Washington should wake up to the fact that Hezbollah runs Lebanon
By Tony Badran
Monday, 22 July 2019
The US State Department has invited Gebran Bassil to Washington to speak at a conference, despite the Lebanese foreign minister’s known ties with Hezbollah – which the US has designated as a terrorist organization since 1995. This is due to the US’s misguided policy toward Lebanon, which fails to acknowledge that an investment in the country’s “state institutions†is an investment in the Hezbollah state.
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Lebanon’s foreign minister, Gebran Bassil, came to Washington last week at the invitation of the US State Department to participate in its Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom. The State Department inviting a staunch Hezbollah ally like Bassil – to address a gathering devoted to religious tolerance, no less – encapsulates the deep confusion in Washington about Lebanon.
Just before he took off for Washington, Bassil met with newly sanctioned Hezbollah security chief Wafiq Safa, with whom Bassil has a close relationship. Abbas Ibrahim, head of Lebanon’s Directorate of General Security, also joined the meeting, an indication of the structural synergy between Hezbollah and Lebanese state institutions.
Read more at: https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2019/07/22/Washington-should-wake-up-to-the-fact-that-Hezbollah-runs-Lebanon.html#.XTX0UzDf-6I.twitter
Look! at this, Ted Cruz actually tweeted this out and Wendy Acho, whose twitter I watch fairly closely retweeted it.
Wendy R. Acho Retweeted
Senator Ted Cruz
@SenTedCruz
Disturbing analysis from @FDD
research fellow @AcrossTheBay
that Lebanese gov officials are using their access to Washington, DC to lobby on behalf of the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah, even as they ask us to provide more weapons to Lebanon. -->
https://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/1153358489961582592
