ٍShaffaf Exclusive
Lebanese are once again being asked to wait: to wait for the safe harbour of Arab unity, to wait for a regional consensus, to wait for the “right moment” before confronting the question of their own sovereignty. Yet that promissory note, when submitted to the central bank of Arab virtue, came with the indelible mark of « insufficient funds ». And at the very moment when Lebanon most needed solidarity and encouragement, not a single meaningful act of protection and solidarity with its leadership was presented to a vote at the so called Arab League table by those who had spent decades lecturing it about Palestine, Arab dignity, Islamic solidarity, resistance and regional balance. In a sense the Arab League « has given our people a bad check ». But there is no time to engage in the luxury of “cooling off” or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
The recent article in Middle East Transparent — reporting that Riyadh is moving further away from normalization with Israel while supporting a strategy of economic strangulation against Iran — captures an important regional shift. Saudi Arabia, according to the report, is no longer under immediate American pressure to join the Abraham Accords, and is instead repositioning itself within a broader Sunni axis involving Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, while sharing the American view that Iran’s regime must be weakened until it can no longer sustain its regional project. 
For Saudi Arabia, this may be a rational calculation. For Lebanon, it would be a fatal illusion.
Saudi Arabia can afford ambiguity. Lebanon cannot.
Riyadh can delay formal normalization because it negotiates from strength. It has oil, sovereign wealth, a functioning state, a national army, diplomatic leverage, and strategic depth. It can speak to Washington, Beijing, Islamabad, Ankara, Cairo and Paris without asking permission from a militia. It can postpone entry into a new regional architecture because, even outside it, Saudi Arabia remains a state.
Lebanon is in the opposite situation. Lebanon is not negotiating from strength. It is not even negotiating as a fully sovereign state. Its national decision has long been confiscated by Hezbollah, its foreign policy outsourced to Tehran, its economy destroyed, its banks ruined, its youth exiled, and its institutions reduced to the management of national decline. For Lebanon, staying outside the regional architecture of peace is not a sign of strategic independence. It is the deliberate continuation of captivity.
This is the central distinction that too many Lebanese still refuse to face: Saudi Arabia may remain outside the Abraham Accords because it has sovereignty. Lebanon needs the very logic of the Abraham Accords because it has lost sovereignty.
Riyadh can stand at the door and negotiate the price of entry. Beirut is locked in the basement by Hezbollah and told that captivity is resistance.
The article also notes that Saudi Arabia and the UAE appear to agree with the American view that a blockade or economic strangulation of Iran could eventually produce consequences the regime cannot bear, while still fearing the chaos that might follow an Iranian collapse.  That fear is understandable. No responsible Arab state wants a regional implosion. But Lebanon’s problem is more immediate and more local: Iran’s regime does not need to collapse tomorrow for Lebanon to begin freeing itself today.
Lebanon’s first task is not to design the future of Tehran. It is to end Tehran’s veto over Beirut.
That means recovering the monopoly of arms, restoring the authority of the Lebanese state, and accepting that peace with Israel is a strategic necessity because simply put, the alternative has already been tested: permanent war, permanent bankruptcy, and permanent emigration.
For decades, Lebanon was told that “resistance” would protect its dignity. In reality, it protected Hezbollah’s weapons, Iran’s corridor to the Mediterranean, and the political class that hid behind both. The result is not liberation. It is a ruined republic.
The tragedy is that Lebanon has paid the price of wars it did not choose, for causes it did not control, under slogans it was forbidden to question. Every time the region moves, Lebanon bleeds. Every time Iran negotiates, Lebanon waits. Every time Hezbollah escalates, Lebanese civilians, depositors, students, entrepreneurs and soldiers pay the bill.
This cannot be called sovereignty. It is strategic servitude.
The Abraham Accords should therefore not be understood only as a diplomatic document between Israel and certain Arab states. They represent something deeper: the decision by parts of the Arab world to stop allowing the Palestinian question, the Iranian revolution, or the rhetoric of “resistance” to veto national survival. The Emirates understood this. Bahrain understood this. Morocco understood this. Saudi Arabia may still choose its timing. But Lebanon no longer has the luxury of waiting for everyone else.
Lebanon’s case is unique because peace is not merely about external relations. It is about internal liberation. A Lebanese peace agenda would force the real question: who has the right to decide war and peace? The elected state, however imperfect, or an armed party tied to a foreign command? A republic, or a militia? A national army, or a revolutionary franchise?
This is why the opponents of peace are so afraid of the debate. They know that once Lebanon discusses peace seriously, the issue will no longer be Israel alone. It will be Hezbollah’s weapons. It will be the legitimacy of a parallel army. It will be the lie that Lebanon can be both a sovereign state and a battlefield managed by Iran.
So let us not copy Riyadh’s posture without Riyadh’s strength. Let us not pretend that because a wealthy kingdom can delay normalization, a bankrupt captive republic can take its time.
For Lebanon, peace is not a favor to Israel. It is not a concession to America. It is not a betrayal of Palestine. It is the only serious path back to statehood.
The choice is no longer between resistance and surrender. That vocabulary belongs to those who destroyed the country while claiming to defend it. The real choice is between a sovereign Lebanon integrated into the new Middle East, and a hostage Lebanon condemned to serve as Iran’s western trench.
Saudi Arabia can afford to wait outside the Accords.
Lebanon cannot.
« But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. » Martin Luther King