"The era of complacency and unconditional bailouts must come to an end," Republican Sen. Jim Risch warned — a line that captures the Washington dilemma over how to handle the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).
What Washington has provided so far
Since 2006, the United States has provided close to $3 billion in assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Internal Security Forces, a steady stream of support that Washington officials and some members of Congress now describe as failing to match the challenge on the ground. According to the source analysis, US security assistance to Lebanon "hasn't changed for the past two decades" — year in and year out the same package in both quality and quantity.
The critique is stark: the LAF is being asked to perform a mission it has never done before — gradually assume full security responsibility in areas Israel may withdraw from and ultimately disarm Hezbollah — yet it is being asked to do so with the same "old tools." The status quo, the source argues, "is unsustainable."
Pressure from Capitol Hill
Senate leaders and committee chairs have made their impatience public. Republican Sen. Jim Risch and Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the leads of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, have threatened to reconsider US military aid to Beirut if the LAF does not do more to take away Hezbollah’s weapons. Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, urged Congress not to “support the LAF unless it acts to disarm Hezbollah completely — and immediately.” And Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, during a 2025 visit to Lebanon, singled out LAF commander Gen. Rodolphe Haykal, doubting his willingness to “ever rise to the occasion to disarm Hezbollah.”
Those statements set a binary tone in Washington: pressure to cut support if the LAF will not disarm Hezbollah versus the risk that cutting assistance would foreclose any chance of a government-aligned counterweight to the Iran-backed Shi'ite group.
CENTCOM, targeted units, and the argument for a new model
The source advances a choice: either pull the plug on LAF assistance or overhaul it to give the force a real chance to take on Hezbollah. It cites CENTCOM chief Adm. Brad Cooper’s description of the task as a “tall order” and his openness to “targeted increases to specific mission sets or units.”
In an April interview with Fox News, Secretary of State Marco Rubio proposed a more realistic, gradual approach: “we’re working towards establishing…a system that actually works where vetted units within the [LAF] have the training, the equipment, and the capability to go after elements of [Hezbollah] and dismantle them so Israel doesn’t have to do it.” The source notes that this echoes Cooper’s testimony in a May hearing and signals a preference for focusing training, equipment, and advisory assistance on select units — not an across-the-board uplift.
The piece points to precedent: when CENTCOM was authorized to increase advisory support, results followed. The most-cited example is the 2017 battle of Fajr Al Jouroud, where the LAF, with doctrinal and technical help from American special operators, "expertly dislodged scores of ISIS fighters from the north." The argument is explicit: Hezbollah is not ISIS, and because it is more deeply embedded, the level and type of US assistance would have to be dramatically larger and different to meet the challenge.
Risks, incentives, and political trade-offs in Beirut
The author flags two major risks. First, expanded and targeted US assistance may prompt some Shi’ite soldiers to leave the LAF — a possibility the piece treats as a test rather than merely a setback: "If it does happen, then we’ll know who really belongs in the LAF and is willing to follow government orders, and who’s just there to collect a paycheck and be loyal to Hezbollah." Second, tearing up aid would "doom the chances of a real and legitimate counter to Hezbollah ever emerging," the source warns.
Operationally, the recommended changes are not limited to cash and hardware. They include improved Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), offensive aerial strike capabilities, and advisory models similar to those used to build Iraq’s Counterterrorism Service into an elite unit. The Pentagon is reportedly exploring options to significantly expand support for the LAF to include equipment, training, and advisory services, but any expansion would require Congressional approval because Congress "has the power of the purse."
What this means for Congress, the LAF, and Hezbollah
- Congress and US policymakers: They face a binary policy choice laid out in the piece — cut assistance or authorize a significant, carefully targeted expansion. The source recommends that Congress consider signing off on focused packages that test LAF willingness while retaining leverage.
- The Lebanese Armed Forces: The LAF would see selective units "vetted" and bolstered with training, ISR, and strike capabilities; such units would be the vehicle to test both capability and political will to confront Hezbollah.
- Hezbollah: The recommended US approach aims explicitly to degrade or dismantle Hezbollah elements over time by empowering government-aligned units; but the source cautions there are no guarantees, and political dynamics in Lebanon could blunt or nullify US investment.
The calculus, as presented in the source, is simple and stark: Washington must decide whether to let the LAF languish with insufficient, habitual aid — a strategy unlikely to disarm Hezbollah and vulnerable to collapse of the Lebanon-Israel framework — or to go big and accept political and operational risks by concentrating resources on vetted units. The choice will be made in Congress, and the author urges it to back a targeted, test-and-expand approach rather than “business as usual.”
