(Tablet) Tony Badran - Israel's operation in Beirut reflects a new security footing towards Hizbullah. For the past decade, Hizbullah's strategy has relied on two key conditions, both of which now appear to be coming to an end. The first was that the U.S. would continue to pay into the myth of an independent Lebanese state that exists separate and autonomous from the terror group. The second was Israel's general avoidance of conducting military operations inside Lebanese territory. The position of the Lebanese government has been entirely predictable. Hariri and the government he nominally heads lined up behind Nasrallah to endorse any Hizbullah attacks launched from Lebanese territory against Israel. Moreover, the U.S.-supported Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) opened fire on Israeli reconnaissance drones in southern Lebanon. For cheerleaders of the U.S. policy of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the LAF, on the grounds that "Lebanese state institutions" are not only distinct from Hizbullah but also key to weakening it, this should be cause for embarrassment. Holding the Lebanese government responsible for what occurs in its own sovereign territory might sound basic, but it had been entirely absent from the past U.S. approach. The writer is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
2019-09-04 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive