How the US Helped Push Lebanon to the Brink of Collapse, and now Threatens More Sanctions

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While the media blames the crisis in Lebanon solely on corruption, the US government unleashed a âmaximum pressureâ campaign to push regime change and crush Lebanese resistance with sanctions and aggressive hybrid warfare.
By Ben Norton – Aug 13, 2020
As the people of Lebanon suffer through one of the worst economic crises in their nationâs conflict-ridden history, the Donald Trump administration is exploiting the disaster to force regime change and weaken Lebanese resistance groups.
A massive explosion on August 4 devastated Lebanonâs capital Beirut, killing more than 150 people, wounding thousands, leaving hundreds of thousands homeless, and ravaging a sizable chunk of the city.
The massive blast also destroyed Lebanonâs most important port, where 80 percent of food was imported into the country.
Even before the apocalyptic incident, Lebanon was enduring an economic calamity that had caused hyperinflation and wiped out the wealth of much of the country, fueling widespread food shortages and 20-hour blackouts.
Lebanonâs economy is now in a state of total collapse. The value of its national currency has plummeted by 80 percent, and more than half of the population is languishing in poverty.
Political kingpins, activists, Western government-funded NGOs, and international corporate media have blamed Lebanonâs problems solely on corruption. And there is no question that widespread financial impropriety and outright theft was a key factor in bringing the country to such a dismal point.
But an even more important element that has been conveniently left out of this picture is the role of the United States, and its allies in Israel and Saudi Arabia, which have pursued a concerted policy of destabilization, or what they call âmaximum pressure.â
Washington has suffocated Lebanon and its neighbors with aggressive economic warfare, explicitly aimed at paralyzing the country and weakening Hezbollah, one of the most powerful and popular resistance forces in the region, which has successfully resisted US and Israeli interventionist designs, helped defeat ISIS and al-Qaeda, and even expelled the Israeli military after two decades of brutal military occupation of south Lebanon.
Hezbollah has a political arm that is democratically elected, holding 12 seats in Lebanonâs parliament, and which has been a member of the countryâs governing coalition for a decade. Because of the resistance movementâs presence in government, Washington and Tel Aviv have refused to recognize the legitimacy of Lebanese democracy, and have desperately pursued regime change.
The crushing sanctions Washington has imposed on Syria and Iran have not only devastated the economies in the area; they have produced a ricochet effect back in Lebanon, severing the country from regional trading partners.
Then there is the nine-year Western-backed proxy war on the government in Damascus, which has destabilized Lebanonâs neighbor and unleashed a historic refugee crisis, putting enormous pressure on Beirut.
All of these factors have led to a catastrophe in Lebanon.
Trump administration pushes âmaximum pressureâ campaign on Lebanon
The response of the Trump administration to the fateful Beirut blast was more sanctions.
The Wall Street Journal reported on August 12 that the US government was preparing to impose new sanctions âagainst prominent Lebanese politicians and businessmen in an effort to weaken Hezbollahâs influence.â
The newspaper noted that the blast âhas accelerated efforts in Washington to blacklist Lebanese leaders aligned with Hezbollah.â It added that US officials see the post-explosion chaos as âan opportunity to drive a wedge between Hezbollah and its allies as part of a broader effort to contain the Shiite force backed by Tehran.â
Top US officials want to âturn the screws in Lebanon,â the Journal reported. It quoted an unnamed official who remarked, âI donât see how you can react to this kind of event with anything other than maximum pressureâ â a reference to the Trump administrationâs âmaximum pressureâ campaign to bring about regime change in Iran.
The Trump administration is preparing anticorruption sanctions against Hezbollahâs allies in Lebanon, as it seeks to weaken the group in the aftermath of the Beirut explosion https://t.co/jOnnuzAayT
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) August 12, 2020
Senior US officials remarked bluntly that they want Lebanonâs current government to be replaced with a âtechnocraticâ regime that shuns Hezbollah.
This demand confirmed a 2019 report in The Grayzone by journalist Rania Khalek, which detailed how Western-backed NGOs in Lebanon were exploiting anti-corruption protests to advance a strategy to remove Hezbollah from the countryâs governing coalition and install US-aligned, IMF-friendly technocrats.
The Wall Street Journal also acknowledged that the Trump âadministrationâs existing sanction programs against Hezbollahâ have already âtaken an economic tollâ on Lebanon.
Washington has therefore made it clear that it has no problem pushing Lebanon deeper into the economic abyss, to the edge of state collapse, in hopes of neutralizing Hezbollah.
