By Youmna Yarak | Staff Writer
The economy in Lebanon has continued to crash and its people continue to plunge into a dreadful social crisis that has led to the collapse of many sectors. Just as other public institutions and professions, Lebanese diplomacy and foreign policy saw its approach and function change drastically. Consulates and embassies had to modify their aims and travail to adjust to the crisis that concerns every Lebanese citizen abroad or internally.
The economic, political, and social crisis that has been affecting Lebanon since 2019 is worsening over time. The public sector suffered significant damage, from the education sector to health care, to foreign diplomacy. Foreign policy is the mechanism used by governments to guide their diplomatic interactions and relationships with other countries. A state’s foreign policy serves to advance its political and economic objectives in the international arena while attesting to its values and ambitions. For Lebanon, its diplomatic policies mostly reflect its geographic location, the composition of its population, and its reliance on commerce and trade.
The most notable aspect of Lebanon’s foreign policy over the first three decades or so of its independence was its amicable bilateral relationships with numerous countries. In the early 1970s, about eighty diplomatic representatives were accredited to Beirut, and the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs was one of the largest and most important ministries in the Council of Ministers.
Lebanon’s diplomatic strategy has always been shaped by both external and internal factors and has been deeply affected by the country’s tumultuous political history. Prior to the 1975 Civil War, foreign relations were primarily based on the delicate balance of the National Pact, which sought to navigate the competing interests of Lebanon’s various religious communities. However, during and after the war, the central government was just one of many domestic actors involved in foreign policy, as various alliances and militias emerged. By the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, as central authority eroded, external actors like Syria, Israel, Iran, and the PLO also began to exert influence over the foreign policy decisions of the Lebanese state.
This has often resulted in violent confrontations among Lebanon’s different factions of Lebanese society to project their views and interests on foreign policy choices to advance their narrow political agendas. In post-Syria Lebanon, foreign policy has become a battleground between a range of local and foreign stakeholders seeking to redefine the country’s position within the international system and the region’s geopolitics. Moreover, Lebanon has hence come full circle back to that foundational year of 1943, when reaching an agreement on the nation’s foreign policy priorities required establishing a new domestic consensus. Importantly, Lebanese diplomacy before the 2019 crisis managed to succeed and flourish on various levels internationally despite the history of the country and the local competing interests influencing Lebanese diplomacy abroad.
The dire effects of the economic crises ongoing since 2019 on the functioning of the embassies abroad threaten their work and goals. In an article published in “L’Orient Today” Lebanese diplomats abroad found their salaries delayed as a consequence of the collapse. Yet, challenges still remain for Lebanese diplomatic missions. They have been deprived of the resources needed to ensure the proper functioning of their embassies for months and are now forced to support themselves. As Lebanon instructs diplomats to find donors to fund embassies; concerns sparked that the turmoil in Lebanon would negatively impact their job even more.
Lebanon’s diplomatic corps has managed to weather the storm of the country’s economic and social upheaval thus far, despite a glaring absence of concrete action plans and reforms to address the fallout. However, as the internal mechanisms of the Lebanese state continue to shift on a daily basis, it’s becoming increasingly evident that the country’s diplomatic efforts have not been insulated from the turmoil. This raises serious concerns about the present and future status of Lebanese embassies overseas, and how the country’s domestic turmoil is impacting its international standing and relationships with other nations.