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As Lebanon reeling under the weight of the fallout from the Beirut port explosion on August 4, and the failure to implement the French initiative to form a government, the United States increased its pressure, and both former Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil and former Minister of Works and Transport Youssef Fenianos added to their blacklist and imposed Punish them for participating in acts of corruption and providing material support to Hezbollah.
These sanctions announced by the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the United States Department of the Treasury on Tuesday came in the context of an unprecedented escalation against Hezbollah’s allies, by targeting one of its most prominent former Christian allies, Suleiman Franjieh, head of the Marada movement to which Fenianos belongs, Nabih Berri, president of Parliament and of the movement. Amal belongs to Khalil.
In his first reaction to the sanctions, Franjieh believed that “the decision issued by the United States Department of the Treasury against Minister Yusef Fenianos is a decision that counts his position, convictions and position.” In turn, the Amal Movement issued a statement saying that the US decision against its member of the political bureau Ali Hassan Khalil “will not change.” It is absolutely of our convictions and of our patriotic and national constants. “
After the US Treasury imposed sanctions on 90 individuals and entities affiliated with the party in 2017, it was stated in the expanded explanation of the sanctions decision issued by the ministry that “Hezbollah exploited government ministers, including Fenianos, to withdraw money from the general government budget and to ensure that party-owned companies won the bids under which they were held. Millions of dollars in contracts. “
He added that Hezbollah “gave Fenians hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2015 in exchange for political services.” As for Hassan Khalil, the bureau accused him of being “one of the officials who profited from Hezbollah for financial gain and transferred funds from Lebanese institutions to the party in a way that prevents these institutions from imposing US sanctions.” He also used his influence to exempt a Hezbollah member from paying most of the taxes on electronic devices, with part of the money paid going to fund the party.
The Amal Movement led by Nabih Berri issued a statement describing that the sanctions decision against Khalil did not change his national constants (Reuters)What is the legal dimension of these new sanctions?
The professor of International Law and International Relations, Raif Khoury, explains to Al-Jazeera Net what the US sanctions are against Fenianos and Khalil, based on two dimensions: legal and political.
Legal: Khoury points out that these sanctions are represented in the seizure and establishment of measures on all property and money of those punished, whether in Lebanon or in Europe, America and all the countries of the world, and “includes movable property and real estate, and all those who deal with the punished of companies, entities or individuals, as well as they are prohibited from moving their accounts or depositing in them, or dealing with correspondent banks or financial institutions “.
In legal terms too, the severity of the sanctions, according to Khoury, is reflected in the fact that they are issued directly by the department in charge of controlling foreign assets in the United States Treasury of all kinds, and is based on this to more than one law such as the Caesar Law, the Magnitsky Law and the Antiterrorist Law, and this broad penal code affects entities. And to people, and it is very harmful for those who are punished or those who will be punished, because its dimensions are multiple, personally, partisan and entity ”.
“And the reality of the situation suggests that there is a complementarity between the French and American roles in Lebanon, as Khoury puts it. On the political dimension, Khoury believes that obstructing internal forces to form the government of President-designate Mustafa Adib, accelerating the sanctions “to make the Lebanese understand that if France hints at sanctions, the United States will implement them. If France warns of lax government formation, the United States will escalate and suffer.”
Khoury considers it a direct message to the speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri, who has the file of demarcation of the maritime borders with Israel. “The United States is angry for not completing the border demarcation file and aims to put pressure on those handling the negotiations. This is how David Schenker put it in the latest increase in Lebanon. In his refusal to meet with Lebanese officials and to meet with representatives of civil society. “
Success of the Christian holiday
While Khoury believes that there is a clear US effort to “strip” Hezbollah of its Christian allies, especially since the sanctions against Fenians “block the way to Suleiman Franjieh’s ambition to become president as a result of his alliance with the party and the Syrian regime, “denies the writer and political analyst Faisal Abdul Sater. (Who is close to Hezbollah) this theory, and describes to Al-Jazeera Net what the United States is doing with “helplessness”, and that its sanctions are a reflection of its failure to directly confront the party and encircle its allies. .
Abdul Sater says: “The party will not worry about the sanctions because they come in the framework of an open confrontation with the United States. We also hope that its allies will resist American pressure and indifference to American pressure while they await their position. The party already he fought the July 2006 war against Israel, and his Christian alliances have not changed. “
On the other hand, writer and political analyst Charles Jabbour believes that the party’s allies, and the Christians implicitly, “already fear a coup against Hezbollah, regardless of the sanctions, because their reaction will be violent.”
In an interview with Al-Jazeera Net, he considered that “the United States no longer discriminates between Muslims and Christians. Rather, it wants to punish all those who cover Hezbollah, which is classified as a terrorist in it, especially because its alliances have provided political cover and the legitimacy of their weapons. Regarding these sanctions, they will cut off any political role in the next stage for the punishers, and therefore they will face a deep crisis with their popular environment. “
While all eyes in Lebanon are on the possibility of imposing sanctions on Hezbollah’s most prominent Christian ally, former Minister Gebran Bassil, Raif Khoury believes that Bassil is presenting his credentials to Americans privately and in public, however, ” The United States is holding it back to obtain more concessions without neglecting it. “
Observers: Initiative Blocks Path to Suleiman Franjieh’s Ambition for President (Associated Press)However, will these sanctions affect the course of government formation?
Abdel Sater believes that the sanctions exposed the French initiative, which he describes as poisonous. “Macron’s initiative, which at first glance reflected the appeasement of Hezbollah and the quest to form a government, concealed deception in its content and was paving the way for US sanctions.” He added that “widespread corruption has been supported by the United States through its Lebanese allies and associations for 3 decades, at a time when it intends to fight and punish the corrupt.”
For his part, Jabour believes that the US sanctions are a message to the impossibility of forming a government that includes representatives of Hezbollah and its allies, because the issue is drawing Lebanon to more sanctions, and the party and its allies are also expected to access and facilitate the formation of a government of specialists, “because they are in a crisis situation and want to buy time, and not Especially because abandoning the French initiative, which comes in coordination with the Americans, means an explosion in the streets and Lebanon’s opening to various catastrophic possibilities, and the party and ruling era it supports will face a difficult confrontation.
But Abdel Sater believes that the priority is no longer in forming a government, but in how Lebanese political forces confront the sanctions that pave the way to instability in the country, “which leaves negative signs in the way of the French initiative to form government”.
As for Hezbollah, according to Raif Khoury, “it tweets in a different swarm, and if it closes an illegal crossing to limit tension, it may open other alternative crossings, continuing its policy of defrauding the Americans and all its opponents.”
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