"Berri tells US generals Israeli violations harming state's recovery "
This is the title to an article dated 04/30/25 from the Lebanese new site "Naharnet". As the article notes:
"Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri held talks Wednesday in Ain el-Tineh with the new head of the ceasefire monitoring committee, U.S. major general Michael Leeney, who was accompanied by the committee’s outgoing head Major General Jasper Jeffers."
His complaints are those already well reported about continued attacks and failure to withdraw and he notes:
"“The continued Israeli aggression and violations are harming the state’s recovery process in terms of stability, reforms and sovereignty,” Berri warned."
So here we are in the usual place of one side saying they must keep attacking because the other isn't doing something and that side saying your attacks are making it impossible for us to fully do what needs to be done. The history of anybody in the Middle East holding to their "agreements" and not trying to "hold on" to one disputed aspect or another has a long and tortured history and hanging on to things in order to take further actions and serve as "bargaining chips" is blatantly obvious and why no agreement should ever be taken at face value. They are only maneuvers and lulls in power struggles.
Of course like any agreements in the Middle East over the last 100+ years the agreements are never really what they first seem and the sides move the goalposts on various things, definition of words and terms almost before the ink is dry. But in the case of Lebanon and Syria that span of history is chocked full of deception, fomenting instability, fomenting division etc. by the British, French and the US for their own interests.
So the idea that a "monitoring group" headed by the US will play it straight down the line has no basis in precedent. What we do see is more of the US telling Lebanon to talk to the hand while basically providing a buffer for any real pressure to do much of anything. Long term, lower level attacks and instability serve a US purpose in providing a justification for maintaining and even increasing it's already very large military presence and clandestine operations throughout the region while territory, political control and control of resources get shifted into a posture more to the liking of the US and its various partners and pawns in Middle East.
It is an old game and is most easily seen when looking at the conduct of the British and the French between themselves when the area went under mandates post WWW1. With the French in Syria and the British in Palestine/Transjordan the British did everything they could to undermine any efforts by the French in Syria. Plotting against each other and supplying funding, food, planning and weapons to groups in the hopes they would defeat or hinder what the other power was doing was common. Not that the French were angels in their own conduct there but it is instructive because to the outside world and publicly the two old colonial powers were all about getting along for the benefit of the local populations and helping them form stable countries/governments.
But actually as the historian James Barr relates in his book "A Line in the Sand" the two powers were at each other over the area even before the end of WW1. League of Nations might well have been more aptly named "League of Old Vipers" and the actual reality of powerful countries abusing any notion that they would be about "peace, love and understanding" carried over to the UN of today.
So the upshot for the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament as to getting any meaningful action for his concerns was the mealy mouthed response of the incoming head of the monitoring group Major General Michael Leeney as the article notes:
"Major General Leeney for his part assured that the committee will hold periodic meetings to follow up on the situation."
Wow that sure will move the needle!! Almost like a strongly worded letter right?
https://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/312506-berri-tells-us-generals-israeli-violations-harming-state-s-recovery