Washingtonâs all-out war on the âResistance Axisâ
The crisis in Lebanon cannot be understood outside of the wider context of the overarching, obsessive US strategy aimed at crushing what is known as the âResistance Axis,â in which Hezbollah serves as a key actor.
The ongoing, nearly decade-long war on Syria looms large in this situation. When the US government and its allies in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey initiated a regime-change war against Syria in 2011 and 2012, Hezbollah immediately recognized the proxy conflict as an attack on all resistance forces in the region, which would inevitably swallow Lebanon as well.
So while Washington and the Wahhabi Gulf monarchies poured billions of dollars into arming and training Salafi-jihadist rebels groups in Syria, giving birth to ISIS and fueling the spread of al-Qaeda, Lebanese Hezbollah helped to prevent state collapse in Damascus, battling Western proxies that threatened to turn the country into a failed state, as they did in Libya after the 2011 NATO regime-change war.
Some US lawmakers openly argued in Congress that it was a âgood thingâ that ISIS and other Sunni extremists were attacking âHezbollah and the Shiite threat to us.â And an Israeli think tank funded by the US government and NATO even insisted in 2016 that ISIS should not be defeated, precisely because it could âbe a useful tool in underminingâ Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran.
Meanwhile, as Israel treated al-Qaeda militants in its hospitals and Israeli officials said they preferred ISIS staying in power, Hezbollah played a key role in the fight to defeat ISIS and al-Qaeda, both of which had crossed from Syria into Lebanon and took over Sunni-majority border towns, which they subsequently used as bases to launch attacks on Shia- and Christian-majority Lebanese villages.
Hezbollah successfully expelled these extremist Salafi-jihadist groups, and defended Lebanese sovereignty, in collaboration with Christian militias, Sunnis and Druze, and the Lebanese national army itself.
Faced with its own failure in the military component of the war in Syria, Washington then turned to full-scale economic warfare.
US economic warfare on Lebanon, Syria, and Iran
In June, the US government imposed a crushing unilateral coercive measures regime on Syria known as the âCaesarâ sanctions. The Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal detailed how the US and European sanctions on Syria effectively amount to a medieval-style siege of the entire country, and all of the millions of civilians who live inside of it.
Humanitarian experts have even warned that the Western economic warfare could unleash a famine. The United Nation Food and Agriculture Organizationâs Syria representative, Mike Robson, cautioned there may soon be bread shortages in Syria. âThere is already some evidence of people cutting out meals,â he stated.
The economic blockade has also damaged the economy in Lebanon, which has been virtually unable to do business with one of its most important trading partners. In 2017, Lebanon was by far the largest recipient of Syrian goods, receiving nearly 32 percent of its exports. Now, the sanctions have made that exchange nearly impossible.
The US ambassador in fact explicitly stated that Lebanon would not be allowed to buy energy from Syria due to the Caesar sanctions. The US-imposed severance of the two neighbors has exacerbated the electricity crisis in Lebanon, where there are often power shortages for up to 22 hours per day.
The US economic blockade of Iran has also caused a fuel shortage in Syria, forcing people to wait in lines for hours to get gasoline.
Moreover, Damascus had relied on the Beirut port for imports prior to the explosion. Now that its crucial economic lifeline has been destroyed, both Lebanon and Syria are facing extremely severe crises and the serious possibility of famine.
A Syrian-American economist, financial analyst, and prominent online commentator known by the pseudonym Ehsani told The Grayzone âthere is little doubtâ that the Syria war has terribly impacted Lebanonâs economy.
While disastrous, fiscally unsound policies overseen by the Lebanese central bank â which is also heavily influenced by the US embassy â played an important role in pushing the nation to the economic brink, the war on Syria has also hurt the Lebanese economy âin a big way,â Ehsani said.
âEconomic growth clearly decelerated since 2011,â the start of the war in Syria, he explained. âAnd it ground to a halt in the past few years, leading up to the financial crisis. Between 2016 and 2019, Lebanonâs economic growth was practically zero. And it kept declining from its pre-2011 levels steadily.â
While corruption is an endemic problem in Lebanon, it has plagued the country for decades. Yet a pivotal economic shift occurred with the introduction of the US policy of exacerbating the crises in the region to destabilize independent governments and weaken the Resistance Axis, explained journalist Elijah J. Magnier, a war correspondent who has covered the region for decades.
