On Aug. 26, U.S. special envoy Tom Barrack revealed that Lebanon would soon present its plan to convince Hezbollah to give up its arms after some 40 years of maintaining an autonomous militia. Hezbollah has refused to accept decades of demands to disarm. Now the party’s secretary-general has vowed it will never relinquish its weapons, threatening to fight the government if need be.
Needless to say, disarming Hezbollah would be an enormous win for both U.S. and Lebanese interests. The challenge will be achieving this goal without plunging the country into violence. This means that the United States has a crucial but fleeting opportunity to support the Lebanese government’s disarming plan through robust diplomacy, security policy, and material support.
Effective U.S. support would involve ramping up military assistance to strengthen the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), providing real-time intelligence on Hezbollah positions and weapons stockpiles, and using diplomatic leverage to ensure regional actors don’t undermine the disarmament effort. Simultaneously, the U.S. would need to coordinate substantial economic aid to show Lebanese communities—particularly Shiite populations—that their economic security does not depend on Hezbollah’s patronage networks.
On Aug. 5, the Lebanese cabinet took the unprecedented step of asking the LAF to establish a plan to disarm Hezbollah by the end of the year. The decision itself is a momentous one, and LAF operations to dismantle Hezbollah weapons depots have already begun. While the cabinet has not explicitly authorized the use of force, the reality of disarming a heavily armed militia that has vowed to resist suggests that confrontation is a distinct possibility that the LAF must prepare for.
For decades, the Lebanese government has officially endorsed Hezbollah’s right to be armed because of—the militia’s willingness to use violence against the Lebanese people. Now, however, any Hezbollah fighter holding a weapon by January will find himself transformed from a state-sanctioned resistance warrior to an outlaw. Deploying the LAF to disarm Hezbollah would severely complicate the militia’s operations and its longtime narrative of working as one with the popular Lebanese army. But it would carry risks for the LAF as well. The Lebanese cabinet and LAF are likely banking on Hezbollah’s compliance due to its weakness. That would be the best-case scenario, but weak and cornered actors can also fight back. This is where U.S. support and contingency planning would become particularly important.
First, the problem starts with the LAF itself. For one thing, at least one-quarter of LAF personnel are Shiite Muslims. These personnel appear to have remained largely loyal to the LAF despite the privations of a war with Israel started by Hezbollah. But if ordered to use potentially deadly force or facilitate violence against their co-religionists in the party, at least some Shiite personnel in the LAF might hesitate or even sabotage operations.
To deal with this challenge, some analysts as well as politicians have floated the possibility of integrating Hezbollah fighters into the armed forces as part of the disarmament plan. While this may sound like an elegant fix for Hezbollah fighters and the army alike, the truth is the attitudes and beliefs of former fighters would be very difficult to gauge, especially in the context of their forced incorporation into the LAF. The wisdom of recruiting thousands of hardened, indoctrinated fighters into the force most responsible for their defeat is questionable at best.
The sectarian challenge is not limited to the armed forces. Hezbollah remains very popular among a large faction of Lebanese, mostly Shiite. It is difficult to predict their reaction if the party that has protected and empowered them for decades became the target of the Lebanese state, particularly under orders from a Christian president and Sunni prime minister.
Hezbollah has a history of deploying its civilian followers in protests and civil disobedience campaigns, disrupting the country’s economy and politics to protest policies it opposed. With much more on the line than mere policy debates, Hezbollah may resort to more extreme measures—or its followers may do so spontaneously, presenting a conundrum to the LAF and government alike. Neither could order or carry out a general crackdown on civilians from a single Lebanese sect.
The LAF has received U.S. and other training in fighting paramilitary groups but has generally fought Sunni extremist groups that are dwarfed in size and sophistication by Hezbollah. The army’s current training and experience are relevant but insufficient. The LAF also faces a formidable intelligence challenge. Over 40 years, Hezbollah has built a vast infrastructure for producing, moving, and hiding weapons. The LAF presumably has an incomplete picture of these operations and assets. As a result, it will need help from third parties.
Of course, U.S. support for the LAF will be presented by Hezbollah as collaboration with the enemy. More explicitly, the LAF will be charged with facilitating Israel’s continued air campaign against Hezbollah. This means that if Washington is going to support the LAF, it needs to go all the way. Otherwise, Lebanese forces will get all the reputational blowback of U.S. support without the necessary practical benefits.
The United States should fully commit to aggressive training, arming, and funding for the LAF. This should be coupled with deep intelligence sharing. Here there is understandably some U.S. wariness because of the LAF’s history of coordination with Hezbollah. But this is unfounded. A decade ago, in the context of Hezbollah’s clear military dominance, the LAF was indeed too cozy with the militia’s forces. But much has changed since then, particularly given Hezbollah’s current weakness.
At the same time, Washington should address the constant Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty and occupation of Lebanese land, which feed into Hezbollah’s narrative and makes the Lebanese state look irrelevant. Barrack’s calls for Israel to de-escalate in Lebanon are crucial and should be backed by real pressure. While there is not a great deal the United States can do to directly shape Shiite attitudes, reining in Israel will help mitigate the impression that the Lebanese state is unable or unwilling to protect the Shiite community from Israeli aggression.
Just as importantly, Lebanon desperately needs economic aid that would facilitate peace and reintegration by helping Shiite and non-Shiite citizens alike. This could include targeted infrastructure investment in Shiite-majority areas of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, job-creation programs that provide alternatives to Hezbollah employment, and support for small businesses that can replace the economic services Hezbollah currently provides to its constituents. The U.S. should also work with international partners to unlock frozen International Monetary Fund resources and facilitate debt restructuring, while ensuring that economic benefits reach all Lebanese communities rather than being captured by traditional elites. Despite Washington’s current enthusiasm for cutting foreign aid, testing this approach in Lebanon would only help Hezbollah.
There is only one chance to get this right. The current U.S. administration is unlikely to intervene militarily in a Lebanese government confrontation with Hezbollah, and such action would undermine the cabinet’s claim to be fighting for Lebanese sovereignty. That means bringing together effective economic, diplomatic, and military support at the outset of any effort to disarm Hezbollah is crucial. If Hezbollah is able to thwart a U.S.-backed effort by the Lebanese government, this would give the group a high-profile victory. This result might prove worse than if Lebanon had never sought to disarm it at all.
All things considered, it is remarkable that months of mounting pressure culminating in the new government policy have not triggered a civil war in Lebanon. But the appearance of peace may be misleading. The only reason Hezbollah has not taken over Beirut, launched attacks on the LAF, and killed the politicians issuing these cabinet decrees is because Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons have been severely weakened by their recent wars with Israel. This has blunted the party’s capabilities and appetite for risk, but also likely deepened its conviction that its domestic and foreign enemies are acting in unison to exploit that weakness. Should Hezbollah recover, it will be more paranoid and dangerous than ever, something neither the United States nor Lebanon can afford. Stopping it will require bold and sophisticated statecraft that builds on but goes beyond the current U.S. commitment to Lebanon.