The unlikely rise of the new Lebanese government can serve as a historic bookend for over 40 years of rising Shia power in Lebanon.

By Shimon Sherman, JNS

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi landed at Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport on Tuesday morning in the most high-profile visit by an Iranian official to Lebanon since the November 2024 ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

The country Araghchi visited in his last diplomatic mission in October 2024 was vastly different than the one he saw on Tuesday.

In October, Lebanon was in the slipping grip of Hezbollah, at that time, still reeling from the Israeli pager bombing operation and the assassination of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

This week, Araghchi saw a country amid a complex transition as the new government under the leadership of President Joseph Aoun seeks to consolidate power and set the new administration on a firm footing.

The unlikely rise of the new Lebanese government can serve as a historic bookend for over 40 years of rising Shia power in Lebanon.

Following extensive investment by Iran, Hezbollah was turned over the decades into a terrorist juggernaut that hung over Israel like a sword of Damocles.

Hezbollah possessed a massive modern missile arsenal, a huge infantry fighting force, a complex tunnel network carved into hard rock, and an international narcotics and smuggling empire.

All these factors combined to form a serious deterrent on Israel’s ability to target Iranian operations and to counter the proxy “Ring of Fire” that was spreading around Israel. The looming threat of Hezbollah had security experts convinced that Israel was destined for a protracted and bloody conflict in Lebanon.

These predictions seemed to start bearing fruit when, on October 8, 2023, Hezbollah joined Hamas in offensive operations against Israel and began peppering northern communities with mortar and anti-tank missiles, leading to the deaths of dozens of Israelis.

Small-scale skirmishes were fought on the border for months until, in the late summer of 2024, Israel unleashed a series of unprecedented strikes against Hezbollah, which led to the complete collapse of Hezbollah’s capabilities and fighting spirit, leading to a ceasefire in November.

In January 2025, former Chief of Staff Joseph Aoun was elected to the presidency as part of the post-ceasefire settlement.

Aoun, a Maronite Christian, was known to have no love for Hezbollah, and was seen as a good candidate to carry out the central mandate for which the new Lebanese government was formed: the disarmament of Hezbollah, and “to affirm the state’s right to a monopoly on the carrying of arms.”

Daniel Ayalon, former Israeli deputy foreign minister, former ambassador to the U.S., and Chairman of Silver Road Capital, a financial advisory firm, told JNS, “Joseph Aoun knows exactly what the military threat from Hezbollah is. He has been trying to adhere to the ceasefire and has actively been limiting Hezbollah’s capabilities.”

Relationship with Hezbollah

As the terms of the November ceasefire became public, many in Israel were sceptical of the assurances that the Lebanese Army would successfully disarm Hezbollah. Many referenced UNSC Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 2nd Lebanon War and also guaranteed Hezbollah disarmament.

In addition, the Lebanese army was known to be permeated by Shiite partisans who were unlikely to take part in the disarmament of their friends in Hezbollah. However, despite valid concerns, there has been a widely reported successful effort by the Lebanese government to curb Hezbollah’s military and political power in Lebanon.

According to the Lebanese Army, “over 90% of Hezbollah infrastructure, south of the Litani River, has been dismantled.” These efforts have been combined with major efforts to disarm Hezbollah across Lebanon.

The effectiveness of these operations has been passively validated by Israel and the United States.

“We do see a lot of areas where the Lebanese army is way more effective than expected. The IDF is generally pleased by this trend, and we are expecting it to continue,” an IDF official recently said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal newspaper.

When combined with the destruction of over 70% of their missile arsenal, by IDF estimates, during Israel’s aerial campaign in the fall of 2024, a very diminished picture of Hezbollah emerges.

These operations have been matched with consistent rhetoric by the Aoun government, calling for Hezbollah’s disarmament. In a recent interview, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam explained that the government must have the sole right to military action.

According to reports, Lebanon’s foreign minister pressed his Iranian counterpart on the need to disarm Hezbollah during their Tuesday meeting.

In addition to disarming Hezbollah, Aoun’s government has pursued several further operations to consolidate power in Lebanon.

In April, Lebanese forces apprehended Palestinian terrorists accused of firing rockets at Israel from a border refugee camp. This signals a broader vision for disarmament across Lebanon as radical Palestinian groups may prove a softer target for Aoun’s administration due to their limited support base in Lebanon.

In addition, the Lebanese government purged Hezbollah staff from Beirut airport, making Hezbollah’s smuggling operations significantly more difficult as well as limiting their access to Iranian finances and weapons.

Salam declared the operation an unmitigated success. “You can feel the difference. We’re doing better on smuggling for the first time in the contemporary history of Lebanon,” he said.

Despite this unexpected progress, some officials have pushed the new government to expand the disarmament campaign and have said that Lebanon has not done enough in this effort.

Deputy U.S. Envoy for the Middle East Morgan Ortagus has pushed Aoun to expand his operation beyond southern Lebanon. According to Ortagus, Lebanese officials “have done more in the last six months than they probably have in the last 15 years.

“However, there’s a lot more to go. We in the United States have called for the full disarmament of Hezbollah. And so that doesn’t mean just south of the Litani. That means in the whole country,” Ortagus explained in a speech at the Qatar economic forum.

Many experts believe that the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) are too weak to tackle Hezbollah at the moment, but that their capacity is likely to improve.