âThe US sanctions crippled the Syrian economy due to the restriction of the flow of cash, oil, and machinery needed to re-boost the local economy,â Magnier told The Grayzone. âMoreover, the US presence in north-east Syria and their control of the oil and gas prevented the country not only from vital energy but also from the rich agriculture resources the area is known for.â
âThe US sanctions on Syria stopped all Arab and Gulf countries from rebuilding the country and pushed back all possible financial investment,â he said. âThis has caused the devaluation of the local currency and prevented the Lebanese market from offering an alternative to Syria for fear of direct sanctions on the Lebanese government.â
Magnier added: âAs far as it concerns Lebanon, the US asked a local bank to collect over $20 billion in cash and to ship it abroad, creating a real thirst for foreign currency in the country. Moreover, the US imposed sanctions on wealthy Lebanese living abroad and on more than one bank, injecting real fear among the population of being accused of supporting terrorism or seeing their savings confiscated by the US authorities abroad. That has starved Lebanon of several billion dollars in cash that family members used to send back home to their relatives.â
US boasts of impact of sanctions on Lebanon, and CENTCOM commander visits
While imposing de facto economic blockades on Syria and Iran, the United States has hit Lebanon with several rounds of what it calls âtargeted sanctions.â These US Treasury sanctions on Lebanon have sought to punish Hezbollah and its allies in the government and business sector.
While Washington portrays targeted sanctions as supposed humanitarian measures that do not hurt civilians, economic experts say this is patently false.
Ehsani, the Syrian-American economist, told The Grayzone, âThe effects of the US sanctions on the region is to push most business transactions underground. Lawless rogue elements typically fill the void as more legitimate businesses exit the scene. Such legitimate businesses do this because most global organizations opt to follow an âover-complianceâ posture to avoid any chance of getting entangled in such transactions.â
US sanctions have also hurt Lebanon by âthe loss of potential money inflows that had fallen under significantly more scrutiny from US Treasury,â Ehsani added. âHow much of the average $7-8 billion yearly inflow got affected by these sanctions is hard to ascertain.â
âWhile Western capitals speak of âsmart sanctions,â the fact is that even industries exempt from sanctions tend to quickly fall under the sanctions regime. This can be seen with importers of raw materials for medicine for example,â he explained.
âWhat has been clear is that benign sanctions are a myth,â Ehsani said. âSanctions are akin to carpet bombing the standards of living of the average citizen.â
Before the August 4 explosion, Washington itself acknowledged that its sanctions were stinging Lebanon.
Just two weeks before the Beirut blast, the US government-run media outlet Voice of America (VOA) celebrated the effect its coercive measures were having. âUS Sanctions on Syria Leave Hezbollah More Isolated in Lebanon,â it gloated.
The VOA report noted that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had described the US sanctions as part of an âeconomic warâ aimed at âstarving both Syria and Lebanon.â
The neoconservative group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) approvingly tweeted the VOA article, insisting that the resistance ânetwork is vast, but it can be reined in.â
The Caesar Syrian Civilian Protection Act introduced sanctions on the Syrian regime, which could deter Hezbollah from pushing Lebanese state institutions from assisting Assad. The network is vast, but it can be reined in. https://t.co/ttNgsio7I8
— UANI (@UANI) July 20, 2020
This VOA report came on the heels of a quiet yet important visit that the commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), General Frank McKenzie, took to Beirut on July 8, to pressure the Lebanese Army to distance itself from Hezbollah and strengthen its bonds with the US military.
The US embassy in Lebanon reported that the CENTCOM commander met with top Lebanese political and military officials. Lebanese President Michel Aoun tweeted a photo of a meeting with McKenzie and the US ambassador, Dorothy Shea.
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Ůا،د اŮŮŮاد؊ اŮŮسء٠Ů٠اŮŘŹŮŘ´ اŮŘŁŮ ŮŘąŮ٠اŮŘŹŮعا٠ŮŮŮŮŘŤ ٠اŮŮŮز٠بؚد ŮŮا،٠اŮع،ŮŘł ŘšŮŮ: ٠ست٠عŮ٠بدؚ٠اŮŘŹŮŘ´ اŮŮبŮاŮ٠اŮ٠داŮŘš ؚ٠استŮŮا٠ŮبŮا٠ŮŘłŮادت٠pic.twitter.com/TcvPi5wXrp
— Lebanese Presidency (@LBpresidency) July 8, 2020
Saudi monarchy-backed media outlet Al Arabiya reported gleefully on the CENTCOM visit, chirping, âUS general affirms support for Lebanon; Hezbollah supporters burn Trump photos.â
The quiet US junket demonstrated that, on the eve of the Beirut blast, Washington was already ratcheting up its pressure on Lebanonâs government.
