Since Oct. 17, unprecedented protests across Lebanon have challenged the political status quo, which has always been at an intersection of interests between the country’s ruling oligarchy and their foreign backers. Hezbollah, which is the status quo’s power broker, is facing a pivotal moment, and if it fails to adapt could potentially risk the environment that allowed the group in the past three decades to confront Israel and expand its regional activities.

The protests in traditional Hezbollah strongholds should be a cause for alarm for the group, most notably the Bekaa Valley and South Lebanon. There are two overarching factors that triggered this inevitable challenge to Hezbollah, which leaves the armed group in a series of dilemmas with a ticking clock to decide which path to take.

First, Hezbollah's exposure to international pressure over the past three years has been alleviated under the wing of the Lebanese government. A US-Iranian tacit understanding in 2016 secured the presidential deal that brought Gen. Michel Aoun to the presidency and Saad Hariri to the premiership under the auspices of Hezbollah. The priority for Hezbollah has been to preserve the conditions that allow the group to maintain its prevailing status quo over the country’s political system by balancing the sectarian demands of the ruling oligarchy. The United States is indicating that the status quo is not sustainable, hinting that this presidential deal might no longer be a US priority or at least seeking to alter it, while Iran seems intent on maintaining the status quo or at least improving its conditions, as we have seen paramilitary groups assaulting protesters in both Iraq and Lebanon.

The tradeoff in this 2016 presidential deal was that Hezbollah would be allowed to have its military infrastructure and decide the parameters of its role in the Syrian war and in the conflict with Israel in return for Hezbollah not hindering the ability of Aoun, Hariri and parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri to lead the government machinery. It took Hezbollah years to secure this formula, evolving from the distrust toward Hariri in the July 2006 war against Israel, the 2008 military confrontation with the Hariri-led Future Movement and the 2011-2012 political tensions over the Syrian uprising.