“The LAF—a military funded by foreign assistance, tasked with controlling a long and porous border with Syria, an airport, and two seaports, in addition to performing domestic policing tasks—is still in the process of becoming the army of a sovereign state. It is certainly moving in the right direction, albeit at a pace much slower than many would like,” Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a researcher at the Washington-based Foundation for Defence of Democracies (FDD), explained.

Despite the efforts by the Aoun administration, Hezbollah still presents a formidable foe and still has many levers of power with which to influence the trajectory of Lebanon. A round of municipal elections in late May showed that Hezbollah’s hold over Lebanon could not be so easily broken.

According to the Galilee-based Alma Research and Education Center (AREC), the elections were a decisive victory for Hezbollah after Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem actively called on his supporters to show up at the polls in support of the terror group.

“Hezbollah, through its regional and organizational alliance structures, managed to establish full municipal control in the Shiite districts, while presenting political stability in its strongholds—South Lebanon and the Beqaa.

In Beirut, Hezbollah dominates through allies, regional campaigns, and quiet support for cooperative lists,” AREC explained in a piece summarizing the results of the election.

In addition to broad control at the municipal level, Hezbollah still retains significant power at the national level. Hezbollah, with its Shiite partners, controls five government ministries, including Finance, Labour, and Health.

Hezbollah has flexed its political muscle by holding up infrastructure packages in the Lebanese parliament. Hezbollah made public a list of demands, including the release of Hezbollah terrorists from Israeli custody and a full withdrawal of IDF troops from Lebanon.

Hezbollah has also pushed a political propaganda campaign branding Aoun and Salam as “Zionists” and “slaves to the West.” The parliamentary conflict has stalled legislative governance in Lebanon, underscoring that Hezbollah remains a significant force in Lebanese politics.

Despite Hezbollah’s formidable victories on the political front, the collapse of its corridor to Iran, which served as the cornerstone of the organization’s power, has left Hezbollah a shadow of its old self. Hezbollah has always been first and foremost a militant terrorist group, and only after a political organization.

Understanding this, the new government in Beirut has tried to reset its ties with Iran to isolate Hezbollah from its support base. Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Raji had some harsh words for his Iranian counterpart, saying Iran’s recent “military adventures” put Lebanon “in a difficult situation,” referring to Hezbollah’s war with Israel.

Raji informed Araghchi that “coordination between Lebanon and Iran would occur through official state channels,” implying that Lebanon refused to use Hezbollah as an intermediary. Multiple Iranian officers were smuggled out of Lebanon at the beginning of May, marking the waning influence of Tehran in Lebanon.

“Iran is no longer involved in a massive way; their role is being replaced by more moderate countries like the Saudis and the Emirates, which bolster the moderate forces in Lebanon,” Ayalon explained.

Iran, for its part, has committed to a policy of “non-interference,” likely as a result of limited access due to the collapse of the Assad government in Syria and the new regime at the Beirut airport.

However, Iran has also committed Iranian companies to take part in rebuilding efforts in Lebanon, which may signal an Iranian attempt to use financial investment as a way of re-establishing roots in Lebanon.

Relationship with Israel

While the relationship between Lebanon and Israel is far from warm, it is incomparable to the state of the ties a mere six months ago.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the LAF have used Israeli intelligence to locate and destroy Hezbollah weapons stockpiles in southern Lebanon. This intel sharing is allegedly happening through U.S. intermediaries. Some experts believe reports of intel sharing are just political spin.

There is no direct intelligence sharing or coordination between Israel and LAF. The IDF gives the ceasefire oversight committee intelligence regarding Hezbollah activities or positions violating the ceasefire. The committee then passes this information to the LAF, which has 72 hours to act. If the LAF doesn’t act, then Israel does.

The frequency of Israeli strikes and activities in Lebanon demonstrates that the LAF’s activity, while an improvement over the abysmal standards of the past, remains wanting. The LAF appears to be taking over Hezbollah positions previously struck by Israel and, according to Israeli security sources, only with Hezbollah’s prior permission.

Regardless of the LAF’s effectiveness, the IDF has certainly enjoyed unprecedented freedom of operation since the November ceasefire. Israel has carried out near-daily air strikes in Lebanon since November with little to no pushback from Aoun’s government and with no serious response from Hezbollah.

Last week, the IAF took out Hezbollah terrorists who were trying to repair a destroyed “fire and defense” position. Speaking on the operations against Hezbollah, IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said, “The campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon is not over, we will pursue it and continue to weaken it until its collapse.”

Rumors of a possible Lebanese entrance into the Abraham Accords serve as a further example of the rapid change in Israeli-Lebanese relations. While many experts believe such speculations are premature, many prominent political leaders have openly mentioned this as a hypothetical possibility.

“We have dramatically changed the paradigm there. I’m very upbeat about the potential for an Abraham Accord with Syria and Lebanon, and that may precede Saudi Arabia,” Yachiel Leiter, Israeli ambassador to the U.S., said in a recent interview.

Salam also said he saw a possibility for peace with Israel, however, he did condition it on the creation of a Palestinian state. “I would like to see a two-state solution, Israel withdrawing from the occupied territories in exchange for peace, and that peace will lead to normalization,” Salam said in a recent interview with CNN.

Although this statement suggests that peace with Lebanon is not imminent, it does indicate a realignment of Lebanese policy away from Iranian-style hostility and towards the Saudi vision for reconciliation.