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Munir Al-Rabee` wrote in Al-Modon: It is strange that the United States is concerned about the Iranian and Lebanese situations, and its focus on them at this stage. The Donald Trump administration sees Iran and Lebanon as a priority, even though Trump lost the presidential election. This is while the US administration is supposed to be busy preparing for the lawsuits that Trump will bring against the election results, or leaving the White House, and thinking about running for a new term in the 2024 election..
Between Trump and Biden
However, whether in the statements of Trump or his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Lebanon and Iran occupy significant importance in the two-month period between the departure of the president from the White House and the reception of the new president..
Before his tour of 7 countries in Europe and the Middle East, Pompeo announced that this week he will impose more sanctions on Iran and all those who cooperate with the Iranian regime. New US sanctions may be issued against Lebanese personalities. This indicates that the United States continues to escalate and install a clear rule: the elections and their results do not change the American interest in the region. The bets by Iran and its allies that Trump’s defeat in the elections will return the situation in the region to what it was during the days of Barack Obama are illusions..
The US administration wants to break this perception and rack up important step-by-step steps that will put the Biden administration to shame, if it tries to skip what Trump imposed..
Between Paris and Washington
Pompeo began his journey from Paris, meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and his Chancellor Jean-Yves Le Drian. The Lebanese dossier was present because Lebanon is one of the Iranian scenarios, or one of the Iranian centers of influence and control due to Hezbollah. The US State Department statement after the meeting read: “Pompeo and his French counterpart discussed Hezbollah’s’ evil ‘influence in Lebanon and the United States’ efforts to form a stable government focused on reform.“.
Pompeo did not hesitate to repeat the positions he had launched from the French initiative: It is not possible to bet on concluding understandings with Hezbollah like Hezbollah. The French initiative cannot succeed, while the United States of America imposes sanctions on the party and works to block it, while Paris communicates with Hezbollah and its diplomats visit the party’s political and security stronghold in Haret Hreik..
Macron had held a meeting with the cell in charge of the Lebanese archive to discuss how to revive the French initiative. This is because the role of France in Lebanon is not only related to the formation of a government. Rather, it is with a renewed establishment of a presence that should last, even if Paris cannot achieve something quickly. And he is also betting on threatening to impose sanctions on those who obstruct his initiative, in addition to threatening that Lebanon will not get any help, except for humanity that protects the Lebanese from hunger..
Mysterious American militancy
The Franco-American dispute over Lebanon is a long history, and it emerged strongly after the outbreak of the revolution on October 17, 2019. The United States of America was very enthusiastic about this revolution, while Paris had reservations about it. And then France called a tripartite meeting that included French, American and British foreign officials in October 2019, but Paris achieved nothing with it..
Two weeks later, a second meeting of the three parties was held in the British capital, London, and the meeting also achieved nothing. The reason was the difference between the French view and the American view of the Lebanese situation..
After the bombing of the port, the French president undertook a new initiative, which came to nothing in turn, and received more than a hit and a slap, and the slaps were not without American fingerprints, since the sanctions against Ali Hassan Khalil and Youssef Fenianos until the sanctions against Gebran Bassil, and what followed..
Macron previously called a meeting of the International Support Group, and some countries participated, and Washington did not promise to provide any assistance and continued its hard-line stance. In addition to the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. After that, the position of the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister and King Salman in Hezbollah emerged..
All of this confirms that the gap between the American and French approaches to Lebanon continues. Here, a basic observation must be made: American interest in Lebanon at this stage must include antecedents that have not yet emerged. It will have implications of multiple dimensions, political and economic, and perhaps security and military.
