Should Lebanon Exist?

Lessons From a Failed State

The changing demographics of a perfectly well-designed country. Source: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division

The war in Gaza has brought renewed fervor to “anti-Zionism,” a counterfactual movement to undo the creation of the Jewish state. But if we’re questioning the legitimacy of Middle Eastern states, why stop at Israel? Every country in the Levant was carved out of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Each has borders that were drawn by European powers. The latest Middle Eastern hostilities pit Israel, an economic, technological, and military powerhouse, against Hezbollah, a theocratic, Iranian-sponsored militia in a tribally fractured failed state. By the metric of national success, then, the opportune question is not whether Israel should exist. It’s whether Lebanon was a mistake. After all, Lebanon is perhaps the only post-colonial state whose people have petitioned for a return to foreign rule. Its politics are corrupt, sectarian, and foreign-dominated. Its economy is marked by GDP contraction, hyperinflation, and soaring unemployment. Lebanon has not just been stricken by crisis and war; it is fundamentally prone to crisis and war by its very nature. Though it may be too late to undo the errors of its foundation, other countries can still learn from Lebanon’s historic, ongoing state failure.

Today’s map of the Middle East was largely drawn by Britain and France after their victory in World War I. The Ottoman Empire, which formerly controlled most of the region, had sided with Germany and Austria-Hungary and was dismembered as a result. David Fromkin notes that “What was real in the Ottoman Empire tended to be local: a tribe, a clan, a sect, or a town was the true political unit to which loyalties adhered.”¹ Modern states like Iraq and Syria were not incipient nations yearning to be free. Instead, they were created as European (technically League of Nations) mandates to reflect European interests. Jordan, for example, largely originated as a consolation prize for the Hashemite dynasty, which had sided with the British but was driven out of the Arabian peninsula by the House of Saud. The British formed Palestine out of several different Ottoman districts to help safeguard the Suez Canal and serve as a “national home for the Jewish people” (per the Balfour Declaration, which was partly motivated by a desire to win Jewish support during the war²). Insofar as Palestine’s Arab population was politically organized, it called for incorporation into a broader Syrian Arab state.

From Greater Lebanon to Weaker Lebanon

Lebanon had a more substantial raison d’être than many of its neighbors. The French were the traditional champions of the Maronites, a Christian ethnoreligious group located around Mount Lebanon. Following sectarian conflict, Western pressure led to the creation of an autonomous Maronite district within the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. During World War I, the Ottomans massacred their empire’s Armenian population, which gave renewed impetus to the need for Western powers to protect local Christians. In 1920, Lebanon was subsequently founded as a Maronite-dominant enclave under French control. Yet for historical and economic reasons, the Maronites urged, and the French granted, the creation of a “Greater Lebanon” that extended beyond their Christian (and Druze) mountain redoubt. Thus the Mandate of Lebanon included substantial Sunni and Shi’ite Muslim populations. According to a 1932 census, its population was 51.2% Christian, 22.4% Sunni, 19.6% Shi’ite, and 6.8% Druze. The Lebanese political system was explicitly designed to reflect the country’s sectarian divisions. Per the 1943 National Pact, the Maronites were granted the presidency, command of the armed forces, and a parliamentary majority; the Sunnis had the role of prime minister; the Shi’ites were given speaker of parliament; and the Druze and Greek Orthodox Christians were promised lesser positions.

The 1975–1990 Lebanese Civil War brought the country's internal tensions to a boil. The poorer, faster-growing Muslims resented the Maronites’ political dominance, which was guaranteed by the National Pact but reflected an outdated census. The National Pact had promised that the Maronites wouldn’t seek Western intervention and that the Muslims wouldn’t aspire to unite with other Arab countries. Yet geopolitically, Maronites sided with the Western world, Sunnis (and pan-Arabist Greek Orthodox Christians³) turned to their Arab neighbors, Shi’ites were loyal to their co-religionists in Iran, and the Druze looked out for themselves. An influx of Palestinians ensnared Lebanon in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further complicated the country’s demographics and foreign loyalties. A coalition of Muslims and leftists demanded a new census and constitutional changes, the national army fell apart, and Beirut, once called the “Paris of the Middle East,” turned into a battlefield. The civil war’s inter- and intra-sectional warfare ultimately drew in Syria, Israel, Iran, and Iraq. It ended with the renegotiation of the National Pact (reducing Christian power) and the disarmament of armed factions; with the notable exception of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shi’ite militia that continues to provoke Israel.

