Last Wednesday, US Middle East envoy Amos Hochstein announced a ceasefire deal between Hizbollah and Israel. The ceasefire, which Hochstein touts as ‘permanent’ provides for a cessation of hostilities for a two-month period, during which both Hizbollah forces and Israeli troops will withdraw from a 44 kilometre-deep area along the Israel-Lebanon border. Between the border and the Litani River, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), and United Nations troops, will take control.

Since its independence from France in 1943, Lebanon has spent more years under official or de facto ceasefire than it has at peace. The long litany of Lebanon’s ceasefires began with a US intervention in 1958, continued through the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s rocky residence in the country, flared intermittently throughout 15 years of civil war, and stretched into the 21^st century with a series of ill-made half-measures that fomented hostility along the border once more. For Lebanon, the opposite of war is not peace, but ceasefire.

Hochstein’s laudable efforts have provided critical relief to one of the world’s most beleaguered populations. Yet the ceasefire bears some concerning features, hallmarks of previous US-led ceasefires in Lebanon that ended in violence and bloodshed. Most significantly, the deal’s reliance on the Lebanese Armed Forces as a peacekeeping force will encounter significant challenges.

Bolstering the Lebanese Army is a familiar route for Washington. In 1982, after the US-led Multinational Force arrived in Lebanon to enforce a ceasefire between the PLO, Israel, and warring Lebanese parties, the Reagan administration initiated the Lebanese Army Modernization Program (LAMP). Training and equipping Lebanese troops, the logic ran, was a way that the United States could bolster the Lebanese state without wading into its ongoing civil conflict. With a strong Lebanese state, the White House argued, Israeli occupation forces and Syrian troops could each withdraw.

Yet despite political support from the White House, the LAMP proved only marginally successful. US Army Colonel Arthur Fintel struggled to modernise a fighting force that was riven with sectarian and political conflict. By the time the Multinational Force left Lebanon in 1984, the Lebanese Armed Forces proved incapable of maintaining control of territory in Lebanon beyond the immediate environs of the Presidential Palace. Israel and Syria remained in occupation in Lebanon for decades.

The most recent ceasefire deal promises international and United Nations support for the Lebanese Army. Lebanon’s caretaker government has already begun recruitment processes in anticipation of Israeli withdrawal. Yet, as the LAF’s experience in the 1980s indicates, there is little hope for an army functioning without a government. Given the international community’s reluctance to address Lebanon’s ongoing political and economic crises – which predate the Israeli invasion of October 2024 – there is ample reason for scepticism about the LAF’s ability to enforce the terms of the ceasefire.

Another concerning aspect of the ceasefire deal is Hochstein’s rapid pivot toward Gaza. He, and other US officials, have indicated optimism that the Hizbollah deal will bring Hamas to the negotiating table for a hostage release deal. This, too, has strong historical resonance. In September 1982, after Philip Habib’s herculean efforts produced a ceasefire in Lebanon, the Reagan administration announced a widespread plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Shifting resources and attention away from Lebanon, the White House pulled US Marines out of Beirut, where they had been enforcing Habib’s ceasefire. Within days of their withdrawal, Lebanon’s president-elect was assassinated, Israeli troops swept into West Beirut, and one of the Lebanese Civil War’s bloodiest massacres unfolded in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps. The Marines returned to Beirut, less than two weeks after they had left.

While Hochstein’s pivot away from Lebanon will not produce the same dire consequences as that of the Reagan White House, it is nevertheless suggestive of a certain path-dependency in US thinking about Lebanon. Lebanon’s crises, which are certainly tied to broader regional crises, merit their own specific, sustained attention from both the White House and the international community. Announcing a ceasefire has a way of diverting attention, rather than building it.

Speculating about the future in the Middle East is a foolish endeavour. Nevertheless, there are suggestive developments afoot that hint at what might happen in two months, when the deal expires.

Tehran can be expected to develop new strategies for influence. Iran is on the backfoot after Israel wiped out Hizbollah’s leadership and middle-tier officer cadre in Lebanon. Developments this week in Syria also suggest that Iran’s influence is waning in Damascus – despite the fact that Assad relies on Iranian troops to maintain his chokehold on power.

The Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon – which will not unfold peacefully – will provide Iran with many opportunities to rebuild its influence. Historically, Israeli withdrawals from the region have produced circumstances ripe for exploitation by extremist groups. The longer the process takes, the more opportunities will arise.

Both Israel and Iran expect the incoming Trump Administration to further reduce US involvement in the Middle East. It is likely that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expects Trump’s White House to ‘bully’ the International Criminal Court into rescinding its arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant.

With a virtually free hand in the region, Netanyahu can be expected to act on his new defense minister Israel Katz’s threat to make ‘no distinction’ between Lebanon and Hizbollah if there are ceasefire violations. That distinction – which Netanyahu and the IDF general command already blur quite liberally – has kept Israel from unleashing the full force of its military on Beirut. Without it, Lebanon’s long, stutter-stepping ceasefires may come to a more permanent end.