In an interview with the Wilson Center, Amb. David Hale provides a sharp assessment of the escalating crisis in Lebanon as of March 2026, emphasizing that the current conflict is a "war of choice" directed by Iran that is not in the interests of Lebanon.
We’re speaking on the morning of March 4, 2026. It’s been a few days since the United States and Israel began strikes on Iran, and now the conflict is widening across the region. Can you bring us up to speed on what has happened in Lebanon over the past few days?
Amb. David Hale: Right. Well, of course, the context is that last November 2024, actually, over a year ago, Hezbollah specifically agreed to a ceasefire in order to end the campaign that had pretty much wiped out their leadership with much of their military arsenal.
And part of this agreement established a kind of a deconfliction mechanism with American, French participation and Israeli and Lebanese involvement to investigate any violations of the ceasefire. And then, of course, there was the commitment made by Hezbollah that there would be complete disarming of the militia as part of this arrangement.
Of course, the disarmament was not completed. The Lebanese army had made strides. It was a slow process. But as we saw this weekend, it was hardly a complete success. There are those who would point to the fact that the Israelis retained four observation positions in the deep south near their border. But I think we all understood that in the context of the full disarming of Hezbollah, that this was not a permanent occupation.
Of course, Hezbollah answers to Iran. It has maintained, with some success, a big lie for decades that it was really there to cherish and protect Lebanon, when in fact it does what its paymaster asks, and that paymaster is Iran. And so they joined in the first war, the first phase of this war back in October 2023. And now they, again, contrary to all, I think, interests of any Lebanese, joined in this fusillade, probably at direct Iranian direction.
Now, the Israeli response was to be expected, and it's going to be massive. I think it's only begun. It looks like they have moved already into the largest town that is close to the border in Lebanon called Khiam. And I suspect they will stay there until they feel that they have reestablished their deterrence.
Meanwhile, the political atmosphere in Lebanon, interestingly enough, has actually turned quite sharply against Hezbollah. Obviously, they had many enemies anyway—adversaries on the ground among particularly Sunni Muslims and the other religious communities; Christians kind of split. But the Shia community had been dominated, intimidated, and dependent upon Hezbollah. That has changed.
There is, I'm told by many people—I'm in direct touch with people who live in the south, with Shia—who say that the mood has really, really soured. There's a level of frustration and anger directed at Hezbollah's leadership for bringing this back onto the heads of the Lebanese, all of whom had hoped that they had suddenly and hopefully permanently put behind them the cycle of violence that they've experienced their whole lives in South Lebanon.
And here it is, Hezbollah going into a war. We're having a debate in the United States about a war of choice. In fact, it was Iran's choice to bring Lebanon right into the center of this conflict where there is no Lebanese interest being served by this.
So Hezbollah now is really on the defensive in a way it hasn't even been before. And this led to an unprecedented decision by the cabinet, which includes Shia ministers, by the way, to ban Hezbollah military operations, which seems to us, of course, a no-brainer, but in the Lebanese sectarian and political context is a major development. Now, of course, it'll be up to the army and the state to follow through.
Do you have confidence that the Lebanese state and military can achieve that goal to disarm Hezbollah and reclaim state sovereignty? Or do you anticipate that this will continue to be a problem for the foreseeable future?
Amb. David Hale: Well, not long before the US-Israeli campaign—this phase of it—began in Iran this weekend, the Lebanese army had unrolled and presented to the cabinet a plan for the next phase of disarming Hezbollah.
They claimed that they felt they had made significant success in what's called the South Litani sector, the 15 kilometers or so between and the southern part of Lebanon, adjacent to the Israeli border, and that they had to maintain 10,000 soldiers down there just to keep it stable. So they had limited manpower for the next phase, but there would be a next phase and it would move up to the Awali River, which is deeper into the heart of Lebanon.
And this would be a substantial stride forward into areas where Hezbollah continues to function. And that this implementation plan was going to begin. It was going to take several months. They had the added complication of the plan to have parliamentary elections, which had now been postponed because of the—well, for a lot of reasons, I guess, but just yesterday. And the army has to deploy to secure the areas to make sure that people can vote in an orderly fashion. So that was a complication for them.
But this move is endorsed. Now, of course, I think it's absolutely essential that not only do they do what they laid out they were going to do anyway, but that they accelerate the timetable for this and show to the Lebanese people, to their friends and allies like the United States, and to demonstrate to Israel that the state of Lebanon will reassert, to the greatest extent it can, its authority. And now it's more urgent than ever.
