Among my sources for a recent piece, "Are We Funding the Lebanese Army or Hizbullah?" (Human Events, Oct. 20, 2008), was my friend and colleague, Clare M. Lopez, who - when I mentioned to her my concerns regarding Hizbullah's having wormed its way into the legitimate Lebanese defense apparatus as an official component of the army - said to me, "It's actually the other way around. The army now appears to be part of Hizbullah." The army now appears to be part of Hizbullah.

Lopez, a former operations officer with the CIA, is today a widely sought expert in the interconnected realms of strategic policy, counterintelligence and counter-terrorism. She understands the dynamics of Lebanon, its strategic importance in the war on terror, and its increasingly dominant kingdom within the state, Hizbullah.

While pulling together information for the piece from additional sources, I spoke with Lopez a couple of times by phone and email. And her analysis for me was so informationally rich that, though I was unable to include all of it in our Human Events piece, I am including most of it here.

I'm doing so on the 25th anniversary of the terrorist bombing of the US Marine Barracks in Beirut. That suicide attack, carried out by fledgling Hizbullah on October 23, 1983, killed 241 American servicemen.

Following are highlights of Lopez's exclusive analysis regarding Hizbullah:

"Since May 2008, when Hizbullah swiftly, brutally demonstrated its ability to impose military control throughout Lebanon, literally at will, and then with the July formation of the government of national unity (wherein Hizbullah wields cabinet veto power), it is clear that Hizbullah - and by extension, Iran - owns Lebanon. This means that a radical, revolutionary and expansionist Shi'a jihad force occupies a foothold on the southeastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

"The Lebanese army stood aside when Hizbullah made its move in May. ...[As] a Shi'a majority force, the army's sympathies are obviously with Hizbullah. Other militias and political groups within Lebanon - from Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement to Druze leader Walid Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party, to Amal leader Nabi Berri, and now even a clutch of Sunni parties - are lining up to ally themselves with Hizbullah.

"US Middle East policy is woefully misguided, in my opinion. How could it be otherwise? Thirty-five years of graduates from Saudi-Wahhabi-Salafi-funded Ivy League Middle East Studies programs now occupy top positions throughout our Dept. of State, intelligence community, think tanks, media, and academia itself.

"There seems to be little to no comprehension or willingness on the part of the Bush administration to recognize realities in the Levant, primary of which is the massive and nefarious influence of Iran. I don't know exactly why there is such fear and reluctance to confront Iran, but my own personal suspicions lie with the status of its nuclear warhead development program - and where those warheads may now already be deployed. Iran's threats, and Hizbullah's ability, to field scores, if not hundreds of suicide bombers to Iraq, Israel and our own cities in the West may also be a reason why our national leadership seems paralyzed with fear about Iran.

"This is not going to improve with time if we don't do something to confront it... we'll simply be forced into a position of total submission - dhimmitude - vis-a-vis Iran and the forces of jihad. What this means in the first instance is abandonment of Israel, our foremost ally in the Middle East and the only reliable outpost of liberal democracy in the region. Obama already has promised his support to Muslims and Palestinians, and has indicated he will end the special relationship between the US and Israel - in truth, not a big change from the policies of the Condi Rice State Dept., but now it will be official policy, if he wins the presidency.

"It is Iran that guided and funded and armed the formation of Hizbullah in 1982 - and continues to do so. It is Iran that advises, arms, funds and guides the Palestinian terror organizations sworn to the destruction of the State of Israel: Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Fatah militias. It is Iran that reportedly has provided Hizbullah with something on the order of $3 billion for reconstruction in Lebanon since the summer 2006 war.

"…Most dangerous for Israel, it is Iran that has rearmed Hizbullah in the aftermath of that war.

"Hizbullah's command-and-control system is fully integrated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran. Its military telecommunications system - the one the Fouad Siniora government made a weak (and ultimately futile) move to bring under central Lebanese government control in May, is world-class and now demonstrably untouchable by the Lebanese government. Its broadcast network - TV, radio, Internet - is modern, sophisticated and very large.

"Since taking control of Lebanon in May, Hizbullah forces have occupied all the key high ground and established layered defenses north of the Litani River, in the southern and central Bekaa Valley, and reinforced their presence in southern Beirut.

"UNIFIL's 15,000 ground forces in Lebanon have failed utterly to enforce UN Resolution 1701 and instead of preventing Hizbullah's massive rearmament following the summer 2006 war, they have engaged in liaison and pay-off operations with Hizbullah for the purpose of force protection. 

"So, the US government decision to grant the Lebanese army millions of dollars worth of military assistance, in full knowledge that those weapons will never be used to confront Hizbullah, and more than likely will only add to their There is a terrible strain of anti-Semitism that has taken root and grown in the ranks of our State Dept. and CIA.
arsenal, is foolish in the extreme, in my opinion. After the events of May and July, there can simply be no doubt in any sane person's mind about who controls Lebanon: it is not the Fouad Siniora government! Hassan Nasrallah controls Lebanon.

"I am not one who believes Hassan Nasrallah dances on a puppeteer's strings manipulated out of Tehran... but their common purpose surely is the destruction of the State of Israel.

"All I can think is that our national security policy is in the hands of those who do not really believe in the defense of liberal democracy - and most especially if that liberal democracy is embodied in a Jewish State of Israel. There is a terrible strain of anti-Semitism that has taken root and grown in the ranks of our State Dept. and CIA in particular - again, perhaps the result of all those years of Saudi-Wahhabi indoctrination in our top universities. But the result is clear: Condi's readiness to throw Israel under a bus at Annapolis last November [2007]; the Bush administration's refusal to deal with Iran, despite a lot of soaring rhetoric, and now, a real and perceptible diminishment in the bilateral commitment.

"The naivete of our government's dealings with Syria, as well as this military deal with the Lebanese army, seems incomprehensible to me. The ability to distinguish between friend and foe in the Middle East seems lost and will have disastrous consequences for our own national security objectives in the region and ultimately, at home."