What are the implications of US sanctions in Lebanon? | Inside Story

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:01]As Israel keeps up its attacks on Lebanon despite a ceasefire, the US has sanctioned nine people, including two Lebanese military officers accused of links to Hezbollah. It comes while Washington brokers more talks between Lebanese and Israeli officials. So why these sanctions now? This is Inside Story.

[00:00:36]Hey there, I'm Scott Mlan. There's been mixed reaction in Lebanon to US sanctions against nine people in the country. Washington accuses them of hindering the disarmament of Hezbollah, a critical US and Israeli demand. The Iranian-backed group, which is a powerful political and military force in Lebanon, calls the sanctions a badge of honor. Significantly, two Lebanese military officers are on the list. One is accused of sharing intelligence with Hezbollah. The Lebanese army says it had no advanced notice and issued a statement reaffirming its independence and loyalty to the state. And despite last month's US brokered ceasefire, Israel continues to attack Lebanon, killing more than 3,000 people since March. Now, the sanctions come as Washington is driving talks between Israeli and Lebanese officials, a process that does not include Hezbollah.

[00:01:25]So, why is the US taken this action now?

[00:01:27]And what's the significance? We'll discuss this with our guest shortly, but first, this report from Alexander Buyers.

[00:01:36]Despite a US brokered ceasefire in Lebanon, Israeli air strikes every night and every day continue to pummel towns across the south.

[00:01:46]At least six people killed in separate attacks on Thursday alone. Bodies being pulled from the rubble and funerals like this one where an entire family was laid to rest. Five children killed, the youngest Muhammad just 18 months old.

[00:02:07]these children. This family was killed during what is supposed to be a ceasefire. The Lebanese authorities who are engaging in talks with Israel are responsible for this. Israeli attacks have killed at least 3,000 people in Lebanon in the past 3 months. More than 400 since the ceasefire took effect in April. The US has been brokering peace talks between Israel and the Lebanese government. the first direct negotiations between the two sides in decades. Political talks are expected to resume at the beginning of June. And in just a week, military delegations are due to meet at the Pentagon. But Washington has just upped the pressure, announcing sanctions on nine people it accuses of supporting Hezbollah to quote, "underm Lebanon's sovereignty, obstructing the peace process, and impeding the disarmament of Hezbollah."

[00:03:00]They include four Hezbollah members, associated security officials, and an Iranian diplomat. But in a rare move, the US also sanctioned two officers from the Lebanese army and general security, accusing them of sharing important intelligence with Hezbollah over the past year.

[00:03:18]>> What this is saying is that if you're in politics, business, or the security services, and you have been aiding Hezbollah and undermining the sovereignty of the Lebanese government to think twice. There will be real consequences. We're focused on creating the good space good the space for those good faith conversations between the government of Israel and government government of Lebanon. And what we've seen from Hezbollah is a direct effort to derail those conversations including threats within Lebanon, including attacks against Israel.

[00:03:46]>> Hezbollah has called the sanctions a badge of honor and accused the US of intimidation ahead of the next round of talks. The group has condemned the Lebanese government's decision to engage with Israel, which has spurred mixed feelings across Lebanon, a country divided and now with its military under even more direct US political pressure.

[00:04:09]Alexander Buyers, Al Jazera for Inside Story.

[00:04:18]>> All right, let's bring in our guests now in Beirut. David Wood, a senior Lebanon analyst at the International Crisis Group. In Dayton, Ohio, Randa Slim, Middle East program director at the Stimson Center. And in Paris, Elijah Manet, a specialist in Middle East wars and regional military dynamics. Thank you all for being on the program here.

[00:04:35]David, we'll start with you. the fact that the US State Department is not just going after Hezbollah here, but also members of state institutions, the Lebanese military, the general security directorate which oversees borders here.

[00:04:50]What is the message that they're trying to send, you think? So I think the message is very clear and the United States obviously in coordination with Israel is using this latest announcement of sanctions as a way to further turn up the heat on uh the Lebanese state to take firm action on.

