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In 2006, after a Hezbollah invasion, Israel launched a military campaign against the Islamic terrorist group. After a month of fighting, the Bush administration forced a ceasefire under UN  Security Council Resolution 1701 that required the disarmament of Hezbollah and its replacement by the Lebanese Army and a United Nations ‘peacekeeping’ force.

How can Hezbollah claim victory, President George W. Bush wondered, when they were “going to be replaced by a Lebanese Army and an international force?”

The answer was quite obvious. The Lebanese Army and UNIFIL didn’t replace Hezbollah, they were co-opted by it. And nearly two decades later, Hezbollah had far more firepower and attempted to launch its own version of Oct 7 until Israel neutered it with its pager operation.

And then the Biden administration negotiated another ‘ceasefire’ under which Hezbollah is supposed to be replaced by the Lebanese Army and a UN peacekeeping force. Just like Hezbollah, the LAF and UNIFIL were supposed to have done 18 years ago. But didn’t.

To disarm Hezbollah, the Lebanese Army would need permission from a cabinet that includes Hezbollah. And Hezbollah is not likely to authorize a government it controls to disarm it.

Hezbollah spokesman Mohammad Afif responded by bragging that no one would be “able to sever the connection between the army” and the terror group which is “strong and solid and will remain so.” Sizable portions of the Lebanese Armed Forces are loyal to Hezbollah including officers trained by Hezbollah or in Syria so that by funding LAF, we’re funding Hezbollah.

And the United States not only made the mistake of falling for the same failed policy again, but since 2006, Americans have provided over $3 billion to the Lebanese Armed Forces.

That money was not used to disarm or replace Hezbollah. It was not used to bring peace to the region. Even the LAF and Hezbollah campaign against ISIS in 2017 ended with a ceasefire agreement between the Sunni and Shiite Islamic terror groups while the LAF looked away.

And the United States had to fight the ISIS terrorists because the LAF and Hezbollah wouldn’t.

During the same period in which the U.S. poured over $3 billion into the LAF, Hezbollah’s arsenal rose from 15,000 rockets to over 150,000. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that Hezbollah had “dramatically improved its military since 2006” and while much of that assistance had come from Iran, it is all too likely that American military training and weapons provided to the LAF also ended up directly or indirectly benefiting Hezbollah.

Israel’s 2024 conflict with Hezbollah conclusively demonstrated that UN Resolution 1701, the LAF and UNIFIL not only did not disarm the Islamic terror group, but covered up for it. Despite that, the Biden administration turned around and forced a nearly identical agreement on Israel.

What had not worked for the last 18 years was somehow going to work this time around.

After over $3 billion which did nothing but prop up Hezbollah’s front army, the Biden administration pulled money from military aid to Israel and diverted it to the LAF, reprogramming $95 million in security assistance from Egypt and $7.5 million in security aid to Israel to the LAF.

Last year, Rep. Greg Steube introduced the PAGER Act (Preventing Armed Groups from Engaging in Radicalism) to stop “sending U.S. taxpayer dollars to Lebanon when they are complicit in empowering a terrorist organization whose primary mission is to destroy America and Israel.”

“For two years I filed an amendment to the annual State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations bill to eliminate funding to the Lebanese Armed Forces, as the money goes to Hezbollah. Republicans and Democrats continue to vote it down,” Rep. Steube complained.

The State Department has spent nearly two decades selling the myth that empowering the LAF will weaken Hezbollah, but after $3 billion in spending, Hezbollah is more powerful than ever, while American taxpayers are stuck with financing its auxiliary force in the hopes of defeating it.

Hezbollah won’t disarm, nor will the LAF disarm it or prevent it from attacking Israel, because Lebanon’s entire balance of power depends on aiming Hezbollah’s weapons at Israel.

Under the 1989 Taif agreement, all of Lebanon’s militias were supposed to disarm and cede power to the LAF. That’s the basis for UN Resolution 1701 and the latest ceasefire deal. Hezbollah’s basis for an exemption from the Taif agreement is its campaign against Israel. By waging war against Israel, Hezbollah secures its legal right to run a separate army.

If Hezbollah really stopped attacking Israel or if the Lebanese government secured the border, Hezbollah would lose its legal basis for having an army. Then either the Lebanese government would have to disarm Hezbollah or admit that the Taif agreement was a charade that turned over Lebanon to Hezbollah, and to its backers in Tehran. And Hezbollah would have to admit that the real purpose of its military is to dominate Lebanon’s Christians for the Shiites.

Everyone in Lebanon knows all of these things are true, but no one can say them out loud.

Allowing Hezbollah to control the border and attack Israel is the price for keeping the Hezbollah puppet regime in power in Beirut. It allows the various players in the government, including Hezbollah and its Christian Dhimmi puppets, to pretend that Hezbollah doesn’t rule Lebanon.

Actually disarming Hezbollah would lead to another civil war. One that without Israeli military intervention, the terrorist group would win, and that would officially turn Lebanon into another Iran, Syria or Iraq: a nation ruled by Shiite clerics and their terrorist militias. Eventually that day will come, but maintaining the illusion that Hezbollah is an anti-Israel “resistance” movement allows the other factions to delay the moment of truth for a few more years.

Regular wars with Israel are part of the price that they pay for this arrangement.

The $3 billion dollars that America squandered on the LAF, like the even larger sums wasted on arming and training the Iraqi military, didn’t counter Shiite Islamic rule, it enabled it.

Rep. Steube’s PAGER Act would cut off further funds to the LAF until the “Lebanese Armed Forces ceases coordination and support with Hezbollah” and the “Lebanese Armed Forces cease coordination and support with Iran”.

If the LAF is really a counterweight to Hezbollah, then why oppose the bill?

The only reason for opposing the PAGER Act is because the politicians know quite well that the LAF coordinates with Hezbollah, and are content to keep sending money based on the promise that if we arm the Lebanese military enough, it will one day be ready to take on Hezbollah.

That day has not come for 18 years. It will not come. Ever.

The LAF is perpetually short of money, renting out its helicopters for sightseeing tours and delaying payments to soldiers, forcing us to step in and write more checks, because it’s a corrupt organization of toy soldiers who do almost no actual fighting, and are there to shield the terrorists. Lebanon’s government is a Hezbollah puppet regime. The LAF is a puppet army.

It’s time to take away the shield, the excuses and stop sending more money to terrorists.