U.S. Military Assistance to Lebanon

I had dinner last night with several Levant specialists, including Aram Nerguizian of the CSIS. Tony Cordesman speaks highly of Aram, and their paper on the Lebanese Armed Forces is probably the best thing you can read on the subject. Aram has a book coming out this summer on the Lebanese Armed Forces, and yes, he has already agreed to do a "Six Questions" interview for the blog when the book is published.

In the meantime, I want to link to a fascinating discussion between Aram and David Schenker at the Middle East Institute. I can't think of two people I would rather listen to on the subject of U.S. military assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces. I "tweeted" this event the week it was held but was not able to be there myself. So many thanks to Aram for alerting me that their discussion is on the internets. I'll link to the first part of the discussion below, but anyone who is screaming for the U.S. to provide Lebanon with fixed-wing attack aircraft and other prestige weaponry should listen to Part 3.