[00:05:10]So it is true that the the Lebanese president uh when he was elected at the start of 2025 uh and also the new prime minister of Lebanon uh committed to implementing a state monopoly over arms uh and of course that includes the disarmament of Hezbollah. However, up until now, uh, Lebanon's political leaders have been cautious and tried to attract Hezbollah's compliance and cooperation with disarmament rather than resorting to force and, you know, in particular deploying potentially the Lebanese army against Hezbollah to force it to surrender its weapons. Now uh as this uh situation has developed we've seen that the US has now taken as far as I'm aware an unprecedented step of sanctioning not just officials or officials associated with Harakat Amal the main ally of uh within Lebanese political system but but also sanctioning Lebanese security officers who are in active service. And while the US has justified this as saying that these uh particular officers are actually their ultimate allegiance lies with Hasbah and not with a Lebanese state. Uh it has two key problems. One is that targeted individual sanctions don't often work. They have a pretty low success rate in terms of actually changing the behavior of people sanctioned. And the other is that this is the latest in in a series of uh signals showing that the pressure campaign of the United States and Israel on the Lebanese state actually undermines its credibility. And now in this latest step, we have the US sanctioning active security officials who are Lebanese public officials uh and questioning their loyalty to the Lebanese State Project.

[00:06:52]>> Randa, do you agree with what David just said that said there? And what should we make of the timing here given that the Israeli and Lebanese military representatives are supposed to meet in Washington in just a few days from now?

[00:07:03]>> I mean, the timing definitely is a message here uh just ahead of this meeting on May 29. But let me uh contextualize this decision. The names of these officers have been on a list of potential sanctions for some time now.

[00:07:19]uh the LAF commander during his b uh February visit to DC was given a list of names and that predates the war uh between Lebanon uh Israel war on Lebanon and among these name I mean names of officers who are known to be actively cooperating with the withah and one of the names on that list was Colonel Hammedi and at the time uh the LAF commander the presidents have decided not to act on the and they and he was asked basically the LAF commander during his meetings in DC to remove these uh officers and at the time they did not act on it and so there was plenty of warning and there and and and the list includes other names. I heard of maybe two or three other names and I think their names will come up uh soon in in future designation. But the timing uh I mean why you uh DC decided to move ahead with this is has to do with again what David said upping the ante on the Lebanese government pushing it to take more forceful action againstah and uh a sort of coercive influence on on the Lebanese government ahead of the talks uh on May 29. This this designation is going to put u uh the president particularly who is leading uh who is official in Lebanon leading the direct negotiation between Israel and Lebanon is going to put him in a bind on two levels. Uh on on on inside Lebanon uh um there is already sus you know accusation by good segments of the society. The Lebanese society is divided on the issue of direct negotiation uh with Israel. there is a a suspicion that he is working according to dictates from uh the United States and and Israel as um you know as a uh because of the cooperation between the two uh sides uh in this war. Now that's on one hand so that's going to constrict his room for maneuvering on the negotiation domestically. On the other hand, the Lebanese army needs and relies on US funding for military training for and so this designation is going to put at risk at further risk uh potential funding US funding for the Lebanese army uh for training uh hardware whatever >> which of course would be very significant because the US and Israel are asking the Lebanese armed forces to be the ones to disarm Hezbollah. Elijah, I want to bring you in because the Lebanese military came out with a statement essentially denying that these uh security personnel passed anything on to Hezbollah. The statement said that the loyalty of military personnel is solely to the military institution and to the nation. I mean, this is a pretty serious accusation that's being made by the US State Department here. Shouldn't the Lebanese military at least want to look into it?