.@CENTCOM Commander General Kenneth McKenzie discussed his visit to Lebanon and U.S. support for @LebArmyOfficial in his interview with @LBCI_NEWS https://t.co/xBY52UoPCM
— U.S. Embassy Beirut (@usembassybeirut) July 9, 2020
Western governments, NGOs, and media try to pin Beirut blast on Hezbollah
The August 4 explosion appears to have been the result of the explosion of thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate that the Lebanese government confiscated from an abandoned ship in 2013 and improperly stored at the Beirut port, violating safety protocol.
The Lebanese government, which resigned a week after the blast, officially attributed the incident to negligence. But President Michel Aoun acknowledged it could have possibly been the result an attack.
Some Beirut residents told Asia Times that they saw and heard military aircraft flying overhead moments before the explosion.
Asia Times also reported, citing unnamed Western officials, âthat Western reconnaissance craft were in the skies above the Lebanese coast at the time of the blasts,â although the officials denying carrying out an attack.
A US Central Command official told Asia Times that the âcause of the first fire/explosion is still an unanswered question,â adding that there is no âactual evidence to support or confirm thatâ it was caused by ammonium nitrate, and that âother alternativesâ are possible.
Although the incident appears to have been an accident, some Lebanese analysts have suggested the blast could have potentially been an attack by Israel, which militarily occupied south Lebanon for more than 20 years and waged a devastating war in 2006, brutally bombing Lebanon and leaving more than 1,000 Lebanese dead and parts of the country in ruins.
Israel violates Lebanonâs sovereign airspace on a daily basis. In 2019, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon reported an average of 96.5 violations each month. UN Secretary-General AntĂłnio Guterres even spoke out against the Israeli aggression, stating, âI reiterate my condemnation of all violations of Lebanese sovereignty and my call for Israel to cease its violations of Lebanese airspace.â
Despite the presence of Western aircraft during the explosion, the history of Israeli attacks, and the constant Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace, there has been a concerted campaign to try to pin the blast on Hezbollah, waged by the US and Israeli governments, a coterie of hawkish think tanks, and a sizable portion of the corporate media.
There is not even a scintilla of evidence linking Hezbollah to the explosion. In fact, the Lebanese resistance group would have everything to lose if it were involved.
But this didnât stop the Atlantic Council, NATOâs de facto think tank, which is funded handsomely by the governments of the United States, Britain, and United Arab Emirates, along with top weapons and oil corporations. The Atlantic Councilâs Gulf monarchy-backed Rafik Hariri Center tried to link Hezbollah to the blast with nothing more than insinuations.
"Hezbollah is acutely aware of the danger that such chemicalsâeven if not of a military gradeâpose to nearby civilians, perhaps more so than any other entity in Lebanon," writes @DavidADaoud in MENAsource.
Read more âŹď¸ https://t.co/N62M3U1k85
— The Atlantic Council Middle East Initiatives (@ACMideast) August 7, 2020
Then there was the hawkish executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth. Never one to let something like a death of evidence get in the way of his mindless speculation about Washingtonâs foreign adversaries, Roth immediately implied after the blast that Hezbollah was responsible. He did not provide a shred of evidence; it was just his gut instinct.
Pro-Western protesters in Lebanon have also seized on the chaos to call for the dissolution of the Lebanese armed resistance.
Following the explosion, anti-Hezbollah groups took over Lebanese government buildings and unfurled banners calling for Beirut to demilitarize â an obvious demand for Hezbollah to put down its weapons and end its fight against Israel.
The US and Saudi have once again sought to capitalize on politically engineered tragedies in Lebanon using their local proxies. Legitimate fury about the Beirut blast has been channeled into a sectarian campaign to disarm Hizbullah by interventionists with neo-colonial fantasies pic.twitter.com/Ml7VfOQVku
— Amal Saad (@amalsaad_lb) August 9, 2020
The US embassy in Beirut openly welcomed these demonstrations, tweeting openly, âWe support them.â
1/2 The Lebanese people have suffered too much and deserve to have leaders who listen to them and change course to respond to popular demands for transparency and accountability.
— U.S. Embassy Beirut (@usembassybeirut) August 8, 2020
US pledges âaidâ while intentionally exacerbating Lebanonâs economic crisis
Even as the Trump administration threatens to impose more aggressive sanctions on Lebanon, seeking to punish forces that support the Resistance Axis, the US government has pledged humanitarian aid to the country.
