Wilayat al-Faqih

Lebanon today faces a critical crossroads that directly threatens its national sovereignty, and this challenge is reflected in the issue of confiscating Hezbollah’s weapons. On Aug. 5, 2025, the Lebanese government issued an important decision entrusting the armed forces with the task of developing a plan to establish the state's monopoly on weapons, restricting the possession of arms exclusively to state institutions, in implementation of the ceasefire agreement with Israel, with the plan to be executed before the end of the current year. This decision represents a strategic turning point that places Hezbollah before complex choices: voluntary disarmament, moving towards political transformation, or direct military confrontation with the Lebanese army.   Hezbollah, for its part, rejects this decision, describing it as a major sin, threatening to ignore it and considering disarmament a direct threat to Lebanon’s resistance against external aggression. The decision faces significant challenges due to the strong popular and political support Hezbollah enjoys, in addition to political maneuvers aimed at obstructing any measures targeting its weapons. Given the fragility of Lebanon’s political and sectarian system, there are significant risks of a confrontation breaking out that could escalate internal tensions and undermine security stability, making any direct military clash between the army and Hezbollah fraught with danger, with the likelihood of intensifying sectarian divisions and expanding the circle of violence. Will the Lebanese army be able to confront Hezbollah?

Hezbollah stands at a pivotal crossroads, navigating the turbulent aftermath of a devastating conflict with Israel and grappling with profound shifts in its domestic politics and the regional strategic map. The cessation of hostilities, marked by a U.S.-brokered ceasefire effective Nov. 27, 2024, brought an end to intense fighting that inflicted immense human suffering and infrastructural damage across the country. This fragile peace coincided with, and was significantly influenced by two seismic events: the sudden collapse of the al-Assad regime in Syria, severing Hezbollah’s critical land bridge to Iran, and the end of a paralyzing two-year presidential vacuum in Lebanon with the election of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) Commander General Joseph Aoun, who has promised to dismantle Hezbollah’s military structure and restrict access to weapons, these promises were likely possible to make because of Hezbollah's significantly weakened state.   The 2024 conflict dealt an unprecedented blow to Hezbollah, resulting in the decapitation of its leadership, including longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah and his designated successor; the death of thousands of its fighters; the depletion of its arsenal; and the destruction of vital military infrastructure. This military degradation precipitated a tangible decline in its political influence. Regionally isolated by the fall of its Syrian ally and unable to dictate terms domestically, facing the state signaling a potential shift in Lebanon's internal power dynamics.   Faced with military exhaustion, regional isolation, domestic political setbacks, and a core narrative of "resistance" severely challenged by the reality of defeat, Hezbollah confronts an existential crisis. The organization that emerged from the 2024 conflict is fundamentally different from the one that entered it. This analysis, probes the future trajectory of Hezbollah in this drastically altered landscape to understand how Hezbollah might adapt, survive, or transform in the face of these compounding pressures, and the constraints facing the Lebanese state and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in asserting sovereignty, the divergent perspectives shaping the political discourse, and the plausible future pathways for Hezbollah in Lebanon.