How Lebanon can be Trump’s first success in a troubled region

The Trump administration has done more than any of its predecessors to restore sovereignty for a much traumatized nation, Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces’ operations in 2024 against Hezbollah decimated that organization, long the “A Team” in global terror. 

With Lebanon no longer under the shadow of Iranian and Hezbollah dominance, a pro-sovereignty Lebanese president and prime minister came to office. They want to do what none of their predecessors would do: restore the Lebanese state’s monopoly of arms and control of its borders, regain power from Iran’s proxy, and remove from Tehran the decisions of war and peace in Lebanon.

America followed up in June 2026 with a trilateral framework agreement for a phased, conditions-based approach to disarming Hezbollah and restoring Lebanese control over all its territory, including in the South. Moreover, it placed on the horizon a future of peaceful relations between Lebanon and Israel, ending a cycle of violence that locked these two nations into the conflicts of others — the PLO, Syria and Iran. Despite the ups and downs of conflict and diplomacy elsewhere in the Middle East, representatives of Lebanon, Israel and America have met regularly to fulfill this promise.

While Lebanon offers a bright point of hope, the excellent groundwork laid by the Trump initiative is losing momentum. It is not because of a lack of goodwill, but an absence of persistent, high-level, intense action by all concerned. 

During ten days in Beirut and Jerusalem, I heard growing public support for this process. Polling in Lebanon shows that taboos about disarming Hezbollah and peace with Israel are fast eroding. Hezbollah’s standing in its own Shia community has........

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