Via Friday-Lunch-Club
"... As Lebanon hovers precariously on the brink of new upheaval, rival forces are battling for control of the army: the Western-backed government and the United States on one side, Hezbollah and its Iranian and Syrian mentors on the other.
The outcome of this increasingly intense competition will to a large extent determine where Lebanon is headed -- and whether Iran secures complete uncontested control of a frontline base on Israel's doorstep.
And right now Hezbollah seems to be winning.... It still refuses to give up its arsenal, or merge with the state army, in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
And no one, least of all U.S.-backed Prime Minister Saad Hariri, is prepared to the take risk of trying to make it do so....
Once Syria withdrew the last of its military forces from Lebanon in April 2005, under international pressure triggered by the February assassination of billionaire former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Lebanon's leading statesman, the Americans saw an opening........
Since 2006, Washington has provided the Lebanese armed forces, which has traditionally been kept weak by the political barons who control the various sects, with military aid worth $700 million.But after the 56,000-strong army, still outgunned by the battle-hardened Hezbollah, clashed with Israeli forces in August, the first such engagement in years, the U.S. Congress cut off the aid.....up to that point, the army had stayed on the sidelines in the sectarian feuding, although an estimated 60 percent of its personnel is Shiite......."
Posted by G, Z, or B at 1:04 PM
Uprooted Palestinian
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