Perhaps the most sobering reality amid the global celebrations of the new millennium was that Lebanon entered the century still bound by the legacy of the Syrian Assad regime, now further entwined with the expanding influence of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. The early years of the century served as a delayed warning: Lebanon’s people would have to confront this entrenched domination if they hoped to change the country’s bleak trajectory.
The defining moments of the first quarter of this century began with the revolutionary stance led by the emblematic Maronite Patriarch Mar Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir. This marked the first “declaration of revolt” in a movement that would later reshape Lebanon’s confrontation with Syrian tutelage. The turning point came with the landmark 2000 statement issued by the Maronite bishops, calling for an end to Syrian guardianship over Lebanon mere months after Israel withdrew from the south and in the wake of Hafez al-Assad.
The conflict intensified once the Assad regime realized its position was weakening. Lebanon’s long struggle to reclaim sovereignty from its self-appointed Syrian “guardian” gained unexpected momentum after the September 11 attacks, when Washington shifted its strategic focus toward terrorism and the regimes that cultivated it. That shift produced an unprecedented alignment between George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac, crystallized in UN Security Council Resolution 1559.
By 2004, the confrontation between Lebanon’s sovereignty movement and the Baathist regime had entered its most explosive stage. Bashar al-Assad, in what would become both his gravest and most consequential miscalculation, forcibly extended the term of Emile Lahoud, a president installed to serve Damascus rather than Lebanon. This decision paved the way for unbridled brutality: a campaign of political assassinations targeting the architects and symbols of the sovereign revolution, beginning with Rafik Hariri.
The humiliating withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon marked an early paradox: what appeared to be a defeat for the Assad regime and its intelligence apparatus ultimately set the stage for the Syrian revolution inside Syria years later.
Yet the end of Syrian tutelage plunged Lebanon into an even more precarious reality. Hezbollah, Syria’s staunchest ally and Iran’s most powerful instrument in Lebanon and the region, swiftly asserted its dominance, employing a mix of rhetoric, coercion, political maneuvering, and force. The group extended its control over constitutional institutions and the state apparatus, consolidating power through intimidation, strategic interventions, and de facto authoritarian practices across Lebanese politics.
The March 14 Alliance failed to counterbalance the March 8 Alliance, as political equilibrium remained overwhelmed by a stark imbalance in armed power. Over three decades, Hezbollah has evolved beyond a militia into an illegal armed force whose capabilities now surpass those of many regional armies, possessing a missile arsenal few conventional forces can match.
Amid this grim reality, Lebanon gradually eroded as a sovereign state, increasingly viewed internationally as Tehran’s de facto fourth capital. The constitutional system suffered successive blows, from coups producing repeated presidential vacuums to governments effectively legalizing Hezbollah’s weapons under the banner of “resistance to Israel.” The party extended its reach further through terrorism, intimidation, and targeted assassinations, culminating in the invasion of Sunni West Beirut, widespread bloodshed, and the imposition of a “blocking third” in government through armed coercion.
Following the dramatic collapse of state authority and an unprecedented breakdown in the Taif era, Lebanon slid further into crisis during Michel Aoun’s tenure, compounded by the financial and banking collapse and the outbreak of the 2019 social revolution. The country appeared to be descending into deeper chaos and fragmentation, particularly as Iran’s influence transformed it into a precarious mix of a bankrupt state and a stronghold for one of Tehran’s most formidable proxies, Hezbollah.
The situation seemed on the brink of internal disaster when a constitutional crisis emerged with the suspension of presidential elections at the end of Aoun’s term. Yet calamity arrived not only from internal dysfunction but also from regional developments, as the Gaza and Lebanon conflicts became intertwined following the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation. Iran’s ambitions in Lebanon, exercised through Hezbollah, proved costly—not only for the party itself, but also for the Syrian regime and, by extension, the broader so-called “axis of resistance.”
Still, a new Lebanese dawn is beginning to emerge amid this unpredictable reality—a dawn that could mark a historic correction for a nation battered for over a quarter-century. As 2024 draws to a close, Lebanon stands at the threshold of unprecedented promise: the potential establishment of a genuine state alongside a free, independent, and modern political society.
Yet caution remains essential, for the risk of profound disappointment is far from over.