Moments after the explosion, Washington put its public relations operations into hyperdrive, seeking to portray itself as a noble protector of Lebanon.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo â the former CIA director who quipped, âWe lied, we cheated, we stole; we had entire training coursesâ â promised support following the blast.
Spoke this morning with Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab to express my deepest condolences in the wake of the horrible explosion in Beirut. The U.S. stands in solidarity with the Lebanese people and remains committed to assist with the aftermath of this terrifying event.
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) August 5, 2020
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a soft-power arm that Washington uses to destabilize foreign governments it has targeted for regime change, announced it would be providing Lebanon with humanitarian aid.
John Barsa, the hardline neoconservative Trump loyalist recently installed as head of the USAID, who has explicitly used the ostensible aid agency as a weapon to overthrow the progressive governments in Latin America, announced support for Lebanon the next day.
https://twitter.com/JBarsaUSAID/status/1291144500765757445?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1291144500765757445%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthegrayzone.com%2F2020%2F08%2F13%2Fus-lebanon-sanctions-regime-change%2F
US Central Command revealed that they were working with USAID to distribute medical supplies to Lebanon.
.@USAIDSavesLives and @USAID provide critical medical supplies to assist the people of #Lebanon #BeirutSupport @usembassybeirut @USAFCENT https://t.co/uzdwiIDaJD
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) August 11, 2020
Ironically, in the weeks before the explosion, as Lebanonâs government begged for an economic lifeline, Washington was dragging its feet.
As millions Lebanese citizens struggled to put food on the table, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also refused to play ball. This baffled many international observers. Left unmentioned in coverage of the IMFâs behavior was the de facto veto the US holds in the organization, which it wields as a neoliberal instrument of Washingtonâs economic power.
âThe IMF conditions include privatization and taxes the Lebanese society canât afford,â the journalist Elijah Magnier explained to The Grayzone. âMoreover, the IMF is controlled by the US administration, which is asking for a new government without Hezbollah. That is not feasible because Hezbollah represents 13 MPs and enjoys the support of the majority of the parliament.â
Magnier also emphasized that when Lebanon had assembled a new government in the middle of the crisis, under Prime Minister Hassan Diab, Washington waged a destabilization campaign.
âWith the formation of a new government, the US boycotted it and pressured Europe and the Gulf countries to cease any support, defining it as âHezbollahâs government,’â Magnier said. âThese measures contributed in the hectic financial situation in the country, which was also triggered by decades of corruption and mismanagement by the US friends who ruled Lebanon for all these years.â
The pro-Israel lobby group the American Jewish Committee (AJC) let the cat out of the bag when it tweeted on August 9 that international assistance to Lebanon following the explosion âmust be conditioned on the long-promised, long-avoided disarmament of Hezbollah.â
AJC made it clear that Western aid will be hung over Lebanon like a sword of Damocles, adding, âUnless the malignant role of Iranâs terror proxy is addressed there will never be meaningful change for the people of Lebanon.â
So-called Western "aid" for Lebanon is going to be predicated on removing Hezbollah from the government (even though it was democratically elected) and disarming the Lebanese resistance to US imperialism / Israeli colonialismhttps://t.co/R3ZuMfmE1k
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) August 9, 2020
Magnier also pointed out that the amount in international aid being offered to Lebanon is relatively little. â35 countries gathered all to offer to the UN and NGOs in Lebanon $300 million, the equivalent of what Hezbollah spend in less than five months in the country, only on salaries,â he said.
Meanwhile, as millions of Lebanese civilians suffer, financial analysts expect the US campaign of economic warfare and âmaximum pressureâ to only continue going forward.
âThe sanctions policy are likely to stay,â Ehsani told The Grayzone. âThis policy is more acceptable to the average Western electorate than direct military involvement. Policy makers are therefore likely to make more use of them post the Iraq debacle. Regional governments and average citizens will bear the brunt of this silent evisceration of their economic well being.â
Benjamin Norton is the founder and editor of the independent news website Multipolarista, where he does original reporting in both English and Spanish. Benjamin has reported from numerous countries, including Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Colombia, and more. His journalistic work has been published in dozens of media outlets, and he has done interviews on Sky News, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now, El Financiero Bloomberg, Al Mayadeen teleSUR, RT, TRT World, CGTN, Press TV, HispanTV, Sin Censura, and various TV channels in Mexico, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Benjamin writes a regular column for Al Mayadeen (in English and Spanish). He was formerly a reporter with the investigative journalism website The Grayzone, and previously produced the political podcast and video show Moderate Rebels. His personal website is BenNorton.com, and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.
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