Hezbollah Is Winning the Race to Rearm in Lebanon by Matthew Levitt

by Matthew Levitt

• Matthew Levitt is the Fromer-Wexler Senior Fellow and director of the Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute.

Also published in National Interest

To gauge the true effectiveness of the LAF’s disarmament effort, one must go beyond the number of patrols, raids, and seized weapons and take a hard look at what it has done—and not done—to search private property, target underground facilities, stop cross-border smuggling from Syria, and transparently dispose of armaments.

Lebanon’s top general came to Washington last week to try to persuade US military officials, policymakers, and lawmakers that his country was getting serious about Hezbollah. Gen. Rodolphe Haykal’s pitch was simple: despite its “limited capabilities,” the Lebanese Armed Forces have raided Hezbollah weapons depots south of the Litani River, established “operational control” over southern Lebanon, and are largely completing the first phase of Lebanon’s “weapons consolidation plan,” which is a euphemism for disarming the Iran-backed militia. The reality, as I recently saw firsthand standing on the Israel-Lebanon border, is that the LAF is working hard, but still falling far short of disarming Hezbollah…

Read the full article on the National Interest website.