Speaking yesterday in Bahrain, ambassador Tom Barrack expressed skepticism that Beirut will forcibly disarm Hezbollah, adding a not so subtle insult of Beirut. “The Lebanese leadership today is solid,” he said. “But they’re dinosaurs.”
Is that all? Publicly, yes—but according to the Hezbollah-linked Al Akhbar newspaper, Barrack recently gave Lebanese officials a blunt warning:
“Either they learn the lesson and decide to enter into direct negotiations with Israel under the auspices of the United States, to set a timetable and mechanism for disarming Hezbollah, or Lebanon will be left to its fate, and will remain so for a long time, and no one will care about it, neither in America nor in the region, and no one will be able to pressure Israel to prevent it from doing whatever it sees fit to carry out the disarmament by force.”
Why the threat? Well, Washington doesn’t believe Lebanon’s government is doing enough to disarm Hezbollah. And while Jerusalem doesn’t disagree (Defense Minister Israel Katz said this morning that “the Lebanese president is dragging his feet”), it’s Donald Trump’s administration—not Benjamin Netanyahu’s—that is becoming fed up with Beirut.
