I'm John Batch with my good colleague Bill Rajo and our good colleague David Ode of the Foundation for

Defense of Democracy. You see, David's reporting on Long War Journal. We recommend to stay up to

pacing about what's going on because David is helping us see through a glass darkly. We don't know

everything. We don't know even enough of it

to calm down. Bill, you have a question for David. David, it's been a year since the so-called

ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel. The Lebanese government continues to refuse to work towards disarming Hezbollah, at a larger level here, at a higher level here, what would it take for the Trump administration, for the U.S. government, to be convinced that the Lebanese government, the Lebanese armed forces are not serious about enforcing the disarmament

of Hezbollah. I mean, I don't know what more it could take because from the outset, you know,

the Trump administration took office with a deal, right? The government that was in place had basically

already reverted to, you know, the old narratives that disarmament of Hezbollah would occur through, you know, dialogue and consensus, meaning we're going to ask Hezbollah really nicely if they want to surrender their arms, which always reminds me of that scene from The Simpsons where the private investigator asked Sideshowab, you know, to leave town.

And Sightrobab just says no.

And that's basically what's been going on.

Lebanon keeps asking, oh, come on, be a pal, disarm.

And Hesbola says no.

So with the switchup of the government to the president,

perhaps there was some hope, right?

Joseph Aung comes in, gives a very rousing inaugural speech about what's going to happen in his presidential era,

including the monopolization of arms in the hands of the state and so on and so forth.

But behind the scenes, he was smoothing things over with

Hezbollah. Now it's a year on. Again, Noafsalam. The prime minister came in on the same,

same hopes, same promises, and now we see it all falling apart. It seems like, look, you know,

if you had Morgan Ortegas go in there, quote, as bad copped, you know,

come in with a tough approach, you'd yet try to give the Lebanese the benefit of the doubt.

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