Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.
 Lebanon’s President Michel Sleiman |
Lebanon asked the U.S. for $800 million in financial help years ago to upgrade its army weaponry and reduce the Hezbollah terror group’s need for guns, but the funds never came through and now the nation has signed a five-year pact with Iran, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
The development will give Iran greater influence over the neighbor to Israel, just the opposite of what U.S. policy would have sought.
Under the security agreement, signed during the visit of Lebanese President Michel Sleiman to Tehran in late November, Iran will supply the Lebanese army with weapons and equipment over the next five years.
The agreement also calls for an exchange of visits between the two countries at the ministerial level. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad already has promised to visit Beirut in the near future.
Under the pact’s terms, weapons are to include “defensive strategic systems” which, according to Iran, include missiles.
The security pact increases Iran’s influence over Lebanon, given its close ties and support for Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah.
From Iran, the Hezbollah has obtained some 42,000 missiles and rockets, many of which are capable of reaching neighboring Israel.
Since its summer 2006 war with Israel, the Hezbollah reportedly has tripled its military capability.
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“It has missiles that can reach the towns of Ashkelon, Beersheba and Dimona,” according to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Dimona is the site of Israel’s nuclear reactor, which is some 180 miles south of the Israeli-Lebanese border. It is from Dimona that Israel has produced the plutonium to make an estimated 200 nuclear bombs, according to U.S. intelligence sources.
Lebanese army officials sought $800 million from the U.S. two years ago for advanced weapons. But there was no immediate response from the U.S., which earlier had restricted its support over fear that whatever weapons it supplied eventually might be used against U.S. interests.
During the 2006 war with Israel, Hezbollah fired some 4,000 rockets into Israel over a 34-day period, killing more than 40 civilians.
In supplying weapons under the new security pact, Iran will be arming Lebanon’s two major armed forces: the Lebanese Armed Forces, which is comprised of some 80 percent Shiites – many of whom are sympathetic with Hezbollah – and Hezbollah itself.
Despite being the single-largest political bloc in Lebanon, Hezbollah is regarded by the U.S. as a terrorist group, although the European Union does not share that position.
Iran’s promise of weapons to Lebanon comes on the heels of a similar offer from Russia in early November to supply “heavy weapons” to include tanks and artillery.
Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr is to visit Moscow in coming weeks to finalize the arms deal.
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