US envoy Tom Barrack said any serious settlement in Lebanon must involve both Hezbollah and Iran, arguing that excluding them would leave negotiations disconnected from the country’s actual power structure.
Speaking to Mario Nawfal, Barrack asked: “How is it going to go away if you don’t have Hezbollah and Iran involved?”
He said Lebanon remains deeply entangled in the broader Iran-Israel confrontation, while ‘Israel’ has its own security concerns and Beirut “is seeking to avoid becoming a bargaining chip between regional powers.”
“There is no clean deal here,” Barrack said, describing Lebanon’s situation as “a very complicated Rubik’s cube where removing one piece moves three others.”
Barrack’s remarks underscored the difficulty of reaching a “durable settlement” in Lebanon without addressing the role of Hezbollah and Iran in the country’s political and security landscape.
Source: Al-Manar English Website