Lebanon is once again caught in the crossfire of a wider Middle East war. Israeli attacks have devastated the country’s south, leaving thousands dead and forcing more than a million people from their homes. A fragile ceasefire has slowed the fighting, but lasting peace depends on resolving a question that has haunted Lebanon for decades: What [...]
Lebanon is once again caught in the crossfire of a wider Middle East war. Israeli attacks have devastated the country’s south, leaving thousands dead and forcing more than a million people from their homes. A fragile ceasefire has slowed the fighting, but lasting peace depends on resolving a question that has haunted Lebanon for decades: What [...]
Lebanon is once again caught in the crossfire of a wider Middle East war. Israeli attacks have devastated the country’s south, leaving thousands dead and forcing more than a million people from their homes. A fragile ceasefire has slowed the fighting, but lasting peace depends on resolving a question that has haunted Lebanon for decades: What happens to Hezbollah?
On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer speaks with Lebanese-born journalist and Middle East expert Kim Ghattas about whether the weakened Iranian-backed group can be disarmed without plunging Lebanon into civil war. Ghattas argues that a military confrontation between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army would be disastrous. Instead, Lebanon’s government must constrain the group, demonstrate that diplomacy can deliver tangible results, and persuade the Lebanese people that the state—not an armed “state within a state”—can protect them.
But Lebanon has little leverage. Israel has yet to fully withdraw and may seek to maintain a buffer zone across southern Lebanon, while Iran still views Hezbollah as a critical source of regional influence. Can Lebanon reclaim its sovereignty without another war—and can diplomacy succeed if Hezbollah is not directly involved in the negotiations?
“I lived through 15 years of civil war in Lebanon as a child, and this is my fifth Israeli military campaign against Lebanon as well,” Ghattas says. “That’s a lot of war. And I can sit here and despair about the state of affairs, but I’m looking for the slivers of light, the slivers of opportunity.”
While the world’s attention has focused on the Strait of Hormuz and the escalating conflict between the United States and Iran, another potentially transformative front has opened in Lebanon. Israeli attacks against the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah have left more than 4,000 people dead and displaced over a million. Now, a fragile ceasefire has [...]
Why has the US and Israel’s war with Iran spilled into Lebanon, nearly a thousand miles away? On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer looks back at how Iran transformed Hezbollah from a small Shia militia into one of the world’s most powerful non-state military forces. Founded after Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Hezbollah gave Tehran a heavily armed [...]
Europe turns up the heat on Big TechIt was a tough week for US tech companies in Europe. On Tuesday, France became the first country in the European Union to ban children under the age of 15 from using major social media platforms. Then on Thursday, the EU fined Google $1 billion over allegedly breaking digital anti-trust regulations. Google [...]
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