Senator Chris Murphy

Well, there was a path, a very viable, a difficult path, but a viable path to get the current Lebanese government into the business of directly confronting Hezbollah.

Hezbollah obviously was weak

And there were discussions underway to finally turn the Lebanese armed forces, the LAF, against Hezbollah, especially in the south where Hezbollah opposes the most direct threat to Israel.

There was going to have to be a pretty major investment in the LAF from the U.S.

and from the Europeans.

But we finally had a halfway competent government in Lebanon.

And instead of spending one day trying to pursue a route in which the Lebanese themselves would eradicate Hezbollah's threat to Israel, instead, we decided to essentially greenlit a new Israeli military operation that has shown in the past no meaningful ability to eradicate Hezbollah's military capacities in the long run.

Well, I mean, it wasn't a pure diplomatic solution because it was going to involve the Lebanese armed forces in some kind of conflict with Hezbollah.

But no Israeli forces.

And that would have been a very difficult proposition.

But in the long run, the only way to eradicate...

Hezbollah's influence inside Lebanon.

Remember, this is not just a sort of fringe military operation.

Hezbollah in Lebanon is integrated into the government.

But the Lebanese people were ready to support a strategy that would reduce Hezbollah's political and military influence in the country.

We were poised to implement it.

a strategy of that sort but the trump administration you know again had no interest in the hard work of doing that and instead just told the israelis to do a military operation that again has no evidence there's no evidence in the past that those kind of incursions into lebanon of which israel has conducted many have a long-term impact on hezbollah's power

Yeah, I mean, obviously, this is a systemic problem, and we've seen multiple instances in the House of Representatives.

I mean, I think you have to have a much more vigorous oversight and ethics capacity in the House of Representatives.

That seems to be a process that has ultimately broken down, and you have to have real protection for victims there.