Lebanon will have to pay close attention to a report released on June 10 by the Congressional Republican Study Committee (RSC), containing recommendations on a variety of foreign policy questions. The RSC is a conservative group of members of the House of Representatives, and what it wrote about the Middle East in general, and Lebanon in particular, should cause great anxiety in Beirut.
The recommendations are focused on containing Iranian power in the region through a hardening of the maximum pressure campaign against Tehran. But what is new is the inclusion of Lebanon in that effort. The report calls for two things with regard to the country.
It asks, first, that security assistance to the Lebanese army be ended. In the same passage it also requests that, because of what it calls Hezbollah’s control over Lebanon, Congress should pass legislation “prohibiting any taxpayer money to the [International Monetary Fund] from going to a bailout of Lebanon,” which would “only reward Hezbollah at a time [when] protesters in Lebanon are demanding an end to corruption and standing against Hezbollah’s rule.”
A second recommendation is that the United States should sanction Hezbollah’s allies in Lebanon. The report names President Michel Aoun’s son in law Gebran Bassil and Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri as two people who should be targeted.
The fate of the recommendations is unclear. There is a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and this is an election year, so there are serious obstacles to turning these ideas into actual legislative measures. Moreover, even within the administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has opposed suspending aid to Lebanon. Yet there is a deeper issue here that cannot be ignored. The recommendations are firmly in line with Israel’s interpretation of the Lebanese situation, which can contribute to their bipartisan appeal.
Israeli officials and their U.S. allies, several of them quoted in the report, have long believed, perhaps reasonably, that Hezbollah’s missile arsenal poses a strategic threat to Israel. They subscribe to the view of the former Israeli defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, that “Lebanon = Hezbollah,” therefore believe that only by crippling Lebanon can the United States weaken Hezbollah.
Ironically, a Lebanese-American think tanker associated with the campaign, and quoted in the RSC report, neatly summed up the prevailing logic in an article he wrote in 2017: “Lebanon’s stability, insofar as it means the stability of the Iranian order and forward missile base there, is not, in fact, a U.S. interest.”
Certainly, Lebanese officials bear a significant share of the responsibility for what is happening. By allowing Hezbollah to turn Lebanon into an Iranian outpost, the country’s political leadership has shown criminal indifference to what this would mean for the country. They may not have had a margin to do much about it, but nor did they sound the alarm bells of how this could place Lebanon in the American and Israeli crosshairs. Bassil, previously the foreign minister, was so eager to secure Hezbollah’s support for his presidential bid, that he failed to do his job and warn the government of the perilous shift in Washington. If he is sanctioned, he will have asked for it, even if keeping a U.S. knife above his head without using it would surely be more useful in forcing concessions from him.
Admitting all this, however, the RSC recommendations would go much further than containing Hezbollah. If Lieberman’s equating Lebanon with Hezbollah were true, then the RSC would not have mentioned the many Lebanese who oppose the party’s agenda. To judge, and punish, all the Lebanese because one party has imposed its will on them through its arms is something worth rethinking.
Furthermore, preventing an IMF bailout would lead to nothing less than Lebanon’s social and economic destruction, since the country could soon run out of hard currency to import vital necessities such as food, medicine, and fuel. Things will be made worse by Washington’s implementation of the Caesar Act, legislation to sanction the Assad regime in Damascus and those dealing with it, which will close a safety valve allowing Lebanon to conduct transactions through Syria. Lebanon could soon find that it has become a Venezuela on steroids.
If the RSC is truly concerned about those Lebanese who have demanded an end to corruption and have stood against Hezbollah’s rule, then impoverishing them, denying their children a future, and creating a situation that could lead to civil conflict, perhaps even sectarian conflict, is hardly the way to help. That’s unless, deep down, the unmentioned calculation is that a new civil war would be an ideal way of neutralizing Hezbollah, much as the civil war of 1975–1990 damaged the Palestine Liberation Organization. If that’s the reasoning, then U.S. policymakers and their amoral ideological facilitators should be prepared to cope with the potential repercussions of another failed state in the region, one that would surely have negative consequences for the West.
