Lebanon facing opportunity to ‘reclaim its sovereignty and make peace with Israel’

Pearl-clutching leaders, biased media, and delusional demonstrators are outraged by the ingenuity and lethality of Israel’s ongoing campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

On Sept 25th, Pentagon’s spokeswoman Sabrina Singh assured reporters that “the U.S. is not providing intelligence to support Israel’s operations.”

Two days later, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken urged Israel to “stop firing” and insisted “the path to diplomacy is still open.” He urged “to use the time that we would have…a cease-fire to see if we can reach a broader diplomatic agreement.”

According to The Jerusalem Post, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was “outraged” that Israel gave minimal notice before the airstrike that killed Hezbollah head, Hassan Nasrallah, along with a large group of terrorists gathered in a residential building—after their mobile devices were destroyed in an unprecedented precision attack.

Former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta—on whose watch the U.S. conducted a years-long campaign of “targeted assassinations,” killing thousands of terrorists and innocent bystanders with drone strikes—opined in a Sept 22nd CBS interview that Israel was conducting “a war of terror.” When asked whether Israel’s beeper attack constituted terrorism, Panetta averred: “I don’t think there’s any question that it’s a form of terrorism.”

The celebrations that erupted across Lebanon, Syria, and Iran in the wake of Nasrallah’s demise demonstrate how misguided the U.S. approach is. Key facts— providing context and clarification—are blithely ignored.

Hezbollah’s hands are smeared with American blood. It bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in April 1983. It killed 241 U.S. servicemen and injured 150 on Oct 23, 1983—the deadliest single-day toll for the USMC since the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Between 1982-1992 Hezbollah abducted and tortured 25 U.S. citizens and 104 Westerners. Beirut Station Chief William Buckley was tortured to death in 1985. On June 15, 1985, Robert Stethem, USN, was murdered during the hijacking of TWA flight 84. USMC COL William “Rich” Higgins, serving with the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, was abducted, tortured and murdered in July 1989.

Hezbollah supplied shape-charges that killed and maimed thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan. They trained and equipped ISIS and helped Syria’s Assad violate the Obama Administration’s “red line” using chemical weapons against civilians.

The U.S. should rejoice that Israel is avenging them—something we’ve failed to do, the bounties on Hezbollah leaders notwithstanding.

Hezbollah—designated a terrorist organization in 1997–is one of the world’s most powerful and well-organized. In Central and Latin America, it’s actively engaged with cartels and earns billions from narcotics, weapons, and people- trafficking. This criminal/terrorist nexus is a clear and present danger in our own hemisphere.

In the Levant, Hezbollah has taken over Lebanon, whose military (LAF) the U.S. has trained and equipped for decades. Unfortunately, the LAF is so penetrated by Hezbollah that much of this assistance effectively benefited them.

A ceasefire along the Israeli-Lebanese border was negotiated in 2006. UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was established by Security Council resolution (UNSCR) 1701 to keep Hezbollah north of the Litani River and prevent it from firing into Israel. UNIFIL’s mandate was last renewed on Aug 28, 2024–as it has been every year since 2006.

The spectacular failure to prevent Hezbollah from firing missiles into Israel—some 8,000 since Oct 8th, 2023, displacing over 70,000 civilians from their homes, schools, and businesses—goes completely unnoticed.

In 2006, Israel went to war to end the then-ongoing Hezbollah barrages. The U.S. and UN orchestrated the ceasefire, urging UNIFIL to enforce it. Current calls for a ceasefire are THE definition of insanity: Doing the same thing repeatedly, naively expecting different results.

Israel is now conducting a multi-phase campaign. Phase 1 destroyed Hezbollah’s command, control, and communications. Phase 2—the air campaign—is ongoing. Both are classic décapitation strikes—akin to the 1967 Six Day War and U.S. Operations Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom. If there is a Phase 3—a ground campaign—it will push Hezbollah north of the Litani, per the 2006 UNSCR.

Israel’s fight isn’t with Lebanon. Hezbollah is an Iranian transplant—a Shia death cult forced upon a majority Christian and Sunni nation. It has destroyed what was the Switzerland of the Middle East. The Christian population has been uprooted—with emigration accelerating after Hezbollah murdered Premier Rafiq Hariri in Feb 2005, sparking the bloody yet futile Cedar Revolution. Thousands of Christians, Sunnis and Druze perished. The LAF should fight to eject this alien invader and restore Lebanese sovereignty.

Arguably, Israel has exquisite intelligence on Hezbollah, with little need for U.S. Intel sharing. What it needs is precision weapons and diplomatic support.

Unlike Gaza, Lebanon is a sovereign country and a member of the UN, captured by an Iranian proxy in order to establish another theocracy and extend the Shia Crescent to the Mediterranean. That is contrary to U.S. strategic interests.

Far from Lebanon, U.S.-allied Saudi Arabia has been waging a brutal war against another Iranian proxy for over a decade. Despite U.S. assistance—and thousands of Yemeni civilians killed and maimed—the Saudis haven’t degraded the Houthis. Like Hezbollah, this proxy poses a major threat to U.S. strategic interests. Destroying the Houthis should be our fight—not only to protect Israel from their ballistic missiles, but to enforce freedom of navigation in critical international waters. It’s a dereliction of duty to allow continued attacks on our Navy and international shipping.

Shia worships martyrs, tracing their sect’s origins to the assassination of Muhammad’s cousin, Ali, in 661 AD. Now Nasrallah and associates have joined that long green line. Their demise affords Lebanon a chance to reclaim its sovereignty and make peace with Israel after 40 years of disastrous Hezbollah dominance.

Dr. Lani Kass served at the Department of Defense for 29 years. These views are her own.

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