President Joseph Aoun's Historic Speech in DC: Disarming Hezbollah & Ending Foreign Wars in Lebanon

[00:00:10]It's a small country that has time and again given far more to human humanity than its size would ever suggest.

[00:00:19]And in doing so has rightfully earned its place as a bridge between the East and the West.

[00:00:26]Lebanon is not simply a country of 18 recognized religious communities living within one set of borders.

[00:00:35]It's a proof nearly a century century of it that those communities can share one homeland, one flag, one army without any of them having to disappear under the others.

[00:00:49]I have the honor of being the only Christian head of state in the entire Arab world, in fact from Indonesia to Morocco.

[00:00:57]I do not say that as a matter of personal distinction.

[00:01:00]I say it because it reflects Lebanon unique model of coexistence. A system that can actually work generation after generation through the worst that history has thrown at it.

[00:01:13]That is worth protecting not for Lebanon sake alone, but for the region.

[00:01:19]It is worth protecting because it rests on the same foundation you have built your own nation upon.

[00:01:25]For almost a hundred years, Lebanon has been a democracy.

[00:01:29]Through occupation, through civil war, through economic collapse, our people never stopped voting, never stopped debating, never stopped believing that they have the right to choose who govern them.

[00:01:43]Our democracy has been tested in ways few democracies ever had.

[00:01:48]It has bent, but it has never broken.

[00:01:52]In just the past a few years alone, our people have endured the strain of hosting the highest number of refugees per capita of any nation on earth. The horror of the Beirut port explosion, a financial collapse that wiped out a lifetime of savings overnight, a global pandemic, political vacuum, and a devastating war, and still they did not give up on their country.

[00:02:19]Lebanon is suffering enormously.

[00:02:21]Thousands of our civilians have been killed, including many women and children who should have been should have been safe in their own homes.

[00:02:31]Entire villages have been destroyed.

[00:02:33]Entire families have been wiped out.

[00:02:36]Nearly one in five Lebanese has been has been displaced from their homes.

[00:02:41]To us, these are not statistics.

[00:02:44]They are our children, our parents, our neighbors, and friends.

[00:02:50]Behind every number is a face, a name, a family, and a life forever changed.

[00:02:57]As many of you know, I spent 42 years in my of my life serving in the Lebanese Armed Forces, rising through its ranks before becoming its commander-in-chief.

[00:03:08]Those four decades rooted in me a conviction that I carry into this office every single day, that Lebanon can only be secure and only be whole when it it is one state, one army protecting all Lebanese without distinction.

[00:03:25]That conviction is not a slogan for me.

[00:03:27]It is the mission of my presidency.

[00:03:30]And it is from that conviction that I carry the responsibility to bring this war to an end and to help those families return home, rebuild their communities, look to the future with hope, and to end once and for all the state of hostility with Israel, and reinforce the sovereignty office state.

[00:03:52]That responsibility is what brings me to Washington today.

[00:03:56]And I believe that for the first time in years, we finally have a real chance to make history.

[00:04:03]Moments like this appear only once in a generation.

[00:04:06]Nations either recognize them or spend another generation regretting that they did not.

[00:04:13]For nearly 50 years, Lebanon has been a battlefield for other people's conflict and interests. Palestinian, Syrian, Israeli, Iranian, and yes, at times, our own.

[00:04:27]But something new is happening today.

[00:04:29]Not by chance, not by luck, by choice, our choice.

[00:04:34]First, inside Lebanon itself, since taking office, the state has worked decisively toward one goal, one state, one army, and an end to non-state armed groups operating outside it.

[00:04:48]We are pursuing real reforms, working to end corruption, and rebuilding an institution the Lebanese people could trust again.

[00:04:57]Every step we have taken proves the same point, that this path, the path of a sovereign, accountable state, is not just the right path in principle, but the only path that can actually end conflict and deliver the prosperity our people deserve.

[00:05:15]And this is not a path that we walk alone.

[00:05:18]It is one that a clear majority of Lebanese, across every community, stands firmly behind.

[00:05:26]Second, around us, we made a deliberate choice to restore Lebanon's relationships across the region and the world, and to reposition Lebanon where it belongs, not as a battleground for others' agendas, but as a sovereign state that refuses interference from anyone in any form.

