At the White House, Aoun seeks to win the peace he is selling

Joseph Aoun will on Tuesday become the first sitting Lebanese head of state to walk into the Oval Office in 17 years — the last being Michel Sleiman, who was received by Barack Obama in 2009. Both the symbolism and the risks are real. Aoun arrives carrying a framework agreement, agreed to with Israel last month through US mediation, which promises an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in exchange for Hezbollah’s disarmament. He needs Donald Trump to turn that promise into something concrete. However, he may leave with a warm photo op and very little else.

The asymmetry at the heart of this trip is worth stating plainly. The framework Aoun signed with Israel in late June sets no deadline for an Israeli exit from Lebanese territory. Withdrawal is instead conditioned on Hezbollah disarming and dismantling its infrastructure — a demand the group has flatly rejected. The Lebanese army has shown no appetite to enforce that condition.

Compounding the problem, the army has refused to coordinate directly with Israeli forces on implementation, leaving a US-brokered oversight committee to bridge a gap neither side seems eager to close. Even Aoun has conceded the deal is “not ideal,” calling it instead a reflection of the region’s current balance of power. That is a diplomat’s way of admitting he signed from a position of weakness.

The record since June bears this out. Rounds of bilateral talks in Washington and Rome have produced incremental language about “pilot zones” — small areas where Israeli troops would begin a phased withdrawal and the Lebanese army would take over security — but no timetable and no guarantees. Lebanese officials say they were not even notified in advance of the latest Rome session, a detail that speaks volumes about how much control Beirut has over a process it is being asked to bless publicly. Aoun is required to sell this partnership to a domestic audience while, at times, being treated as an afterthought by the process itself.

Aoun knows that he does not have a united country behind him. Critics across the Lebanese political spectrum have accused the government of legitimizing negotiations with a state many Lebanese still regard as an enemy, particularly with Israeli forces still entrenched in five occupied points in the south. The majority of Hezbollah’s constituency views the disarmament condition as a ruse, a conspiracy and an existential threat dressed up as a peace process.

Others, including those who were displaced from their towns and villages in the south and may never be able to return, are exhausted by war and economic collapse. They want any deal that stops the bombing, whatever its terms. Aoun is not just negotiating with Washington and Tel Aviv — he is negotiating with his own fractured country and divided citizenry, and every concession he makes abroad has a price at home.

Then there is Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel’s Knesset has been dissolved, with elections set for October, and the prime minister has a strong incentive to treat the Lebanon file as leverage to win the hard-line vote rather than as a problem to solve. A government campaigning on security credentials has little reason to hand over pilot zones or set withdrawal dates before ballots are cast.

There is little evidence the US has been willing to impose real costs on Israel for slow-walking its withdrawal.

Osama Al-Sharif

Israel has repeatedly said that it intends to keep its forces in designated security positions in the south regardless of the framework’s language and there is nothing in Israel’s electoral calendar that rewards flexibility right now. If anything, the opposite is true: a visible, unresolved Lebanon front may be more politically useful to Netanyahu than a resolved one.

Washington’s leverage is the wild card. Trump’s personal investment in the deal — underscored by a 17-minute phone call with Aoun on July 5 that the Lebanese president described as “good” and by the White House’s decision to extend a rare formal invitation — suggests real interest in claiming a diplomatic win in the region. But that interest has competition. The reignited confrontation with Iran increasingly consumes US attention in the Middle East and Lebanon risks becoming a secondary front in Washington’s own priorities, even as it remains a matter of life and death for Beirut.

A framework that depends on sustained, high-level American pressure on Israel is only as durable as Washington’s willingness to apply that pressure. So far, there is little evidence the US has been willing to impose real costs on Israel for slow-walking its withdrawal.

This is Aoun’s test in Washington and it has nothing to do with charm. He does not need Trump to like him; he needs Trump to be willing to spend political capital to compel an ally, mid-election cycle, to hand back territory it has said it intends to keep. That is a much harder ask than a summit and nothing in the pattern of talks so far — stalled pilot zones, uncoordinated militaries and a framework with no clock on it — suggests Washington has decided to make that ask forcefully.

None of this means the trip will prove pointless. Optics matter in a volatile region in which Lebanon has spent years paying the price of regional conflicts, sectarian frictions and external meddling. The White House summit signals that Beirut may have finally earned a seat at the table, however small. It may also buy the beleaguered Aoun something he badly needs on the home front: the appearance of progress and relevance. His government must rebuild a hollowed-out army, contain Hezbollah without provoking civil conflict and prevent an economy in freefall from collapsing entirely — and it is running out of time.

A good photograph and a warm statement from an unpredictable Trump should be welcomed at home, even in the absence of a secured Israeli withdrawal date.

If Aoun returns from Washington with pledges of continued American support and no shift in Israel’s posture, he will have bought himself time, not victory. The framework he is defending was built on an asymmetry, with Aoun and the government having their backs against the proverbial wall — Lebanon disarms a militia first, Israel withdraws maybe later — and one meeting in the Oval Office, however historic, will not rebalance it.

The real question is not whether Aoun can win Trump’s favor this week. It is whether Washington is finally prepared to make Israel pay a price for stalling. Until it is, Lebanon’s president will keep making the trip and returning home with promises rather than proof.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and a political commentator based in Amman.

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