|
Press
release
Why is Washington rushing
now to aid the Lebanese army without a strategy in place?
Washington DC, CR News Oct 8th, 2008
Attorney
John Hajjar, US Director for the WCCR said "Lebanon's friends in the US
were pressing the previous Seniora Government to ask Washington for
military, diplomatic and political assistance while Hezbollah was
outside the Government, while there was a parliamentary majority able to
back his government and while a huge popular majority in Lebanon was
taking the streets to tell the world that Lebanon wanted UNSCR 1559
implemented. It was then a window of opportunity to begin a bridge of US
military assistance to the Lebanese Army. Because during the three years
after the rise of the Cedars Revolution, most of Lebanon was free from
the control of Hezbollah and civil society was able to express itself in
that direction. Unfortunately neither the Seniora Government and its
supporters in the Parliament made that demand nor US diplomats in charge
of the file realized that the window was closing. It was then that
military assistance was needed top equip an Army tasked with the
disarming of the militias, including Hezbollah and fighting the Jihadi
Salafists, some of whom were dispatched ironically from Syria.
Sadly the
opportunity was missed big time. And when the Army was tested last May
as Hezbollah was invading the capital and the mountain, it was then that
Seniora and March 14 should have taken a stand and call for assistance.
It was before then that it made sense to send Lebanese officers to the
US to train and form counter terrorism units to prepare for this
eventuality. But after Hezbollah won the day and March 14 surrendered in
Doha to the will of Iran, and the right of Hezbollah to bear weapons was
legislated, why is this rush on behalf of Washington to send the help
now? It simply doesn't make sense strategically. They should have
shipped the weapons and trained the Lebanese officers when Lebanon was
governed by the Cedars Revolution not after it was defeated and
Hezbollah and Syria are co-governing Lebanon? I am wondering what kind
of advice DOS and DOD are getting on Lebanon?
For it
doesn't take an expert to understand that Hezbollah and its allies have
veto power inside the Lebanese Government and therefore there can not be
a defense related decision without their approval. The President alone
cannot order the Army into combat. He needs Hezbollah legally and also
politically. The cabinet is totally paralyzed from the inside. Why are
we acting as if Lebanon is ruled by an allies as in Jordan, Iraq,
Afghanistan or Morocco, not to say Colombia or the Philippines? It is
not. Is that so difficult to understand?
Or is it
that Lebanon's politicians told Washington the Lebanese Armed Forces
will fight al Qaeda in the Palestinian camps and that weapons are needed
for that task. Well Iran is now claiming it is fighting al Qaeda so is
Syria. Are we blind to jump into their game?
We want the
Lebanese Army to become a real ally and to be treated as such. But for
that we need to revive the Cedars revolution first. And to do so we need
to help the Lebanese free themselves from the power of
Hezbollah. Sending equipment to an Army whose officers have been
assassinated by the Syrian-Iranian axis is not the right thing to do. In
short we need to reshape American policy towards Lebanon. We need to let
the taxpayers in our country here know exactly what is the situation in
Lebanon. We can't afford spending hundreds of millions on a bridge to
nowhere in Lebanon.
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