Lebanon’s fundamental problem is not simply the existence of weapons outside the state’s authority. The deeper issue is the question at the heart of this crisis: Who holds the national decision-making power? Who decides when the country goes to war or remains at peace? And who bears the consequences of strategic decisions that are not made exclusively by the country’s official institutions?

In any normal state, the monopoly on the use of force is not merely a security matter; it is the very essence of sovereignty. A state that is not the sole authority authorized to use force loses a fundamental part of its meaning. The existence of an armed force operating alongside the state, regardless of the justifications for its emergence or the slogans it adopts, ultimately creates a dual political and security reality: a state that exists legally and another force with the practical ability to shape the country’s fate.

From this perspective, the issue of weapons outside the state’s authority is not defined solely by who possesses them or by the cause they claim to defend. The fundamental principle is that sovereign decision-making cannot be divided between state institutions and other actors capable of imposing their own choices. But acknowledging this reality does not mean that every means of eliminating such weapons is therefore acceptable. Rejecting arms outside the state’s authority should not translate into accepting any external actor’s intervention to determine the nature of the Lebanese state or reshape its internal balance of power. Sovereignty is not established by stripping authority from one domestic actor only to place it, in practice, in the hands of a foreign one.

This is where the flaw emerges in any argument that presents Israel as a tool for resolving Lebanon’s weapons issue. Israel is not a neutral actor in the Lebanese equation, nor is it a party working to build a strong and independent Lebanese state. It is a country with a long history of conflict with Lebanon, marked by occupation, military operations, and repeated violations, and it acts according to its own security and political interests. Turning it into an instrument for reshaping Lebanon’s internal order, therefore, entails a fundamental contradiction: how can state sovereignty be built by relying on a party whose actions are driven not by Lebanon’s independence, but by its own strategic calculations?

For that reason, rejecting weapons outside the state’s authority does not mean accepting any external actor that uses force under the banner of eliminating those weapons. Lebanon’s predicament is not resolved if it merely shifts from the problem of an internal force operating above the state to one in which national decision-making becomes subordinate to a foreign power. It is like trying to solve one problem with a tool that ultimately creates an even greater one: bringing in a mouse to get rid of insects, then needing a cat to chase away the mouse, and finally a dog to drive off the cat. At every stage, the intervention appears justified because the previous problem was real. Yet the result is a chain of dependencies on new actors, leaving the original owner of the problem with ever less control over their own fate.

This is the danger facing Lebanon. The issue is not only the existence of weapons outside the state’s authority, but also the fact that the state’s weakness has historically made the country vulnerable to becoming an arena for other powers’ agendas. Whenever the state fails to fill the vacuum, a domestic or foreign actor steps in to do so. But the remedy for a weak state is not to introduce another force to compete with it. States are not built by balancing one sphere of influence against another, nor by replacing one regional axis with another. They are built by ending the logic of competing axes altogether.

For decades, Lebanon has suffered from the notion that its security must always depend on an external power: at one time in the name of Arab nationalism, at another in the name of the resistance, then under the banner of international protection, or in deference to shifting regional balances of power.

Each time, the outcome has been the same: a diminished ability for the Lebanese to determine their own future. Sovereignty does not simply mean freeing oneself from an enemy or an adversary. It means that a country no longer needs to call on outside actors to resolve its internal problems.

A strong state is not strong because it relies on a power stronger than itself. It is strong because it possesses institutions capable of preventing any domestic or foreign actor from overriding its authority. 

When the Outside Becomes a Substitute for the State

This responsibility does not rest with the Lebanese alone. Just as domestic actors must abandon the logic of maintaining a state within the state, foreign powers must also stop dealing with Lebanon through sectarian groups, political factions, or parallel projects instead of its official institutions. The crisis Lebanon faces today did not emerge overnight, nor did it begin solely with the appearance of weapons outside the state’s authority. It is the outcome of a long process in which every community came to seek external protection, while regional and international powers increasingly engaged with Lebanon through its sectarian and political components rather than as a single state with unified institutions.

Once sectarian communities became channels for foreign influence, and regional and international capitals began seeking allies within those communities rather than supporting the state itself, Lebanon gradually began to lose the very meaning of a national state. Competition was no longer between political projects operating within the framework of the state, but between external agendas that found local extensions.

Lebanon was thus transformed from a state meant to unite its citizens under common institutions into an arena balancing multiple external patrons. Every foreign power sought its own sphere of influence, while every domestic community searched for a protective umbrella. The result was a weakened state and the emergence of forces that came to see themselves as capable of performing the state’s functions.

