Century International: “U.S. Policy Finally Distinguishes Between Lebanon and Hezbollah”

I have a new piece for Century International, this time on how U.S. policymakers ought to understand Lebanon's present crisis and to balance the United States' main policy aims in the country: preventing a failed state, and countering Hizbullah.

https://tcf.org/content/report/u-s-policy-finally-distinguishes-lebanon-hezbollah/

Countering the influence of Lebanese political party and militant organization Hizbullah has often overshadowed other U.S. priorities in Lebanon. Now, though, Lebanon is suffering a political-economic crisis that ranks among the worst in modern history. That crisis requires attention in its own right, if U.S. policymakers hope to prevent Lebanon from becoming an even more thoroughly failed state and source of instability regionally.

That crisis, moreover, is not mainly about Hizbullah. Rather, those most responsible for Lebanon's implosion are a combined political-financial elite that some Lebanese have termed "Hizb al-Masref," or the "Bank Party." These elites ruined Lebanon's state and economy. Now they're fighting to defend their own equities in Lebanon's national bankruptcy, and destroying Lebanese society in the process.

For U.S. policy purposes, Hizbullah is a mostly different, separate problem. And that seems to be how the Biden administration has approached it, for the most part – one policy for Lebanon; and one for countering Hizbullah.

I say: good. Preventing a failed state in Lebanon and countering Hizbullah are mostly distinct lines of effort, which policymakers ought to consider on their own terms and pursue in parallel. Trying to combine these two objectives, on other hand, is a recipe for muddled, ineffective policy. If U.S. policymakers hope to address Lebanon's crisis at all usefully, they'll need to walk and chew gum at the same time.