Israeli forces have killed nearly 9,000 Lebanese since 2023, and more than one million people in southern Lebanon have fled their homes, while Lebanon's prime minister went to the United Nations General Assembly on Friday to ask for withdrawal, aid, and a timetable that would restore state control over the wreckage.
The State Speaks in the Language of Order
Nawaf Salam told the General Assembly in New York City that Lebanon cannot build a unified, sovereign state unless Israel withdraws from the areas it illegally occupied earlier this year, following the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran on 28 February. He said Lebanon would not accept becoming "once again an arena for the conflicts of others or a bargaining chip in their hands." That line landed in a hall built for exactly that sort of bargaining.
Salam said Lebanon wants the ceasefire consolidated, wants Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory up to internationally recognised borders, and wants the release of all detainees, the safe and dignified return of people to their villages and towns, and the reconstruction of what the war has destroyed. He added that Lebanon agreed to negotiations with Israel being mediated by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The framework, he said, needs "practical steps within a clear timetable and with a verification mechanism".
The prime minister also said his government must extend its authority through its national forces "over the entirety of its territory, with weapons held by the state alone". That is the old promise of monopoly dressed up as recovery. Salam paired it with a call for increased UN and international aid, saying Lebanon has done its part to earn it and that the international community should shoulder its responsibility to ensure respect for Lebanon's sovereignty.
Investment, Security, and the New Discipline
On the Iraqi side, Ali al-Zaidi used the same stage to pitch Iraq as a place for investment, diversification, and order. He told the General Assembly: "Here, from the United Nations, we say to the world: Invest with Iraq. Iraq has resources, markets, a good location, and the necessary will to build a new economy." He said Iraq wants to reduce reliance on a rentier economy by expanding private-sector activity, production, exports, infrastructure, and investment across energy, industry, agriculture, transport, and technology.
Zaidi, a relatively young and politically untested businessman, assumed power earlier this year. Salam, a former judge at the International Court of Justice and a former diplomat, assumed power last year. Both were deemed friendly to Washington. Both spoke the language of reform. Both spoke from inside systems that depend on outside patrons, armed force, and the management of populations.
Zaidi said his government is prioritising a crackdown on corruption and, in particular, a consolidation of weapons from Iran-backed militias in the country. He said that with the end of the international coalition's mission in Iraq, Baghdad is moving its relationship with strategic partners from military cooperation to economic and development cooperation. He also said Iraq is pursuing an ambitious programme to increase crude oil production, develop gas fields, expand refining capacities, and produce derivatives.
He cast Iraq as a future "global hub for energy production" and said the country can leverage that potential to promote regional and international security and stability. He praised the developing energy corridor linking Iraq with Turkey, Jordan, and Syria as "a vital gateway" to Europe. "Economic interests create prosperity," he said. "When the countries of the region are connected through ports, railways, power lines, trade, and investment, they have a greater interest in preserving stability."
Who Gets Stability, and Who Pays for It
The stability both men described has a familiar price tag. Since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraq's oil revenues, which make up some 90 percent of its state budget, end up in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Baghdad requires US approval for literal stacks of cash to be flown into the country. Zaidi, a former banker, is keen on repositioning Iraq as a stable and economically viable state for foreign direct investment. The money moves. The sovereignty talk follows.
Zaidi did not name the US-Israeli war on Iran that has upended the region for the last seven months, but he expressed concern about the "maritime navigation... crisis". He said Iraq's vision is to move the region "from conflict to integration, from competition to cooperation, from resource depletion to investment in development" and extended "our hands to everyone" on the basis of sovereignty, non-interference, good neighbourliness, mutual interests, and dialogue.
Salam, meanwhile, tied Lebanon's future to the withdrawal of Israeli forces and to a state monopoly on weapons, while also asking the UN and international community for more aid. He said the war has left behind a vast humanitarian crisis in Lebanon and that recovering the land means not only the withdrawal of occupying forces but also the return of inhabitants and the revival of life in their villages and towns.
The two speeches came from different corners of the same machinery. One asked investors to trust the state. The other asked donors and mediators to restore it. Both treated ordinary people as the terrain on which bigger powers negotiate, occupy, fund, and police. The hall in New York called it diplomacy.