US has not halted aid to Lebanese army
The United States supports the Lebanese Armed Forces and has not halted its financial assistance to those forces, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs David Schenker told reporters in Jerusalem on Wednesday. “We consider the funding of the LAF to be a good investment.”
Schenker spoke two days after Reuters reported that the Trump administration had withheld $105 million in security aid for Lebanon, following the resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri.
The State Department told Congress on Thursday that the White House budget office and National Security Council had decided to withhold the foreign military assistance, the two officials had told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Schenker said the US has not changed its policy regarding support for the Lebanese Armed Forces. He explained that the funds were undergoing “an internal process for reviewing financial assistance,” adding that the State Department was a “good steward of the taxpayer dollar.”
If the matter had not been leaked to the media, he said, no one would have even noticed, because the process had not gone on long enough to even constitute a delay.
“This is not on hold, per se,” Schenker said. “This is part of the process. No money has been delayed in providing to the LAF. They did not miss getting any equipment. If there hadn’t been a leak, there would not have been any story. This continues to go through the legal process.”
The internal process has nothing to do with an Israeli request that financial assistance to the Lebanese army be conditioned on its activity against Hezbollah’s stockpiling precision missiles to be used against Israel.
“The US has a lot of confidence in the Lebanese Armed Forces,” Schenker said. “We think they are an excellent partner in fighting Sunni jihadist terrorists. Of course, we listen to our ally Israel, and we will take their request into consideration.”
Regarding the disputed maritime border between Lebanon and Israel, Schenker said that the Lebanese were not yet ready to make a deal with Israel. The US, he said, is prepared to mediate such a deal.
Schenker, who arrived in Israel on Wednesday night and is slated to leave on Thursday, also addressed the issue of Iran, and said that US President Donald Trump is willing to meet his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani.
“The president has demonstrated he is willing to meet with anyone, [including] presidents [and] heads of state with whom the US has profound disagreements,” said Schenker. “Iran is no different than that. Absolutely, the president is willing to meet with his counterpart.”
The meeting has not happened because the Iranians have not wanted to speak with Trump.
“I think the administration made clear they are willing to engage with the Iranians,” said Schenker. “We have pursued this maximum pressure campaign to bring Iran to the table. The [Iranian] regime had planned on waiting out the [Trump] administration, but the economic pressure is so severe – double-digit negative growth, for example – that they could not wait.”
Iran has instead escalated its military activity, which he said was an obvious expression of frustration with the Trump administration “pressure campaign” of economic sanctions.
There has been “amazing, unthinkable strategic patience on the part of the president, but one has to ask whether his patience is infinite,” Schenker said.
Reuters contributed to this report.