Lee Smith On America’s Role In the “Lebanese Tragedy”

Read this article while keeping in mind that the author is a pro-Israel neocon who was at the time sincerely moved by the “Cedar Revolution”

What is most moving about the collapse of the March 14 movement, the return of Syrian hegemony to Lebanon, and Hezbollah’s de facto takeover of the state is that the Lebanese have by and large refrained from blaming the United States for their fate. During the time I lived in Beirut from 2004 to 2006, the heyday of the Cedar Revolution, I was regularly asked by anxious Lebanese friends and associates if the United States was genuinely supportive of their popular movement or if Washington intended to sell Lebanon out to the Syrians, as it had when it permitted Damascus free rein throughout the 1990s. How could I answer with any authority, except insofar as I understood the American character? Sometimes I responded, no, we are serious this time; or, who knows, I said, hedging my bets, perhaps; and sometimes I said, probably, yes, invariably.

But now that we have abandoned the Lebanese to the jackals, they have accepted their tragic destiny without accusing us of failing them, as we have.

I find that this relates very much to the matter of American aid to the Lebanese Army. You should not look at this as an issue of American largess to the “good Lebanese”. The fact is, there will always be someone out there to cater for politicians like Mr. Jumblatt the same way that there will always be someone out there to pay for the army. The only question is whether America wants to be part of this high-stakes race or not.