If Lebanon had a government with minimal competence, it would make these points to members of the U.S. Congress. Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti has considerable diplomatic experience and surely grasps what is at stake. But it is Bassil who placed his people at the Foreign Ministry. He and his appointees are hardly credible in persuading House members that collective punishment of the Lebanese would so undermine those opposed to Hezbollah, that the party would probably come out of the ensuing trauma relatively reinforced.
It is a national trait in Lebanon that we only see a problem when it is already upon us. The RSC recommendations are not policy yet, but they have made their way into the mainstream of the current administration’s party. The Lebanese government has to act quickly, by making the case in Washington against Lebanon’s devastation, and by reaching an agreement quickly with the IMF before a bailout is blocked. However, it is also necessary for those in Washington or other capitals, above all Paris and Berlin, who can sense the genuine risks involved, to warn that wantonly destroying Lebanon to save it from Iran’s influence is really the most insane path of all.
Comments(20)
This is really unfortunate and probably true. When those entrusted in safeguarding the country are ready to burn it for their own interest then it is normal that policy makers make consider wiping out lebanon to reach their goals. As one journalist said about lebanese politicians, they are ready to burn lebanon to light up their cigars
Reality is those gulf states and the Saudi had instructed the American and paid for their help to restrict Hezbollah without caring what happened to the lebanese. But every one has their own day! History is full of this.
The problem is in front of your eyes but you have to blame someone else , most companies are scared to go and continue investments in Lebanon since no court system is in place, for years Lebanese abroad urge Lebanese government o keep a decent court and honest judges and it failed . Forget the gulf states what they did or what they are going to do , inside Lebanon people got killed and assassinated for voicing an opinion . So please spare me the stupidity .
The Lebanese poet and phylosopher Gibran Khalil Gibran, mentioned in his book, The Garden of the Prophet the following : "Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation " Gibran must be turning in his grave knowing how his beautiful Lebanon is going down the abyss, due to its corruption politicians... Samir Mokdad - Sweden
Its more Israel and the Israeli lobby that are setting the whoele middle east in fire to protect their illegal colony nothing more nothing less. as long as the illegal yiddish colony in the ME exist they will keep the U.S doing their wars and it can only suvive by destroying any Arab county that can pose a threat example secular Arab states that has been destroyed. but we know from history that occupation and colonization never last.
Quite few lebanese politicians haverage sold Lebanon few times and still selling it including hezbollah as unfortunately the royality their country is cheap and they are treating the lebanese as Romans since the intelligent one had already left. This Phiochian nation have survived few times in history.
It would be a travesty if the UAS GOVERNMENT dose not strengthen the Lebanese government in order to prevent Iran or Turkey from taking over the only home the Cristians have in the Mideast.
Very sad! 😞 We have traitors and money worshipers! I think they need to be juged and not let a whole population die from hunger because of those thieves! However, no more humanity, each country is working for her own interests! No one cares! No peace no love on earth whatsoever!
Another failed state? all for the sake of Israel and those in Congress who answer to Israel, not the U.S. Lebanon has a 3000 year old history. Saudi money and Israeli lobbying will not be able to erase it.
It is not fair for 2/3 of the lebanese population to apply this just to punish hezbollah you are killing people to arrive to your issue by destroying young people future by destroying the best in all middleeast sectors that are medecine banks and teaching We are ready to leave the country rhan to stay until this will end it is a crime against humanity because we are punished for somebodyelse you have to take in consideration that there is innocent people that you are kiling in this way and every body in the world know about the intelligence and capacity and serious of lebanese people we are hard workers we success every were we travel it is a crime you are killing us🙏🙏🙏
I find it odd that the article warns that repercussions of RSC’s proposed policies would lead to failed state. Lebanon is already a failed state by any definition and has been so for years.
