Washington vs. Islamabad: Beirut's puppet masters or sovereign bluff?

Even as Israeli bombs pounded Lebanon relentlessly, a 33-year official chill between the two foes began to thaw. On April 12, Lebanese Ambassador Nada Hamadeh Moawad sat down with Israel's Yechiel Leiter, in a meeting hosted by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, signaling a high-stakes shift in regional diplomacy.

This rare direct engagement, which was followed President Donald Trump’s Lebanon-Israel ceasefire announcement, served to partially ease the sting of Beirut’s exclusion from the US-Iran deal reached just days earlier on April 8. The diplomatic momentum continued into Thursday, April 23, when Trump extended the truce for an additional three weeks following a second White House meeting between the two sides.

Trump’s announcement was the culmination of two parallel tracks that have been competing over the Lebanese file since the conflict resumed in March: the “Islamabad track”, where Iran and the US have been negotiating, and the “Washington track”, where Lebanese and Israeli representatives sat together under US sponsorship. 

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun appointed veteran diplomat Simon Karam to lead the talks, insisting that “no one else shall represent Lebanon or replace it in this mission.”

That assertion of sovereignty was immediately challenged by Hezbollah who rejected direct negotiations with Israel as a “grave mistake” and demanded a reversal. Secretary-General Naim Qassem warned against “gratuitous concessions,” as the group voiced skepticism over a binding deal, citing the collapse of the 2024 ceasefire amid mutual accusations of violations. 

State recovery or re-positioning?

For Beirut, the Washington meetings are not simply a diplomatic exchange in wartime but a test of sovereignty. Is direct negotiation a step towards restoring the state and detaching Lebanon from Iran’s orbit, as Aoun argues, or is it a US‑sponsored process in which Lebanon has little leverage?

Washington hailed the April 14 meeting between the Lebanese and Israeli delegations as “productive”, saying it concluded with an agreement that could lay the foundations for lasting peace and security along the border.

However, the ceasefire agreement also enshrines Israel’s “inherent right to self‑defense”, a clause critics in Beirut see as leaving the door open to continued military action, as the text preserves Israel’s right to respond to perceived threats even while barring offensive operations.

At the heart of the negotiations lies the unresolved question of Hezbollah’s disarmament, a demand that cuts to the core of Lebanon’s political divide and underscores the fragility of any truce brokered under US sponsorship.

Hezbollah has rejected demands for it to disarm, opposing any attempt to detach Lebanon from Iran’s regional axis. The group argues that such a move would erode its deterrent power and hand Israel a strategic advantage.

A senior Hezbollah official, speaking anonymously to Al Manassa, argued the true leverage lay outside Washington.

“The ceasefire is the result of Iranian pressure and its refusal to return to negotiations before a halt to fighting was secured,” the official said. In this view, Benjamin Netanyahu’s acceptance of talks was not a concession to the Lebanese government but a response to battlefield realities.

Two overlapping tracks

Reformist MP Mark Daou of Lebanon's Change Alliance conciders the Washington meetings “a major development” that re‑establishes the Lebanese state as the negotiating party rather than Hezbollah or a regional mediator.

For Daou, the breakthrough lies in “fully separating Lebanon’s track from the Iranian track,” which he blames for dragging the country into repeated wars since 2006. He argues that Lebanon’s primary obstacles are not only the Israeli occupation but also Hezbollah’s “illegal arsenal,” which prevents the state from representing itself internationally.

Meanwhile, Melhem Riachy, an MP with the Lebanese Forces, the largest bloc in parliament since 2022, cautioned against seeing Washington as a complete alternative to regional diplomacy. He noted that outcomes from Pakistan‑aligned efforts could still benefit Lebanon’s position in the long-run.

Political analyst Rabie Barakat of the American University of Beirut, cautiuosly agrees with Riachy. He sees the conflict as shaped by two competing tracks: the “Islamabad track”, shorthand for broader US–Iran diplomacy, and the Washington track, which he argues is designed to isolate Lebanon from those dynamics.

According to Barakat, the post-2024 Lebanese government is using the Washington track to capitalize on efforts to disarm Hezbollah. “It finds in the Washington track what the Islamabad track does not provide,” he told Al Manassa, warning that the latter risks restoring the domestic legitimacy of both Hezbollah and Iran.

Barakat, however, remains skeptical. While he agrees with Daou and Riachy that there is a concerted push to detach Lebanon from Iran, he views it less as a “recovery of sovereignty” and more as an “internal political investment” designed to weaken Hezbollah.

Ultimately, for him, the ceasefire itself is fragile. Though marketed as a success of Washington’s diplomacy, he considers it a preliminary outcome of the Islamabad diplomatic track. That framing, he argues, only heightens instability: “It is tied to competition between the two tracks, to developments from Hormuz to Lebanon, and to the gulf that still separates Iran and Hezbollah’s vision of a solution from that of Israel and the US.”

What does Lebanon bring to the table?

For reformist MP Mark Daou, Beirut enters negotiations with three assets: sovereign legitimacy, unresolved land and maritime border disputes including gas reserves, and international relations that can be leveraged to its advantage. In his view, Lebanon does not arrive empty‑handed; the very fact of negotiating as a recognized state is itself a bargaining chip.

Political analyst Rabih Barakat takes the opposite view. He argues Lebanon has little leverage over Israel and lacks the capacity to deliver on demands such as Hezbollah’s disarmament.

Hezbollah goes further still. The senior figure who spoke to Al Manassa described the Washington meeting as “a free card handed by the Lebanese to the Israelis”, claiming it did not secure a ceasefire but instead granted Israel what it had failed to achieve militarily — political recognition and the optics of direct talks.

Normalization with Israel remains to be the most sensitive fault line. Reformist MP Mark Daou argues Lebanon has an interest in reaching a security‑political agreement, even a peace deal akin to Egypt’s. Hezbollah, on the other hand, rejects the comparison, pointing out that Cairo negotiated from a position of strength after the 1973 war, while Lebanon enters talks “without any leverage at all.”

Despite the tug‑of‑war, the situation remains contained for the moment. Most political actors, including those opposed to negotiations, rule out the prospect of immediate internal conflict. “Everyone, including Hezbollah, is keen to avoid this spectre,” the Hezbollah official told Al Manassa, stressing that “any internal strife is out of the question.”

What some observers might read as an explosive rupture is, inside Lebanon, experienced in more nuanced ways: for some, a cautious recalibration; for others, a dangerous concession. For now, rival visions remain contained, bound in a fragile equilibrium that could shift with regional dynamics.

The divide is not a simple binary of war versus peace, but a clash over recovery. One camp sees direct, state‑led negotiations as the only path to reclaim sovereignty. The other dismisses US‑sponsored talks without leverage as surrendering the state’s remaining cards rather than restoring its power. Both, however, frame their positions as being taken in Lebanon’s name, and for Lebanon alone.