Lebanon stands at a rare juncture. A new government, regional conflict, and mounting pressure on Hizballah have reopened questions about sovereignty and the state’s monopoly on force that have long gone unresolved. How this moment is navigated, both by Beirut and Washington, will shape not only Lebanon’s trajectory but the broader precedent for how fragile states absorb or confront powerful armed non-state actors.
Iraq offers the most instructive parallel. The US experience there yielded hard-won lessons about sequencing, leverage, and the limits of external influence. Those lessons bear directly on the choices facing US policy toward Lebanon today.
MEI’s Vice President for Policy Dr. Ken Pollack will be joined by Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland to assess where US strategy succeeded, where it fell short, and what a disciplined approach to Hizballah’s disarmament and Lebanese state-building should look like now.
Speaker Biographies
Lieutenant General Sean Barry MacFarland is a retired three-star general who served in the United States Army. In 2015 MacFarland, then commanding III Corps, was selected as commander of the coalition against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. MacFarland and III Corps thus became responsible for Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR). MacFarland handed over command to Lieutenant General Stephen J. Townsend and the XVIII Airborne Corps in August 2016. He became deputy commanding general and chief of staff for the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command in April 2017, and retired from active duty 27 February 2018.
Kenneth M. Pollack (Moderator) is Vice President for Policy at the Middle East Institute. Dr. Pollack began his career as a Persian Gulf military analyst at the CIA and served twice on the National Security Council, first as Director for Near East and South Asian affairs and then as Director for Persian Gulf affairs.
Achieving a Permanent End to the Israel-Lebanon Conflict
