More than two thousand years ago, Roman writer Vegecius was credited with a sentence that became a famous maxim: “If you want peace, go to war.” World leaders have adopted this slogan through the centuries to justify their wars, the most recent of whom was U.S. President Donald Trump with his motto “peace through strength,” preceded by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

This provocative equation applies to the active wars unfolding today—from the Middle East and Sudan to Ukraine and its broader European theater—and to potential conflicts looming in places such as Venezuela, Colombia, Taiwan (with its Chinese, Japanese, Philippine, and U.S. entanglements), and across the African continent.

Lebanon is not spared from this inherited logic, with one critical difference: it has yet to find its peace after half a century of exhausting wars—the latest being “Hezbollah’s support war,” launched more than two years ago, the repercussions of which continue to unfold and threaten even worse outcomes unless last-minute efforts succeed in containing them.

Yet the signs accompanying and following Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Lebanon carry some hopeful indications that peace may be attainable without more war. Three signals stand out:

– His Holiness’s call to renounce weapons and embrace dialogue, negotiation, and reconciliation.

– The sudden introduction into “Hezbollah’s” rhetoric of terms never familiar across its 43-year history—most notably “peace,” “dialogue,” “democracy,” and “coexistence.”

– The Presidential appointment of a civilian politico-diplomatic figure to head Lebanon’s negotiating delegation in the “mechanism” committee: former ambassador to Washington, Simon Karam, known for his sovereign national positions.

If the presidency’s step is expected and natural within its constitutional prerogatives and ongoing initiatives to negotiate with Israel—reinforced by coordination with Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and if the Vatican’s call to abandon weapons in favor of dialogue is a natural expression of its universal human mission, “Hezbollah’s” talk of peace marks an unprecedented departure from its wartime doctrine and its politico-military vocabulary.

A closer look at this linguistic shift toward “peace” reveals that “Hezbollah” adopted it reluctantly, compelled to align with the consensus created by the Pope’s visit so as not to appear the odd man out; yet it booby-trapped this language with the underlying logic of its wartime doctrine, even inserting its “military trinity” into its message to the distinguished visitor.

It further undermined it by targeting opponents of his weapons, pouring hostility on most political, governmental, and popular forces that insist on confining arms to the legitimate Lebanese state and restoring its sole authority over war and peace.

Nor did “Hezbollah” conceal its irritation at the president’s reference to peace “among the children of Abraham,” with its implications for Lebanon’s future relationship with Israel, or at the appointment of a civilian political figure to lead the Naqoura negotiations. Instead, it focused on exploiting what it framed as a conflict between the president and the Lebanese Forces over the failure to invite Samir Geagea to the papal reception at the presidential palace, revealing a latent desire or wish to isolate or weaken the overwhelming Christian majority that continues to grow.

Th commitment to a path of peace is not demonstrated merely through statements or letters issued on the sidelines of significant events, but through concrete steps within a peaceful trajectory—chief among them the abandonment of illegal arms, especially after their failure and proven danger, as well as refraining from sowing division and feeding off contrived disputes.

If the saying “If you want peace, go to war” is valid, then every war must have an end—unlike Iran’s approach of steering endless conflicts, as though weapons were an end in themselves, sanctified like a totem to be worshipped, or like an idol made of paper that substitutes for “bread and water.”

Is this not the new slogan of Hezbollah’s weapons, articulated by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei through his adviser Ali Akbar Velayati?

Faith in peace is not a written text contradicted by the behavior of its author; it is a genuine commitment to the steady steps of Leo XIV, to the steady actions of the Lebanese state, and to the will of the overwhelming majority of Lebanese longing for an end to wars and the healing of wounds.