The noose around Lebanon

ENAR

Over 300 days have passed since Saad Hariri, Lebanon’s prime minister, stood on the White House lawn next to Donald Trump as the US President promised an answer to the “menace” of Hezbollah within 24 hours. That answer did not materialize in the form of a comprehensive foreign policy or as diplomatic niceties, at least where the public is concerned, but now in mid-2018 we indeed have the answer—namely that actions speak louder than words. With that principle in mind, Trump’s politics vis-à-vis Hezbollah and the region has been made clear. American focus appears to follow that of Israel. In other words, their focus is on Iran. This leaves Syria, as of right now, as a tertiary concern to the Americans. Meanwhile the month of May saw escalations from the Israeli side over what it perceives as Iranian encroachment, escalations that risk further inflaming the Syrian war. These included Israeli