Today Lebanon is 32.4% Christian, 31.9% Sunni, 31.2% Shi’ite, and 4.5% Druze. Many Christians—generally wealthier and more educated than their neighbors—have immigrated to Western countries. Thus Lebanon’s original case for existence, as a safe haven for the Maronites, has been rendered obsolete. Though the civil war is over, Lebanon remains a failed state, subject to political paralysis, sectarian division, foreign intervention, and economic decline. It is not a showcase for religious pluralism and multicultural harmony. Instead, it is a cautionary example of the need for functioning states to have a majority nationality.⁴ That nationality does not necessarily need to belong to a single religion or ethnicity. But it needs to primarily identify itself with the nation. Lebanon was doomed to fail because only the Christians typically saw themselves as Lebanese first, and there weren’t enough of them to keep the country stable. Even the Christians were divided, with the majority Maronites loyal to Lebanese nationhood and many minority Greek Orthodox drawn to pan-Arabism. Lack of Christian numerical strength and cohesion also made other groups, like the Druze, less compelled to close ranks with them out of their own sectarian self-interest.⁵

At its inception, Lebanon could have been established as a smaller, more religiously homogeneous state. This compact Lebanon could have extended into the Christian-majority Wadi al-Nasara (“Valley of the Christians”) in present-day Syria, instead of its current Muslim-majority territory. The Lebanese Christians are largely Maronite, whereas Syrian Christians are largely Greek Orthodox, so this alternative Lebanon would have needed to forge a pan-Christian, neo-Aramean identity (and reject pan-Arabism in turn). That identity could have been strengthened by a policy to encourage the immigration of other Middle Eastern Christians, such as the persecuted Aramaic speakers of Iraq. A Christian “right of return” would simply have reversed the original process by which Muslims achieved numerical dominance. As Philip Jenkins writes, “From the earliest days of the Muslim expansion, new regimes sponsored the migration of Arab and Muslim peoples into what had been Coptic or Syriac territories, reducing the relative power of older-stock populations and their cultures—and faiths.”⁶ A homegrown Christian Zionism might have mitigated the dramatic decline of Christianity in the Middle East, from around 14% of the region’s population in 1914 to under 5% today. The original impetus for Greater Lebanon was largely economic: the Maronites sought ports and more arable land. But there are no financial upsides to a collapsed country. A cohesive Christian nation-state would have been rich in human capital and pro-Western in orientation: a recipe for foreign investment and economic success.⁷

Avoiding Lebanon’s Fate

Lebanon’s failure has immediate lessons for its more successful neighbor, Israel. Jews are a clear national majority outside of the West Bank and Gaza. But in the Holy Land as a whole, they’re under 50% of the population: closer to Lebanon’s Christians before that country’s civil war.⁸ Also, like Lebanon’s pan-Arabist Christians, the Jews include a minority (non-Zionist Haredim) who question the legitimacy of their own state. Jewish ambitions of a Greater Israel, like Maronite visions of a Greater Lebanon, are thus doomed by demographics. On the other political extreme, dreams of a binational state must contend with the sobering reality of sectarian Lebanon. At least Muslim irredentists like Hamas, whose goal is an ethnically cleansed Palestine, recognize the untenability of a state with no clear majority. While a two-state solution is currently a political non-starter, Lebanon shows that there are fates worse than partition. Indeed, given existential disputes over holy sites, history, and basic national existence, a failed state akin to Lebanon would be the best-case scenario for an Israeli-Palestinian union. As Dan Perry writes, “partition of the Holy Land into two states is not a favor that Israel is being asked to do the Palestinians, but rather an absolute necessity for the Zionist project to survive.”

