Hezbollah in Lebanon is 40,000 strong with 15,000 to 20,000 missiles and rockets at its disposal, U.S. Special Envoy for Syria and Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack said on Saturday.
He spoke during a panel discussion at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, regarding Lebanon’s failed attempts to demilitarize the Iranian-backed Shi’ite organization.
The Lebanese Armed Forces has 60,000 soldiers, he continued. “The only problem is, the Hezbollah soldiers make $2,200 a month, while LAF soldiers make $275 a month. … [Hezbollah has modern equipment and] LAF soldiers are driving old Jeeps [with] MK-47s. So which army is which?” Barrack asked.
Lebanon is a “failed state,” he said. “It has no central bank. The banking system is bust. Riad Salameh, the head of the central bank, has been indicted all across Europe. There are $60 billion missing from the Lebanese banking system. … The electric [company of Lebanon] is bust, it’s broke. If you want electricity, you need a private generator. You want water, you need private water. You want education, you need private education.
“So what is the state?” he asked. “The state is Hezbollah. You go south, Hezbollah gives you water, it gives you an education, it gives you a stipend.”
The envoy told Emirati state-owned daily The National that Jerusalem has intelligence that Hezbollah is rearming, which is why Israel cannot withdraw from the five points over the Lebanese border it took over during its latest war with the terrorist group.
“Israel’s point of view is … that Hezbollah is actually rebuilding all the way along the Bekaa [Valley],” Barrack noted.
Between Lebanon and Syria, the U.S. official said that Damascus could reach a normalization agreement with Jerusalem first.
“Syria is showing the way. Syria will get there first. Lebanon can draft in it or not, and Israel would react to them accordingly. We have nothing to do with it,” The National quoted the ambassador as saying.
Speaking with AFP at the conference, Barrack said that talks with Jerusalem need to be direct, with no intermediators. “The conversation needs to be with Israel. It just needs to be with Israel. Israel is ready. March to that door, to Israel, and have a conversation, it can’t hurt,” he added.
As for Turkey, the special envoy said that “If we hold together, if the momentum holds together—that Jared [Kushner] and Steve [Witkoff] and the great teams keep this moving in Gaza—in not too long of a time you’ll see a trade deal between Turkey and Israel.”
He added that the two countries “will not be at war with each other. … You’re going to get alignment from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean.”
Israeli-Turkish relations have taken a nosedive over the past decade, with Ankara under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan endorsing anti-Israel views while harboring members of terrorist groups such as Hamas.
Hezbollah’s leadership was largely decapitated over the course of September and October 2024, in a series of Israeli Air Force strikes in Beirut and elsewhere across Lebanon.
The unprecedented pagers operation carried out by the Israeli intelligence community maimed and killed thousands of Hezbollah terrorists.
