The US response to a national unity government in Lebanon is to condition the aid on disarming Hizbullah, writes Omayma Abdel-Latif in Beirut A few days before the Lebanese president's visit to Washington due on 12 December, US lawmakers urged the Obama administration to condition the military assistance for the Lebanese army on the agreement of Hizbullah to hand in its weapons. The move is viewed as a response to the policy declaration of the new Lebanese unity government which is perceived in US circles to have given Hizbullah a veto power over major decision-making. "We must seek to support stronger multilateral efforts to disarm Hizbullah and clear southern Lebanon of Iranian weapons," 31 lawmakers wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently. The letter was in response to a request submitted by the Obama administration for $210 million for the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and $100 million in military assistance for the Lebanese army. "For that much money, American taxpayers deserve to see results," the lawmakers said. The implication is that the Lebanese resistance movement should be stripped of its deterrence ability against Israel. A brief statement by the Lebanese presidency, commenting on the letter, said Michel Suleiman was due to meet the president of the US and does not have any meetings scheduled with congressmen. This is not the first time there have been calls for conditioning US assistance to Lebanon. Last June during a visit to Beirut on the eve of a crucial parliamentary election, Vice-President Joe Biden tied assistance to Lebanon to what he described as "the policies of the new government to be formed after the 7 June parliamentary vote." "The US will evaluate the shape of its assistance programme based on the policies of the new government," Biden told reporters after meeting President Suleiman back in June. He described Hizbullah as a "peace spoiler". The US has provided Lebanon with more than $1 billion in assistance since 2006, including $410 million to the military and the police. While US officials repeatedly expressed their commitment to meeting the Lebanese army's needs, the type of artillery received is ironically geared towards protecting Israel, rather than the Lebanese. For example the pilotless Raven aircraft delivered last May would, according to State Department official David Hale, help the army monitor any attempt to fire rockets from southern Lebanon into northern Israel. There is, however, no artillery to defend Lebanese airspace against the repeated violations by Israeli warplanes. Last April, a US Department of Defence official said that the United States "does not provide assistance to Lebanon without considering the concerns of Israel and Israel's qualitative edge," adding that US military aid to the Lebanese armed forces is designed to "strengthen the army domestically, not regionally," and the M60 tanks would be "no match" for Israel's Merkava 4 tanks. The Lebanese government's policy statement is due to be ratified by the Lebanese parliament at the end of this week. The statement acknowledges the right of "the Lebanese people, army and the resistance to liberate the Shebaa Farms, Kfar Shuba hills and the northern part of the village of Al-Ghajar, as well as to defend Lebanon and its territorial waters in the face of any enemy by all available means." The government has two ministers representing Hizbullah and the declaration incorporates the resistance's arms as part of the defence mechanism of the Lebanese state and people. While Washington's response to the formation of the coalition government has been subdued, the Israeli one was loud. Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened that all of Lebanon will be a target for any future Israeli attack. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told reporters on Monday, "the Lebanese government will be held responsible for any Hizbullah attack on Israel." Netanyahu described Hizbullah as "the real army of Lebanon". On Tuesday, Haaretz reported that the UN was working with Israel to complete an Israeli withdrawal from "the northern half of Al-Ghajar" under a proposal by General Claudio Graziano, head of UNIFIL, whose term in office ends at the end of January 2010. The proposal suggests that UNIFIL would have the sole responsibility for security in northern Al-Ghajar once Israel withdraws. No Lebanese army, says the proposal, would be allowed to enter, and Israel would retain responsibility for civilian services. There has not been any official response on the part of the Lebanese government on the report. Israeli press is awash with reports which predict "a war of necessity" which will take place either in the summer or in the fall of next year against Hizbullah and possibly Hamas. While this could be viewed as part of the psychological warfare between Israel and Hizbullah, it was surprising how that Netanyahu statement about "the collapse of Resolution 1701" had been timed with the US lawmakers' letter in which they said that they were "highly concerned" by what they claimed was "the potential of Iranian-sponsored escalation along the Lebanese-Israeli border which will blow out the situation in the region". While Hizbullah remained silent over the US lawmakers' letter, it refers those seeking a comment to its secretary- general's last speech in which he said; "Hizbullah's arms will remain as long as Israel exists."
