The Iran-backed militia is bowed but not broken – and it could still find a way to hijack Saudi funds for its own rehabilitation

Lebanon has been without a president for over two years due to infighting among the country's political class, but Joseph Aoun is likely to fill the vacuum.

1920 - The League of Nations grants the mandate for Lebanon and Syria to France, which creates the State of Greater Lebanon out of the provinces of Mount Lebanon, north Lebanon, south Lebanon and the Bekaa. 1926 - Lebanese Representative Council approves a constitution and the unified Lebanese Republic under the French mandate is declared.

Lebanon's lawmakers on Thursday elected army chief Joseph Aoun as president after a two-year vacancy in the position, in a step towards lifting the war-battered country out of financial crisis.

A fiery exchange erupted in Lebanon’s Parliament on Tuesday, after journalist-turned-politician Paula Yacoubian was verbally attacked by MP Salim Aoun during the first round of voting for the country’s new president.

Joseph Aoun, Lebanon's army chief who was elected president on Thursday, is a political neophyte whose position as head of one of the country's most respected institutions helped end a two-year deadlock.

The election of army commander Gen. Joseph Aoun garnered rare consensus among the Lebanese, backed by the United States and Saudi Arabia in the first presidential election for Lebanon following the fall of the Assad regime.

Lebanon’s parliament voted Thursday to elect the country’s army commander, Joseph Aoun, as head of state, filling a more than two-year-long presidential vacuum.

With the election of Lebanon's new president Joseph Aoun on Thursday (January 9), a two-year period marked by a political vacuum under a previous caretaker government has ended. "Aoun was seen as the candidate that can bring stability after much instability in Lebanon,

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s new president and former army commander Joseph Aoun has maintained a low profile. Those who know him say he is no-nonsense, kind and averse to affiliating himself with any party or even expressing a political opinion — a rarity for someone in Lebanon’s fractured, transactional political system.

"To congratulate him and wish him success in these difficult circumstances, of course this is an obligation," says former Lebanese president Michel Aoun after meeting newly elected president Joseph Aoun at the presidential Palace in Baabda.