AEI panel on tense situation in Lebanon

The American Enterprise Institute hosted a panel on Lebanon highlighting many of the issues affecting the country. The panel consisted of Danielle Pletka and Michael Rubin of AEI, Robert Malley of the International Crisis Group, Lee Smith of the Hudson Institute, and Hassan Mneimneh, Iraq Memory Foundation.

Hassan began by giving a brief history of the two governing bodies within Lebanon. He said that since the 1970’s the country of Lebanon has been functioning under two different governments, one that is pro western influence, and one that is aligned with Syria and Iran, called Hezbollah.

Smith said that the fight for Lebanon is not over, that Hezbollah has been stopped in the north and the south. Smith said that the peace talks between Syria and Israel will play part in the continued conflict in Lebanon and the U.S. needs to broker these talks if they want any sort of presence in the middle east.

Malley talked mostly of news from the last two weeks in Lebanon, along with his opinions on U.S. involvement. He said that there have been three recent events in Lebanon that should concern the U.S. He said the Doha Agreement, the peace talks between Syria and Israel, and Egypt’s failure to broker a peace deal between Israel and Syria were losses for the U.S. campaign in the Middle East.

Pletka said that the U.S. doesn’t necessarily need to create a new policy for Lebanon, but needs to work on implementation of the current policy. She said that Iran and Syria send foreign ministers to Lebanon on a regular basis and the U.S. rarely sends a representative of that caliber. She said that in order to influence politics in the Lebanon the U.S. must have a presence in Lebanon