It was from this trajectory that the logic of weapons outside the state’s authority emerged. Parallel armed groups were not an isolated phenomenon but rather the natural consequence of the absence of a state capable of serving as the sole reference point for all its citizens. Once every community becomes convinced that its security depends on an external patron, acquiring its own independent means of force becomes only a matter of time.

For that reason, addressing the weapons issue cannot begin solely at its endpoint—the existence of an armed force outside the state. It must confront the roots of the problem: the culture of external patronage, the transformation of sectarian communities into instruments of foreign influence, and the practice of states engaging with Lebanon as a sphere of influence rather than as a sovereign nation. Just as the existence of an armed force outside the state’s authority threatens the state’s very existence, the continued practice of foreign powers building relationships with Lebanon’s constituent groups instead of with the state itself reproduces the very conditions that make the emergence of such forces possible.

What If the Internal Path Fails?

The most difficult question remains: What if the internal path fails? What if the Lebanese state remains unable to establish an exclusive monopoly over arms and end the duality of military power?

This is a legitimate question because waiting for an ideal domestic solution could mean allowing the crisis to persist for decades. But acknowledging the state’s inability to act does not mean handing decision-making over to a foreign power. A state that regains control through external intervention may succeed in eliminating an adversary, yet still fail to build genuine sovereignty.

The challenge is not to ignore reality, but to address it in a way that prevents domestic paralysis from becoming a justification for a new form of external tutelage. There is a difference between the international community helping the Lebanese state implement its own decisions and replacing the state altogether. There is also a difference between supporting Lebanon’s institutions and using those institutions as a façade for decisions made elsewhere.

If the internal path falters, the answer is neither to freeze the crisis nor to open the door to unchecked external intervention. Rather, it is to increase political, diplomatic, and legal pressure on all those obstructing the establishment of a functioning state, while keeping the objective clear: returning decision-making authority to Lebanon’s own institutions.

Not a Balance of Patrons, but an End to the Logic of Patronage

The real choice is not between one patron and a supposedly better one. The problem has never been solely the identity of the intervening state, but the very principle of external intervention when it becomes a means of building influence through domestic groups.

If Iran’s sponsorship of a sectarian political project helped entrench a force operating alongside the state, the answer is not to create competing sectarian projects. If every sect comes to seek its own foreign patron, and different states sponsor rival sectarian political agendas within Lebanon, the result will not be a balanced state but the same crisis reproduced under different names. Lebanon does not need a balance among competing patrons. It needs to put an end to the very idea of external patronage. A state is not built when sectarian communities achieve equilibrium through different foreign capitals. It is built when the state itself becomes the sole framework that protects everyone. Just as it is unacceptable for Iran to determine Lebanon’s future through an armed force, it is equally unacceptable for any other state to shape that future through political or sectarian proxies. The standard must remain the same: no weapons above the state, no political project above the state, and no external relationship that bypasses the state.

Lebanon now faces a test that goes far beyond the question of one group’s weapons or another’s influence. The real question is whether the Lebanese want to build a state or simply replace one actor controlling their national decisions with another.

The gravest outcome would not be one side defeating the other. Still, Lebanon is emerging from one form of tutelage only to enter another, and moving from the loss of internal decision-making to the loss of national sovereignty.

Disarming forces operating outside the state’s authority may well be a historic necessity. But turning that necessity into a justification for inviting in an external power with its own agenda and interests is a mistake Lebanon could pay for for decades. States are not built by seeking protection from those more powerful than themselves. They are built by developing the institutions and authority needed to prevent any domestic or foreign actor from standing above them.

The real danger lies not only in the existence of weapons above the authority of the state, but in the moment the Lebanese lose faith in their ability to build their own state. Once external actors become the permanent solution, the state itself ceases to have a meaningful role.

History is unforgiving toward states that trade sovereignty for temporary security. Every foreign power that enters Lebanon claiming to solve one problem leaves behind another. And every outside actor invited in to confront one adversary ultimately becomes a player in shaping the country’s future.

Lebanon does not need someone to free it from one set of weapons only to leave it captive to another center of decision-making. Nor does it need a military victory that merely reproduces political defeat. What it needs is a state capable of telling everyone, at home and abroad, that this country is no one’s platform, no one’s bargaining chip, and no space for others to compete over.

If weapons outside the state’s authority undermine the very meaning of sovereignty, surrendering the state’s decision-making to external powers destroys it at its roots.

The difference between a state and an arena is not simply who possesses the weapons, but who holds the decision-making power. Either Lebanon reclaims that power for itself, or others will continue reclaiming it on its behalf.