CIAO DATE: 05/2014
February 2014
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Lebanon has been a chronic US foreign policy challenge in the Levant since the Eisenhower Administration. However, given the country’s centrality to regional security politics and Iran’s support for the Shi’a militant group Hezbollah, the US cannot avoid looking at Lebanon as yet another arena of competition with Iran in the broader Levant. In the two years prior to the start of protests in the Arab world, Syria and Iran played an increasing role in terms of influence in Lebanon. This coincided with the failures of US and Saudi allies in Lebanon, Israeli-Syrian secret negotiations brokered by Turkey and separately US efforts to pursue a policy of outreach toward Damascus. However, some three years after the start of protests in the south-western Syrian city of Dar’a, the conflict in Syria now defines both instability in Lebanon and how the US and Iran deal with their respective sets of interests in the country and the region. The full report both explains and contextualizes the pressures and challenges Lebanon is facing in depth, using open source reporting and research conducted in field work in Lebanon.
Resource link: Lebanon at the Crossroad: Assessing the Impact of the Lebanon-Syria Insecurity Nexus [PDF] - 2.0M