On Feb. 5, an unusual diplomatic confrontation unfolded between Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Calif.) and Lebanon’s military leadership, exposing the structural tension between American policy and Lebanon’s internal political reality.
During a scheduled meeting in Washington, Graham asked Lebanese Army commander Gen. Rodolphe Haykal directly whether he regarded Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Haykal replied, “No, not in the context of Lebanon.”
Dissatisfied, Graham ended the meeting abruptly and later wrote on X that the Lebanese Armed Forces could not be considered a “reliable partner” so long as such a position prevailed. He reiterated that Hezbollah has “American blood on its hands” and has been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. since 1997.
This exchange did not merely reflect a personal disagreement. It illuminated two fundamentally different frameworks. Washington operates within a legal-security paradigm in which organizations are classified in binary terms—terrorist or partner.
Beirut operates within a confessional political system in which internal stability often takes precedence over doctrinal clarity. What appears in Washington as evasion appears in Beirut as survival.
Hezbollah’s legal ambiguity
Haykal’s response reflects a decades-long balancing act embedded in Lebanon’s political order. Political parties in Lebanon are formally governed by the 1909 Ottoman Law of Associations, which requires organizations to submit an ilm wa khabar (“notice of establishment”) to the Ministry of Interior. Hezbollah has never filed this paperwork.
Yet despite the absence of registration, Hezbollah is not treated domestically as a mere militia. It holds seats in parliament and Cabinet portfolios.
Because it is not registered as a political party, its candidates run under the electoral list Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc (Kutlat al-Wafaa lil-Muqawama). Legally, these are individual candidates who form a parliamentary bloc after election. This technical arrangement allows Hezbollah to avoid state oversight of internal bylaws, funding mechanisms and membership structures—requirements imposed on registered parties.
Hezbollah argues that its legitimacy derives not from administrative registration but from successive Lebanese government policy statements. Since the early 1990s, most Cabinet declarations have included the formula “Army, People, Resistance.”
Hezbollah interprets this as state-level recognition of its role as a component of national defense rather than as a voluntary association subject to regulatory supervision. Registration, in its view, would reduce it to the status of a nongovernmental organization and undermine its claim to sovereign “resistance” status.
In practice, the Lebanese state interacts with Hezbollah as a political actor. It allocates Cabinet positions, coordinates on policy matters and incorporates its bloc into parliamentary coalitions.
Hezbollah has thus achieved a paradoxical status—participating in the state without being fully subordinated to its administrative framework.
The army’s institutional constraint
For the commander of the Lebanese Army to label Hezbollah a terrorist organization would not be a symbolic gesture; it would constitute a destabilizing institutional act.
Hezbollah represents a substantial segment of Lebanon’s Shi’ite population and maintains an extensive social-service infrastructure—schools, hospitals and welfare networks. It is deeply embedded in the social fabric.
The Lebanese Armed Forces is structured as a cross-confessional institution designed to prevent sectarian fragmentation. A significant portion of its rank-and-file is Shi’ite, many with familial or communal ties to Hezbollah. A designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization by the army chief would amount to branding sitting ministers and elected parliamentarians as criminals.
Such a move would risk a constitutional crisis, military defections and potentially the unraveling of the armed forces—echoing the fragmentation that preceded the 1975–1990 civil war.
Historically, the Lebanese state recognized Hezbollah’s right to “resist” Israeli occupation, particularly in Southern Lebanon. Although this position has become increasingly contested—especially after the 2024 ceasefire with Israel—the institutional posture of the Lebanese Armed Forces remains one of managed coexistence.
The army seeks to preserve internal equilibrium while gradually asserting its claim to be Lebanon’s sole legitimate armed force.
Thus, when Haykal stated that Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization “in the context of Lebanon,” he was not necessarily endorsing its methods or ideology. He was articulating the state’s internal logic—classifications that may be operative internationally are not mechanically transferable into Lebanon’s domestic equilibrium.
Is there a strategic double bind?
Graham’s frustration is understandable. The Lebanese Armed Forces depends heavily on U.S. funding, training and military assistance. American support has long been justified on the premise that the Lebanese state should ultimately monopolize the use of force and disarm non-state militias, including Hezbollah.
From Washington’s perspective, the army’s reluctance to adopt the U.S. terrorist designation appears as double-speak. From Beirut’s perspective, it is a calibrated ambiguity. By stating “not in the context of Lebanon,” Haykal avoided contradicting the U.S. designation outright while refraining from triggering domestic destabilization.
In essence, Hezbollah occupies a structural position within Lebanon’s political order. It is embedded in parliament, Cabinet and communal representation. Its sudden eradication is not an operational scenario but a systemic shock that would threaten the integrity of the Lebanese state.
Haykal’s answer, therefore, was less a rhetorical maneuver than a reflection of Lebanon’s governing reality.
In Washington, the analytic framework is categorical. In Beirut, it is transactional and precariously balanced. What appears as ambiguity abroad is, internally, a mechanism of survival.
Col. (res.) Jacques Neriah, a special analyst for the Middle East at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, was formerly foreign policy adviser to prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and deputy head for assessment of Israeli Military Intelligence.
Originally published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.
