If President Aoun fails to disarm Hezbollah by the end of the year—and there will always be reasons both political and tactical to delay—then the group will without any doubt return.
Lebanese Armed Forces vehicles will face improvised explosive devices and Hezbollah snipers will terrorize those who seek to vote to change the order of things in the south.
Hezbollah’s survivors will not fade into the woodwork and accept a quiet retirement or integrate into the system. Mark my words. Hezbollah embraces an ideology that brokers no compromise.
The Trump administration can help, both with diplomatic pressure on Aoun, assistance for the Lebanese Armed Forces that, for the first time, has an opportunity to rid itself of Hezbollah, and reconstruction of southern Lebanon, perhaps using several billion dollars sitting in Iranian accounts in Qatari banks.
If the White House or Congress worry about diversion of money as in the past, then they should immediately set up alternative mechanisms to bypass Beirut’s corrupt elites.
At the end of the day, and when excising an infection, the worst option is taking 90 percent of the antibiotics just because the wound is closing; to do so guarantees the infection will come raging back, stronger than ever.
Let this sink in....