While the US-Iran agreement remains shrouded in mystery, with countless analyses and commentaries addressing it, sometimes taking their contradictions to the extreme, and while Lebanese-Israeli talks progress and achieve their 'framework agreement,' the Lebanese issue finds itself once again at the heart of regional and international conflicts. The fundamental question here is: Will the strong winds ultimately blow in the direction of the Lebanese project or the Iranian regional project in Lebanon?

In light of the historical struggle, spanning 165 years, between the Lebanese project—which has remained the same from the beginning until today—and the regional project, which has changed with the times, from Ottoman to Faisalist Syrian to comprehensive unionist Baathist to Syrian nationalist to Nasserist-Arafatist to Assadist Syrian and finally to Iranian Islamic, and perhaps later to a Turkish project, the movement of history has ultimately shown a tendency toward the Lebanese project, despite the numerous, more dangerous impasses than the current one that this struggle has gone through. But that does not confirm the final outcome today either. The movement of history involves many complex factors, surprises, transformations, and upheavals, on which the supporters of the Iranian axis in Lebanon, as in Iran and the entire region, place their greatest hopes.

For twenty years, the Lebanese project has experienced a clear stalling in its self-recovery, despite the highly favorable factors. After the million-strong 'Cedar Revolution' and the almost miraculous withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon in 2005, most leaders of the great popular movement betrayed its hopes and spirit. Behind illusory slogans such as 'Lebanization of Hezbollah' or 'preserving national unity,' purely utilitarian swaps were made with the party, particularly through the 'Quadripartite Alliance' and then the 'Mar Mikhael Agreement,' through which the party completed its inheritance of Assadist Baathism in Lebanon. Then came the '2016 presidential consensus' to complete most of its important parties. For many years, the actual equation was: 'We support your positions or remain silent about them, in exchange for our sharing in the benefits of the country's wealth, resources, jobs, and ranks,' which ultimately pushed Lebanon into the abyss of economic and financial collapse, placing it at the bottom of the world rankings.

After the 'Al-Aqsa Flood' attack in 2023 and the subsequent wars, occupations, and disasters, the Iranian axis, both at its source and in its branches across the region, suffered great disruption, which allowed the emergence of a Lebanese executive authority that took upon itself the independence of decision-making and the restriction of arms to the state alone, considering the military wing of the 'Axis Party' in Lebanon as an outlaw organization. It then embarked on direct political and military negotiations with Israel under American sponsorship, a move strongly rejected by the Iranian axis... until the recent US-Iran agreement emerged. In this context, the dramatic fall of the Syrian regime took place.

In light of these multiple trajectories, the struggle between the Lebanese project and the Iranian regional project is witnessing a 'hot spell, cold spell.' The Secretary-General of the 'Axis Party' was praising the US-Iran agreement, seeing it as a great victory and a spectacular defeat of aggression. His enthusiasm reached the point of declaring that 'Iran is now making the future, not only for itself, but for the entire region as well.' But he had barely finished his speech when the 'framework agreement' between Lebanon and Israel was signed in the American capital, prompting his party's officials to strongly denounce what happened, even threatening civil war, unleashing angry motorcycle mobs in the streets of Beirut... It is an irony of fate that the most important bet now revolves around the role the 'Great Satan' assigns, or the exclusion of Iran, in the Lebanese affairs.

What next? Whatever the outcome of the sixty days of US-Iran negotiations, there is a truth known from the beginning, now more evident after this utter devastation: there is no possibility of any convergence between the Lebanese project and the Iranian project in Lebanon, separated by an unbridgeable gap. On one side, freedom, pluralism, a long-standing openness to modernity and the West, and a priority on the quality of human life. On the other side, the system of Velayat-e Faqih, which is sectarian, extremely unilateral, totalitarian, and authoritarian, and situated outside modernity and the contemporary era.

What matters is that the Lebanese project retains a geographical space in which to illuminate its path and complete its self-realization. It now has most of the geography of 'Greater Lebanon,' and tomorrow more.