over Lebanese Shias, nor does it allow foreign governments to reduce Lebanon to a Christian enclave requiring outside protection.

Weakness is not consent. Institutional failure is not surrender. Political paralysis is not a license for foreign powers to decide who speaks for Lebanon, who dies for Lebanon, or what future Lebanon should have.

The tragedy of modern Lebanon is that too many foreign actors continue to see its people as clients, proxies, sects, and strategic assets rather than as citizens entitled to determine their own future. Iran expresses this mentality openly when it boasts about Lebanese blood shed in defense of Tehran. Washington expresses it more subtly when it discusses Lebanon primarily through the prism of communal identities.

Both approaches ultimately arrive at the same destination: a Lebanon spoken about endlessly but rarely listened to.

The challenge facing Lebanon is not how to secure better patrons. It is how to escape the patronage system altogether. Until foreign capitals stop viewing the country as a collection of useful communities and start treating it as a political entity whose people deserve sovereignty, the misunderstandings that have plagued Lebanon for decades will continue to reproduce themselves, regardless of whether they originate in Tehran or Washington.