[00:05:46]That choice has earned us the renewed support of friends across the Arab world and beyond.

[00:05:52]And that shift is nowhere more significant than with our neighbor, Syria.

[00:05:57]We are building a relationship with Damascus based on what it always should have been, exclusive state-to-state relationship based on a mutual respect, sovereignty, and non-interference in internal affairs.

[00:06:12]Neither of us wants to repeat the tragedies the tragedies these interventions caused in the past.

[00:06:18]Tragedies that could stabilize destabilize not just Lebanon, not just Syria, but the entire region.

[00:06:25]And third, there is a United States.

[00:06:28]Under President Trump's leadership and through the trilateral framework this administration brokered between Lebanon and Israel this past June, we have the most serious and sustained American engagement with Lebanon's stability in decades.

[00:06:44]That framework did not happen by accident.

[00:06:47]It happened because your administration pushed for it and because Lebanon showed up ready to make it real.

[00:06:55]And believe me, domestic will, regional support, and American leadership leadership rarely align at the same time.

[00:07:04]Tonight, they do. I came to Washington because opportunities like this do not come often.

[00:07:12]But politics and diplomacy give us the opening. What we need now is an institution strong enough to deliver on it.

[00:07:20]The Lebanese Armed Forces is the institution that carries the weight of everything I have described tonight. The Lebanese Armed Forces is not simply an army.

[00:07:30]It's the only true national institution that has the trust of all Lebanese.

[00:07:35]The one force that belongs to no sect, no party, no faction, only to Lebanon itself.

[00:07:42]It guards our land and maritime borders.

[00:07:45]It defeated ISIS on our own soil. It stands uh stands as our frontline against narcotic trafficking, organized crime, smuggling across our borders. It works alongside our internal security forces to keep to keep public order.

[00:08:02]It protects the critical infrastructure our people depends on every day.

[00:08:07]And when disaster strikes, flood, explosion, collapse, it is the Lebanese armed forces that answers first, every time, for every community without exception.

[00:08:20]This is an institution we are asking you to continue investing in because its record speaks for itself. Proven, tested, and worthy of the trust we ask you to place [clears throat] in it.

[00:08:34]And it is this time the same institution the world will be watching most closely as we take on the hardest question of this evening.

[00:08:44]Let me address directly the question I know is on everyone's mind tonight.

[00:08:49]Is the disarmament of Hezbollah realistically achievable?

[00:08:53]It is, but only if we are honest about what it actually requires. The armed groups we are speaking of is not a foreign mercenary force. It is composed of Lebanese citizens who have over over 40 years were shaped by an enormous sustained investment, ideological, social, and military, into a non-state armed groups operating outside the government control.

[00:09:20]That reality does not make the goal less urgent. It makes the method more important.

[00:09:26]History offers a proven path from the FARC in Colombia to the IRA in uh in Northern Ireland.

[00:09:35]And it is not a mystery. Disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration. It begins by removing the root cause that Hezbollah has long cited as its justification.

[00:09:47]Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory.

[00:09:49]It continues as the Lebanese armed forces assume full exclusive operational control, which requires immediate and unconditional support for our military, the sole legitimate defender of this country.

[00:10:01]And it conclude it concludes through reintegration, a reconstruction program run through the Lebanese state alone, paired with real economic opportunity, so that the choice for every community is no longer between the gun and nothing, but between the gun and a functioning state that delivers.

[00:10:22]The equation is simple.

[00:10:24]A political track without an economic track is a state that cannot compete.

[00:10:28]As an an empowered state is the only alternative to a vacuum.

[00:10:33]And if the state does not fill that vacuum, others will.

[00:10:37]I want the next generation to remember Lebanon not as the place where wars never ended, but the place where peace finally prevailed.

[00:10:47]Not simply because the guns fell silent, but because the state became strong enough to protect its people, provide opportunities for its citizens, and build a future worthy of their talents.

[00:11:00]That is the partnership we hope to build with the United States. I believe there has never been a better moment to build it, nor a partner better suited to help us build it, than the United States.

[00:11:12]Thank you.

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