WASHINGTON – As Israeli and Lebanese diplomats meet in Rome this week for their seventh round of the U.S.-brokered talks aimed at ending Israel’s occupation of parts of southern Lebanon, Washington is urging patience and setting no deadlines.
Under a deal signed in Washington on June 26, Israel is meant to withdraw from designated “pilot zones” in Lebanon’s south so the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) can deploy and dismantle Hezbollah positions used to attack Israel.
Yet the Israelis have withdrawn from only one of the first three “pilot zones.”
“There is a meaningful difference between drafting an agreement on paper and implementing it responsibly,” Michel Issa, the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, said Tuesday, stressing the need for a “clear, workable process before proceeding.”
When Lebanese President Joseph Aoun visited the White House last month, he appealed for more support to help the Lebanese military carry out its fight against Hezbollah, which the United States and the European Union have designated as a terrorist group. President Donald Trump publicly promised additional assistance and Beirut is waiting for any new support package.
However, the Senate’s draft defense authorization bill for next year caps a new tranche of Pentagon support for the LAF at $36 million – far below recent annual levels, which have run between $100 and $200 million – and withholds most of it until Beirut proves it is already moving to disarm Hezbollah.
That sequencing puts Beirut in a difficult position: Washington is asking the LAF to demonstrate results before providing resources the mission requires.
The arrangement is becoming an increasingly difficult sell in Lebanon, where Israeli troops remain stationed across parts of the south more than a month after the deal was signed, and military operations and demolitions have continued.
Aoun condemned massive Israeli detonations near Lebanon’s Beaufort Castle last week as “a highly dangerous escalation” and “a blatant violation of existing commitments.” The operation, he warned, posed “a direct threat to the process launched under the framework agreement.”
Meanwhile, Hezbollah has seized on the attacks to accuse Aoun of cooperating with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a process that legitimizes Israel’s already monthslong occupation without securing a timely withdrawal.
Naim Qassem, leader of Hezbollah, said ahead of Tuesday’s talks in Rome that the slow-moving diplomacy with Israel was bringing Lebanon “nothing but shame, humiliation, and successive compromises.” He accused Aoun of becoming “biased and divisive” rather than acting as a unifying national figure.
Such pressure is likely to grow unless the talks produce visible Israeli withdrawals or Washington gives Aoun a clearer account of the support it will provide the LAF.
A U.S. State Department official declined to provide any figures or details to MBN when asked what conditions or benchmarks Washington would apply to assess Lebanon’s performance and how much money would be made available.
Reiterating Issa’s appeal for patience, the official said the Rome talks would continue to focus on the expansion of the so-called pilot zones, the disarming of Hezbollah and the eventual restoration of Lebanese sovereignty.
“The framework establishes a clear, sequenced path,” the State Department official told MBN. “Our goal is to advance implementation of the framework in a practical, sequenced manner that delivers lasting security for both countries and restores Lebanese state authority throughout the south.”
But for many in Beirut now, the central question hanging over the Rome talks remains whether that carefully sequenced U.S.-brokered process gives the LAF a realistic path to replacing Israeli forces – or simply lets Israel maintain its presence across Lebanon’s south.
That scenario is not purely hypothetical. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has publicly said Israel’s presence in Lebanon could become a permanent Israeli “security zone,” likening the deployment there to Israel’s takeover of Gaza.
Many in Washington also remain skeptical over whether Beirut can follow through on its promises. Some officials question not whether the LAF currently has the resources to confront Hezbollah, but whether it is prepared to risk clashes with a movement that has become embedded within Lebanon’s political system.
Even Aoun has urged caution, noting during his talks with Trump that Hezbollah retains powerful allies in Lebanon’s power-sharing government. A plan to disarm it by force would risk starting an internal conflict, the allies say.
David Schenker, who served as U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs during Trump’s first term, rejected the argument that Washington is demanding results before providing the resources the LAF needs.
“This is not a question of the chicken or the egg,” Schenker, now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told MBN.
The United States has provided Lebanon with more than $2.5 billion in military assistance since 2005, he argued, and U.S. lawmakers would probably approve substantially more if the LAF showed it was fulfilling Beirut’s commitments.
Washington recognizes that the LAF is underfunded and needs help with fuel, mobility and salaries, he said. But there is also what Schenker called a “deficit of will” inside the army, whose commanders have reason to avoid confronting Hezbollah.
“If the withdrawal takes a long period of time, it shouldn’t be because the LAF has no money, but rather, because the LAF isn’t doing the work,” Schenker said.
That is the wager the Rome talks are now testing.
The negotiations may yet expand the pilot zones. But the real test is whether they can accelerate the process enough to turn Lebanese deployments into visible Israeli withdrawals — before delay hardens into permanence.
