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Studying Lebanon’s foreign policy entails walking a methodological tightrope between the two positions in the opening quotes above. Indeed, can a polarized, regionally contested, and internationally entangled state have a viable foreign policy? If so, what are the parameters and uses of this foreign policy given the region’s geopolitics and a stubborn legacy of external intervention in the country’s domestic politics? On the other hand, can a small, weak country afford not to have a foreign policy proactively serving its economic and security interests? Moreover, how do domestic and foreign politics overlap in a state lacking national consensus on a range of strategic issues? Finally, whose foreign policy choices should be privileged by the student of Lebanese foreign policy—those of the president, the prime minister, the speaker of parliament, the foreign minister, the variable sectarian substate actors, or all of the above? From a theoretical perspective, Lebanon’s foreign policy captures the dynamic overlap between domestic and foreign politics, and is a ‘two-level game’par excellence. 3 Disagreement among Lebanon’s variable sects and