Punishing berri and bassil is good for lebanon they are the ones to blame for the corruption and miseries in lebanon. I dare the US to punish them. I dont think the US would punish itself
I find the title misleading in 1 sense: no one is trying to ‘Save Lebanon’, let alone its beleaguered and long-suffering people. Not Lebanon’s government, not its people shackled by a tribal and outdated system of patronage, and least of all the regional powers who have colluded with superpowers to happily take advantage of the deep cleavages to create political, ec, and cultural stalemate For the foreseeable Future. Lebanon (17-year civil war) 2.0. Last time the House resolutions cited the PLO as the enemy, this time it’s Hizballah. Plus ça change!
Your conclusion that destroying Lebanon to save it is the most insane path of all is absolutely correct. The US needs to take a stand and show the Arab World that it will help its allies, which Lebanon has always been. Hezbollah can be dealt with after the US saves the country and shows the people of that beautiful land that they do not need to depend on Iran or any other nation to provide assistance. To adopt the RNC/Israeli position is to punish a nation and all of its population for the acts of one political party. We cannot fall into that trap again, as we did in Iraq. Lebanon and the Lebanese people are in dire need of the US's assistance and this is not the time to abandon them. Let's take the correct path and help this multi-religious nation to overcome all of the obstacles it has been dealt, starting with the Syrian refugee crisis. We need to take a leadership stake in this tragedy and come out on the side of this country and its people.
Hezbollah's project is the one of establishing an Islamic Republic with Lebanon integrating Wilayat El Fatih under Iran's control. Kesrouan and Jbeil always were Shiite they say rewriting history when objective minds know Jesus came to the area where Christians established 600 years before Islam etc. etc. etc. - the world goes round. Religions are the problem.
Many people are asking if violence, sacrifice and possibly a civil war is a valid means of producing a genuine social change and independence. The hard and historical answer is yes.. The American Revolution was won after a civil war and sacrifice. The French Revolution was won with after a civil war and sacrifice. The Chinese Revolution was won after a national rebellion and sacrifice. It is time for all of the Lebanese people and the republic to take the bull by the horn, they started it for a just cause, and it is time to continue the march to what’s ahead, a complete and true independence.
The author should be more forceful in just saying it is driven by Israeli lobbying. RSC is taking the AIPAC/Israel position. US foreign policy must no longer be enslaved by Israeli diktat. Mearsheimer and Walt were right all along.
There's not been an "Israeli diktat" until Trump, but it ain't a diktat, rather an enterprise of seducing and flattering. Trump probably doesn't care much about Israel, and, that the Israeli experts know, notwithstanding "biggest friend" announcements. The other detail is that his favorite daughter married Jared Kushner. His name towering here and there in the area must have been among the incentives.
Destroying lebanon will just make Hezbollah more powerful in the country
This is the logical thinking of fools who are destroying countries and people with no regard as to their beliefs, loyalties, and security. Did they take into consideration the Lebanese people, what they think, why they have been protesting for a year? Are they now pro-Iranian because it makes it easier for Isreal and those in congress to follow this harsh tactic to weaken the Iranians at the expense of the Lebanese who have always been loyal to America? Time and time again this form of thinking is causing the growing masses of refugees across the world. This black and white mentality is simply criminal. It is time to stop seeing International law where the actors are states and focus on the peoples who have nothing to do nor are able to change the minds of thugs in power who have the arms and means to shut them up and then superpowers throw them under the bus because it is more convenient to label them as casualties of war, or friends of the enemy. It is criminal, inhuman, and totally unfair. A superpower like the USDA that boasts to work for democracy and freedom must not act like any ruthless autocratic country that has no moral code. If the Lebanese survive this unfairness will they ever trust the USA again? Will other third world countries? Do they wish to weaken Iran? Go attack Iran. Kill her people in their soil. Lebanon IS NOT Iran. Always attack the head of the snake, cutting its tail the reptile will easily grow two more.
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