Hezbollah Sucks the U.S. Into Its Own War on ISIS

Ever since the Marines first landed on Beirut’s beaches in 1958, the American military has intervened periodically one way or another in the conflicts of this troubled Mediterranean state wedged between Syria and Israel.

Never before, however, has the U.S. come so close to joining forces, even tacitly, with such an infamous U.S.-designated terrorist entity—the one Washington blames for the deadliest attack on Marine personnel since World War II, the October 1983 bombing of a battalion landing team barracks south of Beirut that killed 241 American servicepeople.

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“The current Lebanon policy, which was inherited from Obama, is a pro-Iran policy,” says Tony Badran, research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who argues Obama’s prioritization of fighting ISIS “even where ISIS is marginal,” as in Lebanon, had the effect of “empower[ing] Hezbollah and the institutions of the state it dominates,” above all the Lebanese army.

While “there are signs the Trump administration might eventually change course, such as its proposals to cut security assistance to Lebanon,” Badran told The Daily Beast “those are being bitterly opposed by Beirut and its allies in Washington.”

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