It's going to be complicated while the Israelis are conducting these operations. The Lebanese army will have to de-conflict from that. Hopefully, the United States can be a facilitator of that kind of communication. But I don't think the Lebanese state and the army should wait until—this is my own opinion—but should wait until the IDF is finished. I think they need to show now that the IDF doesn't have to complete the task of disarming Hezbollah, that there is a Lebanese state that is not only committed to do it, but doing it.
What has been the humanitarian impact of the fighting over the last several days on the people of Lebanon?
Amb. David Hale: Well, this is a sad cycle that we have seen time and time again, going all the way back to the '90s, when Hezbollah really started this strategy of launching missiles from South Lebanon into Israel on behalf of Syria and Iran. And that would, of course, lead to the inevitable Israeli counter-offensive—aerial, sometimes by land, but usually intensive bombing of various targets, which compels people in the south to flee northward.
And so you've got large-scale dislocations and things. Part of the tactic of Hezbollah, of course, was to use human shields to stage their attacks—their missile sites in people's homes or in farms or in areas where civilians are living. And so this cynical tactic, of course, contributed to the mayhem. And then, of course, it would be quite a while before the people of the South could move back to where they came from. So this is just something we've seen time and time again, and it's very sad now.
And I think one of the reasons the mood has soured so much against Hezbollah is that basically, it was already getting—already Hezbollah was suffering because of the reversals. The decision to enter into this war confounded many Lebanese as to why it was that Hezbollah was joining this war that Hamas and the Iranians had started back in October 2023.
And that there was a sort of unwritten social contract between the Shia Lebanese and Hezbollah: "We will obey you and support you, but you are the defender and to deter and defend us against Israel." That was kind of the expectation. Well, they failed. And they failed in a most dramatic fashion.
And so, and yet the Hezbollah leadership was talking as if they had won. And they were flouting the state. They were flouting demands by the army to disarm, saying that, no, you have to have Hezbollah's arms to defend Lebanon, when in fact the opposite is the case. The presence of Hezbollah's arms invites attack by Israel.
And so I think this has finally become clear to a community that had been mesmerized by Nasrallah. The charismatic leader, of course, was assassinated last year. And it's just a different era. And so I think, you know, it's interesting. There's a lot of speculation as to why there was an agreement to postpone parliamentary elections.
And some people are justifying it by saying, well, it will give the opponents of Hezbollah time to get organized for these elections so that in two years' time, when they've now rescheduled them, they'll come down to, you know, there'll be a fairer competition—that Hezbollah can still intimidate voters to vote their way, and so it's better to wait.
My own take on it—and I'm not there, I haven't been there for a few months—is the contrary: that I think if Hezbollah and their sort of frenemy partner, which is Nabih Berri, the speaker of Parliament (who is not of Hezbollah, does believe in the state, but his electoral fortunes are completely tied up with Hezbollah's)—he would be calling for elections if they thought they were going to do well now, rather than wait for two years for this alleged theory to unfold that somehow it would be harder for Hezbollah and their allies to win in two years' time.
If that were the case, they would be demanding elections now, which is constitutionally what is expected. So I really kind of smell a rat in this decision to postpone. I think Hezbollah's strategy, like Iran's, has always been in a moment of adversity—and this is clearly that for them—they try to just wait us out, delay things. They expect that the United States and Israel eventually lose interest. And then history has shown we often do.
And then they can come back, and they can rebuild their armament, and they can intimidate people again, and they can regain their dominant place in Lebanese society and politics. It's time to put an end to that. And we finally have a government and a president of Lebanon who not only know they need to do that, but are prepared to take the risks to do that.
And the risks are real. Many of these people, remember, there was a prime minister of Lebanon who was assassinated, probably by the Syrians, but Hezbollah operatives. There have been presidents of Lebanon who've been assassinated. And so this is—this is for real. The stakes are quite high. But thank God we've got partners like them who are prepared to take those risks.
What should the United States’ strategy in Lebanon be going forward?
Amb. David Hale: Our strategy is working. Were it not for the prior operations of the IDF, our support for the LAF and disarming of Hezbollah, Lebanon would be an even bigger complication in this operation than it is. We should double down in the strategy, keep the pressure on the Lebanese to do what they know is their responsibility, and fully disarm Hezbollah. The political context has just made that easier because of Hezbollah’s demonstration yet again that it is making life and decisions for the Lebanese but on behalf of Iran. As Israel works to restore its deterrence, we should work to help the Lebanese army and state rise to the challenge and fulfill its commitments.
