Congressional Democrats urge US administration to help Lebanon
The lawmakers criticized Hezbollah and asked for greater French involvement in a letter to the US secretary of state.
Several Democrats in Congress wrote a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday urging him to address Lebanon’s worsening crisis.
The letter, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), was spurred by the plummeting of Lebanon’s currency and rising unemployment and food prices.
The lawmakers made several recommendations to the top US diplomat. They called for the United States to lead a “Friends of Lebanon” group to coordinate aid to the country. They specifically asked that France be involved. They also called for more support for the Lebanese military, saying that Hezbollah benefits if the official military is weak. They also said the administration should call for an independent investigation into the devastating August 2020 Beirut port explosion, among other things.
Lebanon is in the throes of its worst economic and political crisis in decades. It began in 2019 and has included a large rise in unemployment and wage losses, plus the collapse of the Lebanese pound. The COVID-19 pandemic and the Beirut port blast worsened the situation. The government resigned en masse following the explosion, but politicians have so far failed to form a new cabinet.
