Elias Bejjani/Text & Video: The Proposal for a “National Defense Strategy” Is A Circumvention of International Resolutions, a Violation of the Ceasefire Agreement, and a Renewed Surrender of Lebanon to Hezbollah After Its Defeat and the Disasters It Caused
The Proposal for a “National Defense Strategy”: Is A Circumvention of International Resolutions, a Violation of the Ceasefire Agreement, and a Renewed Surrender of Lebanon to Hezbollah After Its Defeat and the Disasters It Caused By: Elias Bejjani/April 05/2025
It is both sad and disappointing that President Joseph Aoun proposed from Paris the revival of the fallacy known as a “National Defense Strategy” that would discuss the Iranian terrorist Hezbollah’s weapons through a so-called comprehensive Lebanese dialogue. This old-new proposal is the height of hypocritical cleverness and a blatant attempt to maintain the occupation hegemony of Hezbollah — a terrorist jihadist group entirely affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and an enemy of Lebanon and its people. This proposal hands Hezbollah and Iran a political lifeline to escape the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, which explicitly stipulates the complete disarmament of Hezbollah across all Lebanese territory and the exclusive use of force by the Lebanese Army alone.
In reality, this proposal is nothing more than a rescue operation for Hezbollah from its current predicament — an attempt to legitimize the illegitimate, and a clear circumvention of the ceasefire agreement signed by the previous Lebanese government under Prime Minister Najib Mikati, with the participation of Hezbollah’s own ministers. The agreement was also approved and sponsored by Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, who is simultaneously the head of the Shiite Amal Movement, an ally of Hezbollah and its partner in the last war against Israel — a war that ended with Hezbollah’s crushing defeat, the near-total destruction of the Bekaa, South Lebanon, and the southern suburbs of Beirut, the killing of most of its leaders, and the displacement of tens of thousands from the southern suburbs, the South, and the Bekaa.
Presidency and Government: An International Decision Imposed Despite Hezbollah, Berri, and All Components of Iran’s Axis of Evil
It is necessary to remind both President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam that neither of them reached their current positions through the will of Hezbollah nor with the approval of Nabih Berri. They were imposed by international and regional consensus following intense pressure to implement international resolutions — foremost among them the ceasefire agreement and Resolutions 1559, 1701, 1680, and the Taif Accord. All of these resolutions clearly call for the disarmament of all Lebanese and Palestinian militias and the exclusive handover of all weapons to the Lebanese Army without exception. Therefore, any step taken by President Aoun or Prime Minister Salam that contradicts these obligations is a rebellion against international will and a dangerous squandering of the opportunity to rescue the Lebanese state from the grip of Iranian hegemony.
Aoun and Salam’s Positions: Total Submission to Hezbollah and Sabotage of State Liberation Efforts
What President Joseph Aoun — backed by Nawaf Salam — is proposing today is nothing short of a complete surrender to Hezbollah’s will and a humiliating submission to Nabih Berri. It is a direct obstruction of all international and regional efforts aimed at ending Hezbollah’s occupation of Lebanon and restoring the kidnapped state. Therefore, the call for “dialogue” regarding Hezbollah’s weapons is a misleading tactic that only serves to keep the weapons in place under the excuse of future agreement. This position blatantly violates the ceasefire agreement, all international resolutions, and the Taif Accord. It offers dangerous political cover for the continued Iranian occupation of Lebanon. If the President and Prime Minister are either unwilling or unable to implement the commitments that brought them to power, then they must resign immediately — rather than serving as false witnesses to the crime of keeping Lebanon hostage to a terrorist, Iranian-controlled gang that is fully and directly affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Nawaf Salam: A Nasserist Leftist Living in the Time of Abdel Nasser
In the context of this rebellion against the ceasefire agreement, it is important to note that Nawaf Salam is not a sovereign Lebanese statesman. He is a product of the Nasserist-Arabist school that still lives in the delusions of Abdel Nasser and his dream of “throwing Israel into the sea.” He previously worked with the Palestinian Liberation Organization and holds a deeply ideological hatred toward Israel, completely at odds with the new phase of building peace and stability in the region. This defeated ideological path followed by Salam and his peers cannot build a functioning state. Instead, it would drag Lebanon back to the era of occupation, destruction, and militias.
Morgan Ortagus in Beirut: Washington Is Not Pleased
Coinciding with these developments, American envoy Morgan Ortagus has arrived in Beirut, representing the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. During her official meetings, she is expected to convey the Trump administration’s dissatisfaction with the Lebanese state’s failure to implement the ceasefire agreement and its suspicious hesitation to form official committees to engage in talks with Israel about peace, normalization, and border demarcation. This hesitation is a clear evasion of explicit commitments endorsed unanimously by the previous government when it signed the ceasefire agreement. It also obstructs the path toward a settlement that aims to dismantle Hezbollah’s Ministate and occupation and to restore a free, sovereign, and independent Lebanese state.
Israel Is Implementing the Ceasefire Agreement Precisely
In the face of ongoing distortions and a willful blindness toward the terms of the ceasefire agreement, it must be stated clearly: Contrary to the propaganda spread by the Lebanese government and Hezbollah’s media, Israel is not waging a war on Lebanon. Rather, it is strictly implementing the agreement’s provisions.
The agreement stipulates that if Israel detects any violation by Hezbollah, it must notify the Quintet Committee, which in turn informs the Lebanese state. If the Lebanese Army fails to address the violation, Israel has the right to eliminate the threat itself. What has been happening since the agreement was signed is the precise implementation of its articles. Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s repeated violations are a blatant breach that exposes Lebanon to constant danger due to the absence of state authority and its subjugation to Hezbollah, a group fully subordinate to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
In Conclusion
What is required of President Aoun and Prime Minister Salam is to act as true statesmen, not as political cover for Hezbollah’s Mini-State Occupation. They must fully uphold their international commitments without hesitation — or else resign if they are not up to the historical responsibility for which the international and regional consensus brought them to power: rescuing Lebanon and ending the Iranian occupation.
