Hugo Bachega
With Lebanon, again, engulfed by war, I remember a meeting I had with President Joseph Aoun at the Baabda Palace, a modernist building at the top of a hill overlooking Beirut last August.
Aoun, a former army chief, took office after a devastating war between Israel and Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia and political party that is backed by Iran. At that point, Hezbollah had been weakened and was isolated at home and Aoun had vowed to disarm it. The seemingly intractable issue over Hezbollah's weapons has long divided Lebanon, but Aoun appeared to believe he could solve it. "I was born an optimist," he told me.
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