Middle East

Documents & Texts from America.gov

25 March 2009
United States Committed to Free, Democratic Lebanon

By David McKeeby
Staff Writer

Washington — Renewed engagement with Syria will not supplant America’s unwavering support for a free, democratic Lebanon, says a top U.S. diplomat.

Such support is a key component to lasting peace and security in the Middle East, adds acting Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman.

"Our underlying policies aren't changing just because we're talking to Syria," Feltman told a congressional panel March 24. "We're not going to make a deal at Lebanon's expense. We're not going to let Syria off the hook."

Feltman, who served as U.S. ambassador to Lebanon from 2004 to 2008, and is currently the acting assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, recently returned to the region. While there, he visited Lebanon as it prepares for June 7 parliamentary elections, and Syria, where he conveyed the Obama administration's willingness to re-engage diplomatically and pressed for progress toward normalizing relations between Syria and Lebanon following the end of nearly 30 years of Syrian occupation in 2005.

"We have very, very serious concerns with Syrian behavior, and Lebanon is one area of those concerns," Feltman said, citing Syrian and Iranian arms shipments and support for the terrorist group Hezbollah, which last launched attacks against the Lebanese government in May 2008 and started an August 2006 war with neighboring Israel. Many observers fear the group could disrupt the Lebanese election.

"The goal, I think, should be that all parties in Lebanon compete democratically through elections, through normal means. And you don't have one party that's able to change the equation by threatening its arms or intimidating others," Feltman said. "The Lebanese need to decide what's best for Lebanon."

The United States has contributed $10.5 million for Lebanese initiatives to prepare for elections, Feltman said. "Decisions on the shape and the composition of the next government that will come out of these parliamentary elections should and can be made by the Lebanese themselves, for Lebanon, free from outside interference."

The United States has contributed to security by joining with several nations to help Lebanon strengthen its borders, supporting the 30-nation U.N. peacekeeping force and efforts to clear the country of unexploded weapons from past conflicts, and partnering with the Lebanese security services to erase sectarian lines that date back to the country's 1975–1990 civil war.

"The Lebanese armed forces is the national institution in Lebanon that everyone takes pride in," Feltman said. "There's not a Shia unit, a Maronite brigade; this is a cross-confessional organization that every family, every community is part of."

Even as Washington supports a new Syrian role in building Middle East peace, Feltman underlined continuing American support for the Special Tribunal on Lebanon — a U.N.-based investigation into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, as well as efforts to unravel several other high-profile political assassinations that some suspect may have been ordered from Syria.

"The tribunal is an independent body. It should not be politicized," Feltman said. "There will be no deals at the expense of justice."

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