Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., quickly terminated a meeting with Lebanese Defense Minister Rodolfo Haikal after he refused to confirm that the Iranian regime-backed Hezbollah movement is a terrorist organization.
Graham posted a blunt message to X expressing his frustration with the situation in Lebanon and power politics in the Middle East in general.
“I just had a very brief meeting with the Lebanese Defense Minister, General Rodolfo Haikal. I asked him point-blank if he considered Hezbollah a terrorist organization. He said, ‘No, not in the Lebanese context.'” And just like that, I ended the meeting. They are clearly a terrorist organization. Hezbollah has American blood on its hands. Just ask the United States Marine Corps. “
He continued, “They have been designated a foreign terrorist organization by both Republican and Democratic administrations since 1997, and for good reason. As long as this attitude exists in the Lebanese Armed Forces, I do not view them as a reliable partner for us. I am tired of the double talk in the Middle East. Too much is at stake.”
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Haikal’s refusal to recognize Hezbollah as a terrorist organization has set off security alarms among the movement’s leading experts.
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Matthew Levitt, a prominent scholar on Hezbollah at the Washington Institute, told Fox News Digital that “Gen. Haikal’s comments will only further raise concerns that the Lebanese Armed Forces view Hezbollah as a player that should be deconflicted with rather than disarmed. The ceasefire agreement clearly states that Hezbollah must disarm the south and north of the country. To date, in some cases, the Lebanese Armed Forces appear to have shared with Hezbollah intelligence obtained from Israel through U.S.-led mechanisms rather than acting on it.”
A terrorist suicide car bomb was driven into the building and detonated, killing 241 U.S. service members and injuring more than 60 people. U.S. Marines search for survivors and bodies in the rubble of the Beirut barracks headquarters. U.S. troops are stationed in Beirut as part of a multinational peacekeeping force. Islamic Jihad, which later became the terrorist group Hezbollah, claimed responsibility for the attack, which coincided with the bombing of the French military headquarters in the eight-story “Drakkar” building. November 24, 1983, Beirut, Lebanon
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He added, “At a time when the Lebanese Armed Forces are seeking international assistance, purportedly to disarm Hezbollah, failure to recognize the group as an adversary not only to Israel but to Lebanon also undermines the case for further funding.”
Fox News Digital sent multiple media inquiries to the Lebanese Embassy in Washington
Israel warns Hezbollah of ‘playing with fire’, urges Lebanon to fulfill weapons pledges
On October 25, 2024, Lebanese military vehicles patrolled the Marjayoun area in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border.
“I’m not surprised by Heikal’s comments. That’s exactly the problem. Hezbollah is not designated as a terrorist organization in Lebanon. The Lebanese army … is not willing to conflict with Hezbollah. Hezbollah is not willing to voluntarily disarm. As long as there is no conflict, that won’t happen,” Sarit Zehawi, Israel’s top security expert on Hezbollah at Alma Research and Education Center, told Fox News Digital.
Zehawi claimed that the Lebanese Armed Forces “helped Hezbollah conceal its military activities and weapons stockpiles in southern Lebanon.”
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham speaks at a press conference in St. Michael’s Square in downtown Kiev, Ukraine, on May 30, 2025.
In November 2024, the United States brokered a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel. In August, the Lebanese government accepted a U.S. plan to disarm the group by the end of 2025. But that deadline appears to have yet to be met.
Thomas Barak, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria, said at a recent Milken Institute event that Lebanon is a “failed state.”
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Barak said, “The religious system is not working. A Maronite president, a Sunni prime minister and a Shia speaker; the 128 parliamentary seats are equally divided between Islam and Christianity; everything is deadlocked.”
“Hezbollah is a foreign terrorist by U.S. standards,” he said. “It also happens to be a large political party in Lebanon that has blocking powers… This idea that you have to disarm Hezbollah… you’re not actually going to do that militarily.”
“The United States says Hezbollah needs to disarm, Hezbollah is a foreign terrorist organization and it cannot exist. My personal opinion is that when you kill one terrorist, you create ten terrorists. That cannot be the answer,” Barak said, urging Lebanese political leaders to “run to Israel and make a deal… There is no other answer.”
Walid Phares, an American academic expert on Hezbollah and Lebanon who has advised U.S. presidential candidates, told Fox News Digital that “Hezbollah’s disarmament is a demand not only by the United States and the international community but, most importantly, by the majority of Lebanese since the 2005 Cedar Revolution, when 1.5 million Lebanese Christians, Druze and Sunnis rallied against the Syrian occupation and Khomeinist militias.”
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Hezbollah fighters carry flags at a memorial service for slain leader Sheikh Abbas Mousavi, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 1992, in the southern Lebanese village of Tefakhta. A United Nations official thanked one of the terror group’s top leaders after a meeting, a move that was scorned by Israeli diplomats.
He added, “While Assad’s forces retreated, Hezbollah remained armed. In May 2008, radical Shiite militias staged an urban military coup against the pro-Western government and seized full power until the Israeli-Iranian war, the so-called 12 Days War of 2025. The latter was provoked by Hezbollah’s siding with Hamas during the October 7 War.”
Fox News Digital reported in November that the Trump administration had increased pressure on the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah.
Original source of the article: Lindsey Graham abruptly ends meeting after Lebanese general refuses to label Hezbollah terrorists
