Washington, DC: Speaking at the 25th Annual Arab-US Policy Makers Conference on Wednesday, former secretary of defence Chuck Hagel touched upon the many contributions that the late Rafiq Hariri made for Lebanon and the entire Arab world. He regretted that more recent developments increased challenges though he hoped that Lebanon’s elites would not betray the assassinated prime minister’s legacy.
While Hagel’s intervention at the National Council on US-Arab Relations’ well-attended gathering was the only one that mentioned Lebanon in such clear terms, a current State Department official was livid that the Obama Administration “handed Lebanon to Iran on a silver plate”, and was disappointed that “we got nothing in exchange”.
Speaking off the record given the sensitivity of the subject, he wondered why Saad Hariri was willing to make a deal with the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), presumably on the recommendations of its president, Minister of Foreign Affairs Jibran Bassil, and wondered whether Hariri’s financial difficulties with Saudi Oger were the motivations that prompted him to back General Michel Aoun to become the head of state.
“Hariri seems to have cut a deal with the FPM over the country’s oil resources,” he ventured, “which betrayed his father’s legacy”. It was unclear whether either Bassil or Hariri had any influence or ability to divide Lebanon’s oil resources, though rumours circulated across oceans, further muddying the waters.
Similarly indistinguishable was what US Ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth Richards told Bassil during their meeting on Tuesday, especially the assumption that Washington is “relieved” that Lebanon’s lengthy presidential void is nearing an end, as reported by LBCI television.
The US State Department announced last Saturday that it hoped to see the presidential election process “moving forward” in Lebanon, noting that the election of a president is a Lebanese affair and that Washington would support the winner in the democratic contest.
What preoccupied the US, nevertheless, was the fate of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) as the last functioning institution in the country. A Defence Department source confirmed that the US was anxious to continue its backing of the LAF, which is the fifth largest recipient of US foreign military financing in the world. US military aid was worth hundreds of millions of dollars during the past decade with more sophisticated items expected in coming months.
The high-ranking defence official wondered what Michel Aoun, if he becomes president, intended to do with the LAF, and asked whether military cooperation with Hezbollah would increase. Although Washington tolerated coordination between the Lebanese Army and Hezbollah over the years, it nevertheless did not approve of tacit accords between the two sides and objected to see some of its weapons handed over to the “Party of God”, which in turn used them in the Syrian civil war. “We are aware of past ties and we will watch carefully,” the Defence source confirmed, implying that Beirut might lose some of this assistance if Baabda Palace further relaxed contacts.
State-run National News Agency in Lebanon reported that Bassil and Ambassador Richards tackled “future bilateral ties between Lebanon and the US and means to improve them” without specifying whether the army’s fate was discussed.
Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Sulaiman ended on May 24, 2014 and Hezbollah, along with all its March 8 allies boycotted the parliament’s 45 electoral sessions, stripping them of the needed quorum. When Hariri launched his late 2015 initiative to nominate another of Hezbollah’s allies, Marada Movement chief Sulaiman Franjieh for the presidency, Washington backed that candidacy, although that proposal was met with reservations. The concern in Washington now hovers around Lebanon’s fate as a potential failed state, especially if Iran’s influence is to increase, and if the Syrian civil war spills over to it.
