US military plans for Lebanon

The Lebanese newspaper As-Safir reported yesterday that a US delegation led by Eric Edelman (Assistant Defence Secretary for Political Affairs) recently presented to Lebanese prime minister Fouad Siniora and other Lebanese officials a draft military-cooperation agreement between the US and Lebanon, something the paper said was the culmination of a whole continuous series of US delegations to Lebanon that have been going on since the Israel Hizbullah war of summer 2006.

A Lebanese military expert cited by Press TV, Amin Hotait by name, said the project for a new US-Lebanon military arrangement has been under discussion for longer than that, at least since 2003, and he added that one of the key points is the American inability to secure the use of its big airbase at Incirlik in Turkey in the free and unregulated way that it wants. Hotait said this is part of an overall American plan for six new bases, three in Iraq, and one each in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. He said the Lebanese base at Kleiat near Tripoli in the north will be called the center for the rehabilitation of the Lebanese Army, "in order to cover its real activity". (The Press TV clip is available thanks to GlobalResearch.ca, here; there is also a summary from Al-Manar, whose main additional point is that politicians have started buying up land around the Kleiat base in anticipation of speculative profits once the plan is approved).

US ambassador Feltman initially ridiculed the As-Safir report, but then Edelman himself, in an interview with AP, acknowledged some of the key points, including the plan for a new strategic partnership, and tying the rearmament of the Lebanese army with the eventual disarmament of Hizbullah.

There are some important points in the As-Safir report that should be of particular interest to Americans:

(1) Military policy immune to politics
Edleman is quoted as having told the Lebanese authorities that America itself is about to see changes, but "politics is one thing and security is something else entirely," in effect assuring them that US military policy is immune to politics. And on the Lebanese side, the newspaper noted the proposed agreement is something that wouldn't have to be taken up by the Lebanese parliament either.

(2) A new cold war with Russia
As-Safir says the proposed military package includes more money for the Lebanese army, more US technical assistance, and most important of all, additional US military bases in Lebanon, including a US military base on the site of the existing Kleiat airfield in the north. The US delegation under Edelman talked America responding to a Russian threat via Syria:

The delegation stressed that the strong (?) Russian presence in northern Syria has come to pose a threat to the American presence in he region. They alluded to a "Russian-American cold war" and to new Russian movements and strategies in the region, that will require changes in American strategy...

The interpolated question mark is in the newspaper article itself.

(3) Ideological takeover
As-Safir said the US delegation went so far as to call for changing the official statement of basic guidelines for the Lebanese army, to eliminate the clause that talks about fraternal and special relationship with Syria, on the basis this is no longer justified, and also the clause that talks about supporting the resistance, on the basis that strengthening the army will eventually make that unnecessary. At the same time, the US delegation talked about the need for monitoring systems to make sure that weapons supplied to the Lebanese army don't fall into the hands of other groups.

As-Safir said if the Lebanese government doesn't come clean about the discussions, it will publish documents in its possession connected with these meetings. Press TV, for its part, noted that the proposals haven't been implemented yet, and won't be as long as the opposition stands firm against them.