On Wednesday’s “PBS NewsHour,” U.S. Special Envoy Amos Hochstein, who was the lead negotiator in the Lebanon ceasefire negotiations, stated that Iran will try to re-arm Hezbollah in the wake of the ceasefire deal, but Iran has been weakened and “we’re going to try to make sure that the re-arming, which happens from Iran through Syria, is at least diminished, slowed down, if not eliminated.”
“PBS NewsHour” Foreign Affairs and Defense Correspondent Nick Schifrin asked, “What’s to prevent Iran from filling in those gaps that Hezbollah now has?”
Hochstein responded, “Well, they’re going to try. But I would say Iran is significantly weaker today, as well, than they have been. And part of this agreement is we’re going to try to make sure that the re-arming, which happens from Iran through Syria, is at least diminished, slowed down, if not eliminated.”
Hochstein added, “[T]here [are] two parts of this…what happens inside Syria and what happens inside Lebanon. This agreement is about what’s happening inside Lebanon. The agreement calls for the Lebanese state to take control over the — all the crossings, all border crossings. I think it — believe it says authorized and unauthorized border crossings. So the Lebanese army — but also there are other security services that are responsible for those border crossings to make sure that they take and assert their control over. And then there’s a separate question of what happens inside Syria, and that’s probably a matter for a different conversation on a different day.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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