[00:10:26]>> It's a fair question. If we look at the history of the Lebanese army and we take the very recent president uh Joseph who was in the picture that you just uh showed minute ago he was a chief of staff and he was the first to collaborate with Hezbollah as a de facto non-state actor armed and operating in the south of Lebanon. In fact, nothing works in Lebanon without a cooperation and agreement among all the different sects, particularly those who can make a difference on the ground. Therefore, this is not new for the Lebanese army to cooperate and coordinate with Hezbollah.

[00:11:15]That's one. Two, the timing is extremely important. the former chief of staff who became a president said that he he's willing to go to meet Benjamin Netanyahu without mentioning him. He said I'm going to I'm ready to do anything and uh do everything that is required of me.

[00:11:38]That was at the first beginning when he said Donald Trump was his friend after receiving the first contact through the phone. So that was a message that sent a wave among one sect that represent more than a third in a country that actually going against the current. If we look at the identity of these officers, they are Shia and we look up is a Shia organization. The Amal movement is against the Shia organization. So there is a kind of misunderstanding by the by the US administration thinking that they can actually win or allow Israel to win where Israel is not capable of defeating eliminating Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon. And the Israeli did not really give a chance to the Lebanese president when he managed to secure the south of the Lean River, clean from Hezbollah and all the weapons and offer it to Lebanon for the stability. But the Israeli rejected the cooperation when the US envoy Thomas Barak said actually the Israelis no longer recognize the borders. Therefore, this act today is really kind of declaring the Shia as an entity that is need to be put under control and pushing these officers and all those who are in the army to think that can be targeted and most probably produce a counter effect and to rally around Hezbollah and Amal.

[00:13:30]rather against it. And the biggest misunderstanding of the US administration is not new. At the during Joe Biden, we had Amos who came and scold the US embassy and the Libanese who thought they can really isolate and the Shia from the parliament and government. But his clever ways stopped it. Today we have an a new administration saying that like the US ambassador in Lebanon, those who do not agree with this path of peace with Israel can leave. And he's talking about more than 30 to 40% of the population which fit with Pompeo when he was foreign minister saying Hezbollahan needs to be removed from Lebanon. We're talking about embedded sovereignty within the society.

[00:14:24]>> Sure.

[00:14:25]>> That not as a group of people that one can take and put and relocate somewhere else.

[00:14:30]>> Sure. You and you make a lot of points in there. You also mentioned the Amal movement. Some of these sanctions are tank are targeting people within the Amal movement which is the other Shia political party that the Lebanese speaker belongs to. The other Shia political party in Lebanon of course is Hezbollah. And I wonder David whether you think that going after the Amal movement with these sanctions is maybe sending a message to the Lebanese speaker who is against direct talks between Lebanon and Israel to get with the program to get on board and to start supporting this so that these talks have a bit more legitimacy within the country because all of the major sects within Lebanon will be represented.

[00:15:10]>> Absolutely. And there has long been discussion about how the United States might try to use sanctions against Speaker B as a way to get him to change his behavior and perhaps by uh sanctioning members of the Harat Amal.

[00:15:27]This is a way to again reinliven that threat towards the speaker uh and potentially make him uh more supportive of negotiations and more generally to provide a political alternative to for the Shia community. rather than continuing to move in lock step. The issue of course is that again I mean sanctions have a pretty low success rate in changing behavior and even the threat of sanctions which has loomed over speaker for years now has ultimately not really changed his behavior. So when this latest war uh broke out on the 2nd of March, his ministers in the government supported the government's decision to ban Hezbollah's military wing. But as you've just mentioned, we're 2 months and a bit on from then.

