Just a few years ago, Lebanon appeared to be a foreign policy success for the United States. Outraged by the brutal assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri (likely at the hands of Syria and its allies), the Lebanese people, bolstered by international support, succeeded in expelling Syrian military forces and asserting Lebanese sovereignty in 2005 for the first time in decades. And again in 2009, the Lebanese affirmed their support for the pro-Western ruling coalition, awarding them a solid majority of seats in Parliament during the May general elections.

These days, however, the country looks headed for a frightening crisis. The March 14 coalition, as the ruling group is known, has been unable to capitalize on its popular mandate. This is due in large part to the overwhelming force wielded by Hezbollah – which is funded, trained, and armed by Iran and Syria. But it’s also because U.S. policy toward Lebanon has been unwilling to back up bold words with actions. Far from protecting America’s allies, consecutive U.S. administrations have not only failed the pro-Western government but also empowered its worst enemies.

The slow-burning confrontation is about to reach a boiling point over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, charged with bringing Hariri’s killers to justice. The court, established by agreement between the U.N. Security Council and the Lebanese government, is expected to issue indictments against members of Hezbollah in the coming months. As the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, up to six members are slated to be indicted by the end of the year, including Mustafa Badreddine, a senior Hezbollah military commander and brother-in-law of the infamous Hezbollah mastermind Imad Mugniyah.

In an effort to preempt what would surely be a massive blow, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has launched a war against the tribunal, and U.S. officials believe that Hezbollah will stop at nothing to prevent indictments from being handed down. The risk of war is palpable, and if Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons — and their Syrian puppets — unseat the elected government and take control over Lebanon, it will be a grave blow to U.S. security and credibility around the world.

It would also bolster the reach and credibility of Iran. Fred Hof, deputy to U.S. Special Middle East envoy George Mitchell and point man on U.S.-Syria policy once put it bluntly: “Whether most of his organization’s members know it or not, and whether most Lebanese Shiites know it or not, [Nasrallah] and his inner circle do what they do first and foremost to defend and project the existence and power of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” (He was speaking to the Middle East Institute in the midst of the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.)

The rise of Iranian influence in Lebanon is particularly dangerous at the present moment, when moderate Arab countries are desperately looking for the United States to contain Iran. From the perspective of the United States’ Arab allies, if the world’s superpower can’t contain the mullahs before they have a nuclear weapon, how could they be expected to contain them if they have the bomb?

Given the disturbing drift in American policy since the 2005 Cedar revolution, what is at stake, and the choices we must make to support those seeking our help, Hezbollah’s crimes against us bear repeating.

Accused of terrorism on virtually every continent, Hezbollah has killed more Americans than any terrorist group except Al Qaeda, and today they posses weapons of state.

They murdered 63 people, including 17 Americans and eight CIA officers in our Beirut embassy in 1982. They slaughtered 241 American marines in the Marine barracks’ bombing in 1983, and a year later killed another 18 American servicemen near the U.S. Air Force Base in Torrejon, Spain. Robert Stethem, a US Navy diver, was beaten to death and thrown on the tarmac when Hezbollah terrorists hijacked TWA flight 847. And of course the brutal kidnapping, heinous torture, and eventual murder of the CIA’s Beirut station chief Bill Buckley and Col. William ‘Rich’ Higgins were carried out by Hezbollah terrorists.

Fred Hof was a close friend of Col. Higgins and, at the time, part of a small team that worked every possible angle to free Higgins before his death. “I am one of a small handful of Americans who knows the exact manner of Rich’s death,” he explained years ago. “If I were to describe it to you now – which I will not – I can guarantee that a significant number of people in this room would become physically ill.  When [former Deputy Secretary of State] Rich Armitage described Hezbollah a few years ago as the “A-Team” of international terrorism and suggested that there was a “blood debt” to be paid, he was referring to a leadership cadre that is steeped in blood and brutality.”

It is that ‘leadership cadre’ of Iranian backed terrorists, who have been killing our allies and us for over 30 years, that is today working for Tehran, “maneuvering furiously”, according to the New York Times, to derail the tribunal, and destroy the native forces inside Lebanon seeking to restore self-determination for the Lebanese people.

Lebanon is again at a cross roads, and so is American policy.

How did the situation become so dire, so soon after the West finally helped the Lebanese people shake off the foreign forces driving thirty years of civil war and violence? Is it now too late to stop Iran from successfully exporting their revolution into a country as culturally diverse and multi-confessional Lebanon?

