BEIRUT (Dispatches) -- Lebanon’s current political leadership increasingly appears trapped in a security policy shaped less by national sovereignty than by the demands of foreign powers. 
The weak government’s reliance on U.S.-brokered arrangements has produced a deeply unequal framework in which Beirut is expected to extend state authority and confront Hezbollah’s armed presence, while Israel continues to maintain occupation inside Lebanese territory and impose its own security conditions.
The June U.S.-brokered framework illustrates this imbalance. While it envisages Lebanese forces assuming control in the south and ultimately calls for an Israeli withdrawal, Israel has continued to maintain positions inside Lebanon and has said that its withdrawal depends on security conditions that it defines itself. 
Israeli officials have stated publicly that their forces will remain until they consider the Hezbollah threat sufficiently addressed.
This leaves Beirut in an extraordinary position. Lebanon is being asked to demonstrate its sovereignty while operating within a security framework heavily influenced by Israel and Washington. 
The United Nations, meanwhile, has called for the terrorist entity of Israel to withdraw from the five positions it occupies in Lebanese territory and reaffirmed Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The approaching departure of UNIFIL makes the situation even more precarious. The mission is scheduled to end its operations on December 31, 2026, with its withdrawal continuing through 2027. 
UNIFIL’s commander has warned that transferring responsibility to Lebanese forces will be particularly difficult in areas where Israeli forces are present.
The emerging arrangement therefore risks creating an asymmetric security order: obligations are imposed on Beirut, Israeli occupation remains central to negotiations, and foreign governments compete for influence over Lebanon’s political and economic future.
Northern Lebanon illustrates the wider problem. Turkish engagement, Persian Gulf Arab interests, Western financial leverage and other regional partnerships are increasingly shaping economic opportunities and strategic priorities. 
Instead of pursuing a coherent national strategy, Lebanon risks becoming a field of competition in which outside powers advance their interests through different regions, institutions and economic projects.
The fundamental issue is therefore larger than the question of Hezbollah’s weapons or the replacement of UNIFIL. It is whether Lebanon can exercise genuine sovereign authority while foreign forces remain on its territory and major security decisions are negotiated under powerful external pressure.
A government unable to secure its territory, insist on equal sovereignty for all parties and negotiate from a position of national independence risks allowing Lebanon’s weakness to become a permanent source of leverage for others. 
The danger is not necessarily formal partition. It is a Lebanon that remains united on the map while its security, reconstruction and economic choices are increasingly shaped elsewhere.