Fifty years after the outbreak of Lebanon’s civil war, the nation finds itself at another historic juncture – one that could either lead to long-overdue reconciliation and reform, or to yet another chapter of internal strife and regional interference. The tragedy is that Lebanon never truly emerged from its civil war. The Taif Agreement of 1989 may have silenced the guns, but it never dismantled the underlying structures of sectarian division, foreign influence, and internal dysfunction that birthed the violence in the first place. What followed was not peace, but an uneasy ceasefire – a fragile coexistence among competing factions with no unified sense of national identity.

Many Lebanese still cling to the illusion that their country experienced peace from 1990 onwards, but the reality is far more complex. Lebanon has been engaged in a cold civil war – a war not just of sects, ideologies, or militias, but of narratives and identities. It is a nation perpetually at odds with itself: Maronites against Sunnis, Sunnis against Shiites, secularists against theocrats, and Lebanese against Palestinians, Syrians, and even fellow Lebanese.

The end of formal hostilities in 1990, following the implementation of the Taif Agreement, marked the beginning of a deeply flawed political system. Power was redistributed among Lebanon’s sectarian leaders, entrenching warlords-turned-politicians in government positions and institutionalizing a confessional system that rewarded division. Instead of fostering national unity, the agreement effectively froze the war in place. It swapped armed conflict for political deadlock and corruption.

What makes Lebanon’s plight even more tragic is that many of its people view the war as having been imposed from outside – a proxy conflict between Syria, Israel, Iran, and Western powers. But while foreign intervention undoubtedly........

© Blitz