BEIRUT—Recent developments make it clear that Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s government has adopted policies closely aligned with American directives. 

In the regional and domestic arenas, the government appears as an administrative branch of the U.S. embassy in Beirut and ??not an authority representing an independent state. 

Four complementary milestones illustrate this trend: Trump’s so-called “Eternal Peace” plan aimed at neutralizing the Resistance and Palestine; the Raouche Rock issue; the Minister of Justice’s recent directive effectively treating notaries as employees of the U.S. Treasury; and the Starlink agreement that cedes Lebanon’s digital sovereignty.

The central goal of Trump’s so-called “peace” plan is not to stop the war or find a just settlement, but to establish the logic of “peace by force,” i.e. the Israeli-American dictate to the Palestinians and Arabs.

Both Trump and Netanyahu have agreed that achieving the strategic objectives of the war on Gaza did not always require bombing, but could be imposed through political, diplomatic, and economic pressure. 

The plan thus forms part of the broader context involving Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, Iraq, and Iran in a single category: either submit to the U.S.-Israeli agenda, or face more wars.

What matters to Lebanon is that international pressure on the Palestinian resistance is coupled with efforts to isolate Hezbollah and contain it within the country. 

Herein lies the “required” role of the Salam government, which was created to be the local implementer of this strategy.

This role was evident in the Raouche Rock crisis, when Hezbollah’s Resalat Association lit up the rock with pictures of Secretaries General Sayyeds Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine on their martyrdom anniversary.

The government and its prime minister went berserk, and instead of viewing the event as a symbolic artistic national event, they treated it as a threat to public security!
Salam asked the Ministries of Interior, Justice, and Defense to take “decisive” measures, including dissolving the association and judicial prosecution against the organizers.

From the government’s view raising the image of two Resistance symbols, who were assassinated for resisting Israel, is a crime that warrants punishment. However, relinquishing national wealth or sovereignty is not considered a violation. 

In this sense, Raouche becomes a symbol of the broader battle: any cultural or popular activity that commemorates the Resistance is rejected because it contradicts Washington’s agenda.

The government’s other sin was Circular No. 1355 issued by Minister of Justice Adel Nassar.  

The circular requires notaries to verify the identity of the “economic owner” of any sale, lease, or transfer of ownership transaction, and to review international and U.S. sanctions regulations before concluding any contract.

If any party’s name appears on these regulations, the transaction is prohibited from being notarized under penalty of prosecution.

This measure, from a legal standpoint, violates the principle of freedom of contract and property rights. 

Legal capacity in Lebanon is determined by national laws and judicial rulings, not by the decisions of the U.S. Treasury Department.

The circular changed notaries’ role from neutral witnesses to agents enforcing foreign financial directives, making any Lebanese person on an international sanctions list effectively unable to exercise legal capacity at home. 

This is not merely an “administrative error,” but rather an official acknowledgment of foreign guardianship.

Another sin is the Starlink licensing deal; the contract signed between the Ministry of Telecommunications and the American company did not pass through Parliament, as required by Law 431/2002, nor was it subject to the Audit Bureau or a public tender.

The most serious aspect of it is that it allowed Lebanese data to be stored on servers in Qatar, violating Article 72 of the Electronic Transactions Law, which requires that data be stored within Lebanon for at least three years.

Thus, by government decision, the state relinquished its digital sovereignty to an American company directly linked to Washington’s security apparatus. 
Lebanese information became exposed abroad, without any guarantees of privacy or cybersecurity. 

The irony is that all of this was done under the guise of an “international license,” while in reality, it amounted to an illegal concession to a foreign company that controls the Lebanese digital space.

 Taken together—the Trump plan, Arab states’ alignment with it, the Raouche incidents, the Justice Minister’s circular, and the Starlink deal—these developments indicate that deference to Washington has shifted from a side issue to a core element of Lebanese politics. 

Salam’s government sees itself not as accountable to its people and their laws, but rather to Washington and its orders.  It thus paves the way for Lebanon to fall into the same “peace by force” trap imposed by the U.S. psychopathic president on the region.

It’s a single path: from forcing Hamas and the Palestinians to surrender, to suppressing any symbol of Resistance in Beirut, to transforming the judiciary and administration into tools for U.S. sanctions, to handing over the digital space to an American company.