Lebanon is also a warning to the West more broadly. According to progressive mantra, “Diversity is our strength.” But diversity absent a unifying force—such as national identity—leads to internal conflict and consequent weakness. Because of its split demographics, Lebanon was a weak state before it was a failed state. Its weakness made it vulnerable to foreign interference, which imperils the country to this day. Hezbollah fires rockets at Israel on behalf of its sectarian benefactor, Iran, not out of any Lebanese national interest. True Lebanese nationalists, now a minority in their own country, are powerless to stop them. When the bulwark that identifies with its own country’s interests loses majority status, that country is effectively over. This bulwark can be strengthened by immigration, if it involves incorporating newcomers into the national project. But the nationalist majority can also be weakened by immigration, if sectionalism is imported into once-cohesive countries. Of course, sectionalism can also develop organically through extreme political polarization. A country can start off as flawed as Lebanon. But it can also turn into Lebanon over time, if demographics are allowed to become destiny and the center cannot hold.

As for the question of whether Lebanon should exist, the answer is that it doesn’t. Outsiders are apt to confuse the map for the territory, the semblance of a nation (demarcated territory and a flag) for the reality. But Lebanon has become a mere assemblage of tribes: most of which see the country, to quote the Maronite patriarch, as “real estate, not a homeland.” Lebanon only survives as a nominally independent nation because the American-led world order upholds the principle of established borders. Thus a US-led coalition fought to keep Iraq from absorbing Kuwait. But as Russia’s attempt to conquer Ukraine demonstrates, the international “rules-based” order is fragile and prone to challenge. Notably, an equally expansionist Iran backs Russia in its bid for neo-Tsarist empire. In the words of Robert Kagan, the jungle (ie, an explicitly strength-based international order) is growing back. Israel may be the Middle Eastern nation that is continually threatened with annihilation. But unlike Lebanon, it has a unifying national identity, a sense of collective purpose, and a demonstrated will to survive. In a century’s time, the Middle Eastern country most likely to disappear from the map isn’t Israel. It’s Lebanon.

1. David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914–1922 (1989), p. 36

2. Idealism also played a role. As Winston Churchill, then Britain’s colonial secretary, said to a Palestinian Arab delegation in 1921, “it is manifestly right that the Jews, who are scattered all over the world, should have a national center and a national home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could that be but in this land of Palestine, with which for more than 3,000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated? We think it will be good for the world, good for the Jews, and good for the British Empire. But we also think it will be good for the Arabs who dwell in Palestine, and we intend that it shall be good for them…”

3. For example, Michel Aflaq, a Syrian founder of the pan-Arabist Ba'athist movement, was Greek Orthodox, as was Antoun Saadeh, the Lebanese founder of the pan-Syrian (a sort of pan-Arabist heresy) Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

4. There are successful (ostensibly) multinational states, but their demographics aren’t comparable to Lebanon's. For example, Belgium (which has its own sectional divide) is ~ 60% Flemish, Switzerland is ~ 62% German-speaking (and has a long tradition of civic nationalism), and Singapore is ~ 74% Chinese (and is a semi-authoritarian city-state).

5. In Israel, for example, the Druze formed a so-called “covenant of blood” with the Jews. As Alex Stein writes, “The Druze are famously loyal to the country where they live. In cases of conflict between two peoples living in the same land, this requires a sharp knack for sensing which way the wind is turning, as getting it wrong could be fatal.”

6. Philip Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity (2008), p. 212.

7. The Levantine Christian diaspora is notable for its elite human capital, including in politics (eg, Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele, former US senate majority leader George Mitchell), business (eg, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim, former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn), and intellectual life (eg, leading Substacker Richard Hanania, essayist/bon vivant Nassim Taleb).

8. This number could be adjusted by contrasting self-identified “Israelis” (which would include non-Jews) with self-identified “Palestinians” (which would not include all Arabs), or by removing Gaza (which is not the primary focus of Greater Israel advocates) from the equation. Regardless, the demographics are not favorable for any stable one-state solution.