Lebanon is preparing to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Lebanese Civil War, which opened wide the gates of hell on Lebanon and the Lebanese. The war did not end when the shells and rockets stopped with the entry of the Syrian army into Lebanon and the storming of the Baabda Palace to end Michel Aoun's illegitimate rule. The war ended on September 27, 2024, with the termination of Hezbollah's role.
We do not consider the logic of war and killing as a victory, nor do we depict all the bombardment that occurred after September 27 as if it were a state of peace. We are talking about the war in its political sense, not just its military one.
The Lebanese Civil War produced three distinct factors. The first was the militias and weapons, particularly among the Christians, to face the Palestine Liberation Organization, which had turned Lebanon into a base for fighting Israel. The war ended with the disarmament of various Christian factions and the departure of most of them, either by natural death (Pierre Gemayel and Camille Chamoun), exile (Raymond Edde and Michel Aoun), imprisonment (Samir Geagea) or assassination (Bachir Gemayel). However, the Christians were able, in return, to gain certain victories, such as the departure of Yasser Arafat and confronting Kamal Jumblatt’s leadership, which he imposed during his time before his assassination at the hands of Syria.
The second factor was Sunni control, or what became known as political Sunniism, which produced a governance supported by Riyadh in the Taif Agreement and by Syria during the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. This phase effectively ended with the assassination of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, Syria's withdrawal from the country and Saudi Arabia's ensuing refusal to support Lebanon in various fields when it saw the continuing Iranian expansion in the region and its inability to remove Bashar al-Assad from the grip of the Iranian regime.
The third factor was Shiite weaponry. Hezbollah's weapons remained after the war, under the pretext of resisting Israel, which occupied large swathes of land. However, the weapons were used as a pretext by the Syrians to grant the Shia independent authority, to intimidate Sunnis and to make the Christians feel they were subordinate, which, unfortunately, Michel Aoun contributed to by signing the Mar Mikhael Agreement and abiding by it until the end of his mandate as president.
The problem lies in the fact that the weapons in question replaced the Syrian army after its withdrawal and came to be considered one of the foundations of the state. They facilitated the taking of Beirut on May 7 and imposed the Doha Agreement, which the current president and prime minister seek to annul—politically and constitutionally—in an effort to rearrange matters so that the Taif Agreement can be implemented in all its provisions.
Therefore, the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah on September 27 was not the elimination of an individual, but rather the end of an era where Hezbollah’s weapons became the very constitution of the Third Republic. They have been used to intimidate and threaten the Lebanese people and to facilitate any amendments to the constitution.
On the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the Lebanese Civil War, the conflict has effectively ended, and its end marked the weakening of the Shiite factions that dealt with their opponents the way they once dealt with it. Every party in Lebanon grew bigger than the others at some stage, but the problem was that Hezbollah grew too big. The result was that the end of its military role also ended the entire phase of the war. The war did not end on October 13, 1990. The war ended on September 27, 2024.
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