[00:16:09]And um Harakat Amal is supporting Hezbollah's stance, which is that any negotiations with Israel should be indirect and not direct. So there's another problem here as well which is that something that Elijah mentioned which I think is worth considering is that >> trying to create a cleavage between and Amal risks feeding into this perception which exists for some Lebanese Shia which is that this war is not just a war of Israel onah but a war of Israel on the Shia community in general with the backing of the United States. So if the United States proceeds down this path of continuing to apply pressure on the Shia community and perhaps in particular one of its most prominent leaders then this uh does run the risk of fueling that counternarrative that it's not just that's under threat in this ongoing war but the Shia community at large and this is especially tentative when so hundreds of thousands of Shia are currently displaced uh and under the threat of being displaced even further and having no shelter available at all. Of course, and I want to ask you guys about the potential split that this could cause within the country, within the military institutions. But I just want to go back for a second to to Randa's point earlier, which was that look, if the US through these sanctions is effectively saying that Hezbollah is within these state institutions, well, they may look at no longer funding those state institutions like the Lebanese armed forces. And I just want to read you what Marco Rubio said about the US's plan for Lebanon last month. He said uh that look the ultimate answer both sides agree is a Lebanese armed forces with the capability to go after and disarm and dismantle Hezbollah inside their country. And that's what we're working toward establishing is a system that actually works where vetted units within the Lebanese armed forces have the training, the equipment, and the capability to go after elements of Hezbollah and dismantle them so Israel doesn't have to do it. So um my question to you Randa is is that realistic to train specifically units within the Lebanese armed forces to go after and disarm Hezbollah or is this pie in the sky?

[00:18:19]>> I mean first let me say something about Ber's position. uh his message to the Americans what is I'm not going to endorse publicly the direct negotiation between Israel and Lebanon but I'm not going to also block them or oppose them u so I think his position is is nuanced in terms of uh of the direct negotiations uh and uh he's going to see what they will amount to and so far they have failed at delivering the ceasefire that the Lebanese want in terms of this unit within the Lebanese army to go afterah. I think uh the Americans have tra have tried this kind of approach in the past and it fails. It's not going to work. Um and uh and it's a wrong assumption. Not every Shia military officers is probah. But I think as uh the speakers uh said um today the Shia community feels under threat as a community uh uh and this move is going to reinforce this feeling. And so if you look at one of the most recent public opinion polls u uh of Lebanese visav a number of issues including direct negotiation including whether the Lebanese president and the prime minister are doing a a good job. What comes across this poll is this feeling of of of a majority mood within the Shia community of being targeted of the direct negotiation being against them and threatening uh their future of and so I think that's that's going to put a lot of pressure on um on the Lebanese president again and the Lebanese head and the head of the and the commander of the Lebanese army.

[00:20:09]about this kind of next move that the Americans want to proceed with because in my opinion that's a recipe for a major break inside the Lebanese army and we have seen that happen in the past during the Lebanese civil war. It did not end well for Lebanon and I think we are we might be seeing a repeat of that scenario but along different sectarian lines this time.

[00:20:31]>> Interesting. Um, Elijah Marco Rubio's quote that I just read you there sort of implies that they don't trust the Lebanese army as a whole. And I just wonder, is it naive to think that there aren't, you know, sections of the Lebanese army that maybe are more loyal to Hezbollah or to their sect than they are to the state as a whole. Marco Rubio is not a military and is not consulting the military. Militarily speaking, no one can operate in a hostile environment.

[00:21:05]Hezbollah would die in 24 hours if the population is against it.

[00:21:11]>> But that's not what I'm asking. I'm just asking whether in the the Lebanese military if there's people who maybe are more loyal to sect than to to the state.

[00:21:19]Go ahead.

[00:21:20]>> I'm coming to that. So sending a specific unit in the Lebanese army to operate against Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon or in the suburb of Beirut or in the Bea Valley. It's a suicide mission because it will be operating in a very hostile environment particularly when the objective is stated as such.

[00:21:45]Therefore, the mere idea to send the unit, it means that he doesn't really understand how the Lebanese army functions that the chief of staff will never agree on such an idea because he is a professional military and he knows where this going and even the president is a professional military and he knows that this is not feasible. Therefore, ideas just trying to be digested in Washington cannot be applied on the ground in Lebanon. These are fantasies and ideas thrown uh just in the air to see if someone can pick up these ideas and perhaps materialize them with the help of supporters or anti-Hisbah people. But at the end of the day, there is an institution that needs to last for all of Lebanon. And the Lebanese army will not survive without being completely split if the Americans want to impose a section of the Lebanese army. And even if they are insinuating a section that they are already training, which are the special forces that are linked to the Lebanese Army intelligence services that operate within the army under the direct command of the chief of staff. The chief of staff is not going to agree to give these forces in the hand of an American project in Lebanon.

