Beirut: “Takfiri terrorism is the spawn of the Zionist regime, while Lebanon and Iran play an important role in fighting it,” declared the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani in Beirut last Saturday.
During his meeting with Lebanon’s Defence Minister, Samir Moqbel, Shamkhani reiterated Tehran’s readiness to assist the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) with the acquisition of new weapons.
Of course, while this was not the first time that Iran offered to provide military support to the LAF, Moqbel reiterated that details would need to be studied to determine how best such weapons can be integrated with Western ware in the pipeline. Even more problematic were serious concerns that Iranian interferences could affect long-standing American assistance programmes, which topped the billion dollar mark during the past decade, and that stood separate from the $4 billion (Dh14.69 billion) ongoing Saudi aid packages.
Regardless of delays, the key challenge faced by the LAF was to successfully integrate these weapons with the American ware that dominated its existing arsenal. To now add Iranian equipment was even more problematic, although an eventual Hezbollah integration in the LAF — as separate brigades — might address that concern.
For now, and amid fresh discussions that delayed the latest deliveries, military officials in Beirut confirmed that the basket negotiated with Paris included 250 armoured vehicles, 15 attack helicopters, 20 155mm artillery guns, 4 maritime patrol crafts, an undetermined number of tactical drones, along with several communications and border surveillance systems that necessitated advanced training.
To date, Paris made a single delivery of 48 anti-tank Milan missiles taken from the stocks of the French army. At the time, that is in April 2015, Riyadh made an initial payment of $450 million though what happened since was murky.
News reports in French newspapers reported that Ministry of Defence officials in Paris faced a conundrum as far as the supply of equipment to the LAF is concerned, because the company that handled these movements, ODAS, may have been involved in various controversies, including allegations of contract irregularities.
Consequently, and although the next deliveries are scheduled for Spring 2016, payment was apparently frozen in April 2015, because the Saudi Minister of Defence, Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, requested a new framework for the bilateral accord.
As a reminder, it was worth noting that between 1974 and 2014, ODAS handled over 100 billion euros of contracts with the Kingdom, though Prince Mohammad displayed apprehensions and, apparently, no longer wants an intermediary. Local sources confirmed that discussions were ongoing over the setting up of a new procedure that will handle arms sales from state to state, even if LAF officers were unsure whether they would have any role in it as far as the Saudi donation to Lebanon is concerned.
To be sure, Riyadh was wary of Lebanese political uncertainties since there was a genuine fear that advanced materials might fall into Hezbollah hands and, equally important, of recent French price hikes on various programmes for the Kingdom itself. These concerns were discussed in October 2015 by Prime Minister Manuel Valls in Riyadh, which also preoccupied the Minister of Defence, Jean-Yves Le Drian, who wished to separate agreements to avoid even the appearance of contract padding.
Le Drian, a no-nonsense statesman, criticised the ODAS boss, Admiral Edouard Guillaud, a former Chief of Staff Staff of the French Army, and was confronted with a new reality. Should he dissolve ODAS and replace it with a new mechanism? Should he separate the LAF contracts from those placed by the Kingdom for its own needs?
Aware of these discussions, Lebanese military officials placed a $1.5 billion order at the Dubai Airshow in November 2015, to acquire six A-29 Super Tucano turboprop attack planes to bolster their counter-insurgency capabilities. The Tucanos are expected to arrive starting in January 2017 from Embraer’s Jacksonville, Florida plant, although it was unclear what were the funds that secured the purchase.
