National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley on Lebanon

 

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 18, 2008

Press Briefing by the National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley
Continental Garden Reef Resort
Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt

EXCERPTS

Lebanon, there also is an opportunity. As you know, there are negotiations going on among the major Lebanese factions, being brokered by Arab leaders and by the Arab League. This can lead to an end to the political stalemate, but only if it does not reward Hezbollah, and if it supports the elected government that was put in office by the people of Lebanon. And part of that opportunity is the fact that the people of Lebanon are realizing that in the events of the last 10 days, Hezbollah was not, as they claimed, defending Lebanon against Israel; Hezbollah was using its militia against the Lebanese government and against the Lebanese people. And that is the context in which those discussions need to occur.

 

It is important that all the regional states who share the concern about what's happening in the region, are willing to make strategic investments in peace and a better future for the Middle East by supporting the Lebanese government, by supporting Salam Fayyad and President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, and by supporting Iraq in its struggle against illegal militias in the southern part of its country.

Hezbollah made a move in the last 10 days, and at one level it had tactical success in their ability to terrorize the Lebanese people and threaten the government, and that looks like a tactical success. One of the things that's interesting is that people in the region and people in Lebanon are now suggesting that it perhaps was a strategic failure, because it stripped away the rationale that Hezbollah has used to protect its militia from being disbanded and brought under the authority of the government.

And that rationale was, the militia was needed to defend Lebanon against Israel, and what we saw in the last 10 days, and what the Lebanese people are beginning to say is, hey, this militia was used against us and against our duly-elected government. And that is an opportunity for the Lebanese forces of democracy and freedom, and for those in the region that support it, to hold Hezbollah to account and hopefully to clip its wings a little bit. We will have to see. This is a story very much in progress.