As the U.S. steps up pressure on Hezbollah while signaling openness to dialogue, the group sees the seemingly contradictory approach as two sides of the same strategy.
In recent days, Washington has once again stepped-up political pressure on Hezbollah. Some 36 hours after its ambassador to Beirut, Michel Issa, made remarks in which he presented the group with two options—either surrender its weapons or brace for more wars and strikes—the U.S. State Department spokesman issued a statement stressing that Lebanon can be “a safe and sovereign country” only if Hezbollah is disarmed.
The hard-line positions taken against the group were not the only means of pressuring it. They were preceded, days earlier, by the announcement of new measures by the relevant U.S. administration:
The irony is that all these measures and punitive actions against Hezbollah came at the same time as signals and indications suggesting that Washington wants to open channels of dialogue with the group. This has raised questions about the implications of this duality in the U.S. position toward the future of its dealings with Hezbollah and its view of the group: Is this a deliberate policy, or does it reflect differences within the U.S. administration concerned with the region over this issue?
According to circles close to Hezbollah, the U.S. escalation against it, as well as the flexibility Washington has shown toward it, came as no surprise.
A media source in Hezbollah told Annahar that “the U.S. escalation against us, which has most recently manifested itself in this way, is a course of action we have become accustomed to and familiar with, and which we always expect. As for this flexibility that occasionally emerges toward us, it is somewhat new to us.
In any event, we believe that the latest duality in the Americans’ stance toward us is no coincidence. In our assessment, they are two sides of the same game—the carrot-and-stick approach—and its ultimate objective is:
The same source added: “In reality, we had been anticipating that Washington would once again raise the big stick against us and threaten us with more wars, because it had become convinced that the efforts it has been pursuing for more than two years to force us to submit to its conditions and dictates had failed, and because it had also become convinced that its efforts to change the equations at home had come to nothing. It therefore recently resorted to two approaches:
“In other words,” the source continued, “Washington is inviting us to the negotiating table, but on its known terms, on the one hand, and under the pressure of Israeli fire, on the other.
“Another thing Washington wants us to do is to sever our ties to, and abandon our reliance on, the course of negotiations between it and Iran.”
The source concluded: “At its core, the American side is looking for a way out of the predicament of the war it started against Tehran in support of Israel. This is where its pressure on us and its threats against us come from.”
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Annahar.
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