It’s difficult not to lay the blame at the feet of former President George W. Bush and his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. The Bush administration was eager to hold up Lebanon as an example of its successful Middle East policy: “We took great joy in seeing the Cedar Revolution. We understand that the hundreds of thousands of people who took to the street to express their desire to be free required courage, and we support the desire of the people to have a government responsive to their needs and a government that is free, truly free,” Bush said at the time.  However, when push came to shove, the president did little to help our Lebanese allies when they needed him most.

Judgment day came May 7, 2008. An emboldened Hezbollah, alarmed that the government was moving to control the group’s illicit private communications network, invaded the streets of Beirut and the Chouf Mountains to the south, forcing Lebanon’s democratically-elected leaders to accede to a power-sharing agreement at the point of a gun. The result was yet another capitulation by the Bush administration, which signaled its acquiescence to the Doha Agreement, signed on May 21 of that year, formalizing Hezbollah’s veto over any government decision, including its own disarmament.

But if the Bush administration opened the door to Hezbollah’s takeover of Lebanon, Barack Obama’s administration is holding that door ajar, doing little to support America’s erstwhile allies in the March 14 coalition out of fear that such a move would damage any chance of engaging with Syria.

In an October 18 letter, Congressmen Gary Ackerman (D-NY) and Dan Burton (R-IN), chairman and ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East, protested the administration’s lack of support for moderate elements in Lebanon: “We remain concerned that your strategy of offering diplomatic overtures to hostile regimes has done little to provoke Middle East peace, and has only taken away leverage from our democratic friends and allies.”

For its part, the Administration continues to put the emphasis on reaching out to Damascus, and has gone only so far as to indicate there are limits to America’s patience. “Syria and the United States have taken some modest steps to see if we can improve the bilateral relationship, but this cannot go very far as long as Syria’s friends are undermining stability in Lebanon,“ explained Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman, on a visit to Syria earlier this month.

It is vital that the United States reverse these years of drift and act decisively to help the Lebanese people reassert their right to self-determination — because it is in America’s national interest.  The alternative is to give in to the foreign agenda of the Mullahs in Tehran and their terrorist proxy at time when containing Iran’s expansionist ambition is the paramount necessity in the region. So what do we do?

The Obama administration must decide to resist the “resistance,” and lead the West in a program to further empower Lebanese civil society and aid the dormant democratic forces in the country. It is these courageous actors, with the proven ability to lead successful political and media campaigns and expose the Syria-Iran-Hezbollah axis, who were specifically targeted by Hezbollah in May 2008 — exactly because they are effective. The Lebanese people need to know that the president of the United States supports their pursuit of freedom and democracy, especially as Hezbollah’s role in attacking the state is on the verge of being exposed.

President Obama should immediately look to Lebanon’s pro-democracy media, which has largely been silenced over the last year, intimidated not only by pro-Syrian, pro-Iranian, and Hezbollah foes, but hobbled by Saudi patrons who mistakenly thought they could pull Syria away from Iran’s influence. That strategy, like our own outreach to Syria, has proven a disastrous failure, for Lebanon, the region and US national interests. The Obama administration can help take the muzzle off of these Lebanese patriots—like Prime Minister Saad Hariri and head of the Lebanese Forces party Samir Geagea—whose courageous voices are the first defense against Hezbollah’s “resistance.” Let Lebanon speak.

And, the Obama administration must ensure that the Special Tribunal goes forward, prosecuting those it indicts.  America’s $10 million contribution last week is commendable, but it is not enough.  No problem, other than stopping Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, calls as urgently for international focus as does the effort to stop Iran from expanding its sphere of influence and overpowering another people.

The United States must be willing to work with its allies in Europe and the Middle East to support those democratic elements who want to save their country. This policy will not be easy. It may require making the tough decision to give up on forces and programs that have failed to serve as a bulwark against Hezbollah, or it may require a deep reform of the same, but tough choices are what we face.

It was Harry Truman who said “it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” Those words are as true today under President Obama as when they were uttered in 1947 by a young former Senator thrust suddenly into power, forced to make some of this nation’s most fateful, difficult and ultimately, successful decisions. America is no less the leader of the free world today than we were then, unless we act otherwise.

If the Obama administration takes a bold stand in favor of Lebanon’s independence and starts pressing the Saudis to support Lebanese civil society, it will find that many figures in Beirut, and other countries with a stake in Lebanon’s stability will enthusiastically follow its lead.

But whatever methods it chooses, the administration must make a clear public signal that the United States will not sit on the sidelines while Iran, through its satraps Syria and Hezbollah, successfully exports the Iranian revolution to Lebanon. President Obama has spoken eloquently about the need to support democracy and tolerance in the Middle East. The time of decision has come. The President must now put America’s words into action.

A shorter version of this article appeared at ForeignPolicy.com

photo credit: Patrick Makhoul