CIAO DATE: 09/2010
August 2010
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
The August 3 fatal shooting of an Israel Defense Forces officer by a Lebanese Armed Forces soldier has sparked debate regarding the utility and wisdom of the U.S. military assistance program to Lebanon. Although such assistance is not new, the program's scope dramatically increased after the 2005 Cedar Revolution ended Syria's thirty-year occupation and swept the Arab world's only pro-Western, democratically elected government to power. In recent months, however, Syrian influence has returned, while Hizballah has secured enough political power to effectively reverse many of the revolution's gains. Even before the August 3 incident, these changes on the ground prompted Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, to place a hold on the 2011 assistance package.
Currently, discussions regarding the disposition of the $100 million in annual aid are focused on the LAF's relationship with Hizballah and whether the force will ever be in a position -- either militarily or politically -- to supplant the Shiite militia and establish state sovereignty in the South. Largely missing from the discussion, however, is the context of the U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program and its long-term goals: Washington has decades of experience funding the LAF, including one occasion when assistance was ramped up and then suddenly discontinued.
Resource link: Arming Hizballah? U.S. Military Assistance to Lebanon [PDF] - 14K