After two years, Lebanon has a new president since yesterday, a development that translates both as a final victory for Biden’s diplomacy before he leaves the White House and as a move that gives guarantees of stability to both the country and Israel

Lebanon, after two years as a runaway ship, has a “captain” at the helm again since yesterday… Josef Aoun, although he did not make it from the first vote, becomes the head of a country that, apart from Hezbollah, is facing a deep economic and social crisis.

Who is Joseph Aoun?

Joseph Aoun has been a long-time close ally and partner of the US and was the head of the country’s National Army. Aoun has also been a longtime critic of Hezbollah and its methods, and has argued on several occasions that Lebanon’s national army cannot possibly partner with the Shiite group’s military arm.

The obstacles are US support, the Saudis, and Paris

The process of electing Aun was anything but simple. To elect a president in Lebanon, the country’s parliament required 86 votes, a number the new president did not get in the first round of voting. The debates that followed the first vote gave him the necessary number, with reports of significant guarantees given – indirectly by both the US and Paris. To these guarantees should be added the influence of Saudi Arabia which since the beginning of 2020 has emerged as the new key diplomatic power in the region. The pivotal move seems to have been made by France whose influence in Lebanon has been over time. According to sources from Lebanon and the Iliac Palace, there appears to have been a catalytic phone call from the “hexagon” to Beirut which shifted the balance in Aoun’s favor.

Messages to the West and Israel and a prestige victory for Biden

Lebanon’s new president is positioned on the term “beneficial neutrality”. The Aoun given does not want any reorganization for Hezbollah and seems to have made the necessary promises to the US and France that he will do what is needed to get the country back to status both in the region and in the West.

The key focus for Aun is expected to be rebuilding the economy and rebuilding the economy, and both Washington and Paris appear to have pledged to support these efforts. On the flip side, the return after more than two years to a form of “normalcy” is being interpreted – and the truth is not arbitrarily – as a last prestige victory for US diplomacy and personally for Joe Biden. The new day for Lebanon with this President brings much closer to a final ceasefire agreement with Israel which with 15 days left for the expiration of the interim treaty today has much less reason and arguments to insist on war… Already the first signals from Tel Aviv are positive with sources close to Benjamin Netanyahu talking about a “very positive step”. Joe Biden also knows that by concluding this particular “pending issue” in Lebanon in the most “painless” way for all sides, he will not have any objections or subversion decrees from the next Donald Trump Administration.