Disarming Hezbollah US push offers Lebanon a dangerous choice

Under mounting US pressure, Lebanon's government is being forced into a dangerous choice.

- William Christou

Does it want to fight a war with Israel or does it want to fight a war at home, with Hezbollah?

In recent weeks, the US has been pushing for the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah. The government had already been moving in that direction, but not at the pace the US wanted. Lebanese media began to fill with warnings from unnamed sources that if Hezbollah's arms were not confiscated soon, a second war with Israel could be on the horizon.

On Tuesday, the Lebanese government acquiesced and announced the Lebanese army would draw up a plan to place arms exclusively within the hands of the state by year's end. Hezbollah and its political ally Amal announced the next day that they would "treat the decision as if it did not exist".

Lebanon's current government was formed after the latest Hezbollah-Israel war. A battered Hezbollah could no longer maintain its side of a stalemate that had left Lebanon without a president for two years, and Joseph Aoun, the former army chief, was elected amid heavy US pressure.