[00:23:16]David, do you agree that splitting the military in this way risks also splitting it along sectarian lines?

[00:23:24]>> Well, absolutely. And and in fact, what it really does, this kind of plan to create special units inside the army to go after Hazblah is almost realizes the fear of fragmentation ahead of the fact.

[00:23:36]So just to to remind your viewers, I mean the reason that the president uh and the political leadership in general is so worried about deploying the Lebanese army to confront Hazblah is that as um Randa mentioned before the several times during the civil war the Lebanese army split along sectarian lines. So this is a a live risk that um the the president Joseph who's the former commander of the army is in a uniquely uh good position to understand the relative strength of the army which he commanded and hbah which in his capacity as the army commander he worked alongside for many years. So he knows perhaps better than anybody uh the pros and cons of making that decision. But ultimately uh he came to power on the promise of implementing a state monopoly over arms. uh there was this recent government decision to ban Hzbollah's military wings. So ultimately it's open for the Lebanese to demand of their leaders that they take firmer action on disarming Hezbollah. But in my view at least I would say that that's not that's a decision for the Lebanese people to make and it's not one that should be made under juristic um from external powers obviously in this case the United States in coordination with Israel.

[00:24:49]Randa, I want to ask also ask about these talks coming up and what might ultimately stop the fighting in southern Lebanon and get the Israelis to withdraw or at least stop striking. Do you think that there can be a peace deal between the United States and Iran that doesn't also include Lebanon? Or do you think that the Iranians may go along with a deal that allows the fighting to continue there? Yes, I think the Iranian may go along with a deal that will allow the fighting to go on. Um but the problem is going to be if that's the case uh that's going to be putting again the Lebanese president who is the official responsible for the direct negotiations uh between is Lebanon and Israel in a very tough position domestically especially given the fact that what looks like now Iran is going to emerge the winner of this u fight uh between with the with the United States if the reports about a potential letter of intent to be signed, extension of the ceasefire for the next 30 days. We all know that Trump is not going to go for this war that's going to decapitate the Iranian regime, cause the kind of regime collapse that that Israeli allies desire. So if that's where the case and Iran emerge stronger and more powerful and richer because of the tolls that they're going to be exacting going forward, that's going to have repercussion inside Lebanon in terms of Hezbollah's positioning within the domestic uh political uh structure and and and especially given the fact that I don't think these negotiation whether the military ones between the United States and Lebanon or the political ones are going to lead yield right now any kind of maneuvering room or uh decrease in the operational tempo of the Israeli ar of the Israeli uh basically actions military actions uh in south of Lebanon.

[00:26:52]This is a an election year for uh Mr. Netanyahu. The war on Lebanon is supported by a great majority of the Israeli society and he's not going to embark on any kind of action that will yield the kind of ceasefire that the Lebanese government and especially the president needs in order to get to to keep this maneuvering room to proceed with these negotiations.

[00:27:16]>> All right, it is a fascinating discussion. I certainly wish we had more time. We appreciate you all being here.

[00:27:20]That's uh David Wood, Randa Sleim, and Elijah Manet.

[00:27:25]And thank you for watching as well. You can see the program again anytime by visiting our website algazir.com. And for further discussion, go to our Facebook page. That's facebook.com/j insidetory. You can also join the conversation on X. Our handle is AJ inside. For now, that's it for me, Scott Mlan, and the entire team here in Doha.

[00:27:46]Alazer's coverage continues in a moment.

[00:27:48]Stay tuned. Yeah.

[00:27:52]Heat.