In the past few weeks, Lebanon and the entire Middle East have lived to the beat of war drums. Everyone prepared for a US-led military strike on Syria and its projected aftermath and took up positions accordingly. Some raised their tone and threatened, others appeased and negotiated, while yet others remained silent and awaited the results before espousing a view. But suddenly everything changed, and the specter of war dissipated, to be replaced by the dreamy atmosphere of a budding courtship between the United States and Iran. Everyone went back to the drawing board, for the facts had changed. In the not too distant future, these facts may change yet again, transforming with them any adopted policies. Yet, this is only if the soft words and pleasantries exchanged by Presidents Barack Obama and Hassan Rouhani actually become facts on the ground that build bridges of trust and lead to practical steps that would accompany efforts for the peaceful settlement of two contentious issues: the Iranian nuclear file and the Syrian crisis.

It must first be noted that any progress toward a negotiated settlement, any rapprochement between the Iranians and Americans, or any step toward regional appeasement — regardless of the initiating party — will surely bode well for the situation in Lebanon. This small country now forms the weakest link in this enflamed Middle East. This is a result of its religious sects being aligned and allied with the various belligerent regional camps, and the detrimental effect that this state of affairs has had on Lebanon’s sovereignty. Furthermore, no one must forget that Lebanon paid a heavy price as a result of the strained relationship with Iran, since the latter was excluded from the negotiating table in Madrid, beginning in the early 1990s. From that moment on, Iran took a radical route and led the axis of resistance, which included Damascus as a cornerstone of Arab opposition to the principle of bargaining and Judaization of Palestinian lands.

Hezbollah, on the other hand, began to rise in its capacity as an organized and effective military force in Lebanon. This was particularly true in the country’s south, where it took upon itself the responsibility of resisting and liberating land from the Israeli occupation. As a result of these alignments, Lebanon witnessed two wars — the Grapes of Wrath campaign of 1996 and the July War of 2006 — with all the ensuing destruction of property, displacement of people and victims by the thousands. Yet, the repercussions of the aforementioned strategic exclusion of the mullahs’ regime were not limited to wars. Lebanon also inherited a new conflict, which came to supplement other older conflicts and surpass them in effect. This was a conflict that dismantled the elements of the sovereign state and destroyed the country’s social covenant. This happened for a number of reasons, not least of which was the existence of two agendas diametrically opposed with a military power that exceeds its national army’s capacity to contain. As a result, this unseated all existing balances and attempts at reaching compromises through a dialogue between equals.

But this rapprochement and its positive effects on Lebanon and the region is predicated upon certain conditions, which — if absent — might lead to things having opposite results. The first of these conditions lies in the need for the rapprochement not to be seen or considered to be a bilateral deal between two parties at the expense of others. Iran has benefited from a decade of US political confusion in Iraq and the collapse of competing Arab regimes as a result of the Arab Spring revolutions. Yet, regardless of how influential it becomes, Iran is not the only regional power around. Any deal with Iran will remain hostage to the acceptance of other regional parties, particularly Israel and Saudi Arabia. Here, we must also point out that Iran’s role in the Arab world has waned, as a result of the Sunni-Shiite conflict — which has grown to proportions rarely seen in Islamic and Arab history — and the Syrian war’s repercussions on all Arab countries.