Joseph Aoun Heads to Washington Hoping to Increase Pressure on Israel

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The Lebanese president is expected to present President Donald Trump with a written proposal outlining how Hezbollah‘s extensive arsenal could be dismantled.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is making his first official visit to the White House this week to present President Donald Trump with a plan detailing how to disarm the Iran-backed Hezbollah and ensure Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon under an agreement whose implementation continues to face significant obstacles and repeated violations.

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Before being elected president last year, Aoun served as commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces, which received support from the United States. He is the first Lebanese president to visit the White House in nearly two decades and will meet President Trump face-to-face for the first time.

Tuesday’s meeting comes at a pivotal moment for Lebanon. Israeli forces continue to occupy large areas of southern Lebanon, while hundreds of thousands of Lebanese remain displaced following Israeli military strikes. At the same time, Hezbollah strongly opposes both the government’s direct talks with Israel and the state’s efforts to disarm the group.

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According to statements released by his office last week, President Aoun will ask President Trump to “exert the necessary pressure on Israel” to implement the June 26 agreement brokered by the United States between Lebanon and Israel. The agreement aims to facilitate Hezbollah‘s disarmament, the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces, and the establishment of a path toward peaceful relations between the two countries.

A Lebanese official said that President Aoun will submit a written proposal explaining how Hezbollah‘s extensive military arsenal could be dismantled. The official added that Aoun believes President Trump is the only leader with sufficient leverage to persuade Israel to withdraw its troops and help Lebanon fully restore its sovereignty.

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Aged 62, Joseph Aoun assumed the Lebanese presidency last year shortly before the beginning of Donald Trump‘s second presidential term. The United States welcomed the election of the former army commander.

As a Maronite Christian, Aoun‘s election is consistent with Lebanon’s confessional power-sharing system, which also requires the prime minister to be a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of parliament to be a Shiite Muslim. He was wounded twice during his military career and still bears injuries caused by shrapnel.

His rise to the presidency marked a significant shift in Lebanon’s political balance following Israel’s devastating military campaign against Hezbollah in 2024 and the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a key ally of the Lebanese movement. These developments substantially weakened Hezbollah and diminished its long-standing influence over the Lebanese state.

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During his inauguration, President Aoun pledged to reaffirm the principle that the Lebanese state alone should possess weapons. His first year in office has been marked by government efforts to disarm Hezbollah, which was established in 1982 by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and has fought multiple wars with Israel.

The Lebanese Armed Forces have deployed across southern Lebanon to secure Hezbollah‘s weapons depots in accordance with the ceasefire agreement that followed the 2024 war, encountering little resistance from a movement whose military capabilities had been significantly weakened.

A new conflict nevertheless erupted after Hezbollah launched attacks against Israel on March 2 in support of Iran following joint U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian territory.

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Israel subsequently launched an extensive air and ground campaign that, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health, killed more than 4,300 people, including nearly 800 children, women, and emergency responders.

Following the outbreak of the conflict, President Aoun quickly called for direct negotiations with Israel, marking a historic shift for a country that has experienced repeated Israeli invasions since 1978. This initiative led to the highest-level direct contacts between Lebanon and Israel in decades, prompting strong criticism from Hezbollah and its supporters.

President Aoun has remained steadfast in his position, criticizing Hezbollah for triggering the conflict and stating that “Lebanon is being destroyed for Iran’s interests.” Nevertheless, he stopped short of accepting President Trump‘s proposal to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Joseph Aoun was born in Sin el-Fil, an eastern suburb of Beirut, and his family originates from southern Lebanon. He began his military career in 1985 with the Commando Regiment during the Lebanese Civil War, which lasted from 1975 to 1990.

Shortly after being promoted to the rank of General, he oversaw a military campaign to expel Islamic State militants from the Lebanese-Syrian border.

He also commanded the Lebanese Armed Forces during the severe financial collapse that struck Lebanon in 2019, causing the national currency to depreciate sharply after decades of corruption and economic mismanagement. At the time, he warned that the crisis could lead to the collapse of the Lebanese army, describing it as “the backbone of the state.”

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In an unusually political statement for a military commander, Aoun criticized Lebanon’s political leadership for the country’s collapse, noting that soldiers were suffering from hunger just like the rest of the population, and asked politicians directly: “What are you going to do?”

His election ended a two-year presidential vacuum following the expiration of the term of Michel Aoun, a Hezbollah ally, in 2022. Despite sharing the same surname, the two men are not related.

President Joseph Aoun has also pledged to implement long-awaited economic reforms and ensure justice for the victims of the 2020 Beirut port explosion.

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