(Council on Foreign Relations) Elliott Abrams - According to the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon (speaking last summer), "In this year alone we provided over $221 million in equipment and training to the Lebanese security forces." But Lebanon is also the home of the terrorist group Hizbullah. Nothing happens in Lebanon without Hizbullah's approval, and collaboration between Hizbullah and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) may be growing. According to a recent report in the Times of Israel, Israeli "officials are following, almost in astonishment, the deepening cooperation between the Lebanese army and Hizbullah." In this context, should U.S. aid to the LAF continue? We should not end aid to the LAF, but should make it very clear that this aid is in danger. Lebanese officials must come to realize that the withholding of aid is the inevitable outcome unless they keep farther away from Hizbullah than current trends appear to suggest. The writer, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at CFR, was a deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration.
2017-02-28 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive