In Praise of Civil War

By Hicham Bou Nassif | Weinberg Associate Professor of International Relations and the Middle East and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College-California

Every civil war is a tragedy — nothing noble can be said about sending people to an early death. Yet there are moments when facing such a tragedy becomes both a political necessity and a moral duty.

Think of the French Resistance during World War II. Their fight wasn’t only against the Nazi occupiers. It was also against many of their own countrymen who collaborated with them. In that sense, part of the Resistance’s struggle was a civil war within France. Would it really have been better to accept the Gestapo’s rule rather than confront the Vichy regime’s supporters?

Or consider the American Revolution. The colonists were deeply divided — some fought for independence, others remained loyal to Britain to the very end. Should the revolutionaries have abandoned their cause simply because a large segment of their own people opposed it? If the answer is no, then sometimes civil war is the unavoidable price of a just cause.

The clearest example may be the US Civil War of the 19th century. The Union’s victory over the Confederacy ended slavery — something the South would never have surrendered willingly. Would it have been better to let slavery continue indefinitely just to avoid war? If the answer is still no, then it follows that there are times when civil war is not just unavoidable, it is morally right.

Let’s turn to Lebanon. Between 1861 and 1975, the country experienced what can fairly be called a golden age. It began with the founding of the Syrian Protestant College (later the American University of Beirut) in 1866, followed by the Jesuit University (Saint Joseph University, 1875). Most peasants in Mount Lebanon became small landowners, partly freed from the grip of feudalism, eager to pursue education, work, and social mobility. Lebanon adopted, in 1926, the only constitution in the Arab world that does not declare a state religion. It built the only army in the region that did not make a habit of staging coups. It fostered a political life grounded in exceptional freedoms for the Middle East, with genuine party pluralism.

This period was not without its flaws — perhaps the most serious, as Dr. Farid el-Khazen observed in his book on the Lebanese Civil War, was the “uneven growth among sects.” But on balance, the positives far outweighed the negatives, especially when compared with Syria’s endless coups, Iraq’s culture of extreme political violence, Egypt’s military rule, or Libya’s “Green Revolution.”

That success story began to unravel in 1975, with the outbreak of the civil war, and then entered what can only be described as a “race to the bottom” during the four decades of Shiite dominance that followed. Their hold on power began with the Shiite uprising of 6 February 1984, and the collapse of the Lebanese army that followed — an event, incidentally, that drove the Americans out of Lebanon and left the country an easy prey for Hafez al-Assad. It was not, as often claimed, the October 1983 attack on the Marines that caused the US withdrawal. However, the killing of Hassan Nasrallah in September 2024 marked a critical turning point that deeply weakened their position.

Over those 40 grim years of Shiite rule, Lebanon’s name became synonymous with hostage-taking and international terrorism; with Islamic fundamentalism; with cycles of unending violence; with political assassinations treated as a routine instrument of politics; with the Captagon trade and large-scale money laundering; with staggering corruption; with economic collapse and the brain drain; and with the rise of a ruling elite whose Shiite backbone is something one would not wish even upon one’s enemies.

Today, most Lebanese are trying to launch a path out of the abyss and reconnect, as much as possible, with the trajectory Lebanon once followed between 1861 and 1975 — while correcting its shortcomings. In contrast, the Shiite “duo” and much of the Shiite community are fighting to preserve the current suffocating and destructive status quo that suits them.

Put simply, this is the essence of today’s struggle. And while civil war is a tragedy, an even greater tragedy would be avoiding it at the cost of accepting the continued Shiite domination of Lebanon. In that vein, no matter what happens, Joseph Aoun, Nawaf Salam, and the Lebanese government must not back down. If a civil war does break out, there are only two possible outcomes:

1. Hezbollah is defeated, and the Lebanese state reasserts sole authority over the entire country.
2. Hezbollah retains control over part of Lebanon, where Shiites rule as a de facto power, while the rest of the Lebanese manage their own affairs.

The first scenario would be acceptable. The second would be a long-awaited day of triumph — a giant step toward the ultimate dream.

This article was originally published in Arabic by Nida al-Watana on 11 August 2025. The original can be found here.

The views expressed in this op-ed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of SyriacPress.