DEBKAfile: Trump recognizes Golan to counter Iran’s first steps for annexing Lebanon to Syria/موقع دبيكا: ترمب يعترف بإسرائيلية الجولان ليحبط الخطوات الأولى لإلحاق لبنان بسوريا/Pompeo Deems Hezbollah as ‘Risk to Middle East Stability’ Ahead of Beirut

Trump recognizes Golan to counter Iran’s first steps for annexing Lebanon to Syria
موقع دبيكا: ترمب يعترف بإسرائيلية الجولان ليحبط الخطوات الأولى لإلحاق لبنان بسوريا
DEBKAfile/March 21/19

US President Donald Trump’s declared recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan on Thursday, March 21, had a time-sensitive object, unconnected to the Israeli election or Binyamin Netanyahu’s run for reelection, as his rivals contended. DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources reveal that it was an arrow aimed by the US president at Iran, Syria, Iraq and Hizballah, and the machinations plotted at Syrian President Bashar Assad’s meeting with Iran’s supreme leader ayatollah Ali Khameini on Feb. 25. Present at their meeting, our sources reveal, were two figures, Al Qods chief Qasem Soleimani, supreme commander of Iran’s Mid East fronts, and, for the first time, a high-ranking Hizballah military official, who is a senior strategic adviser to Hassan Nasrallah.

In answer to a question put to him in an Israel TV interview on Thursday, visiting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pointed out that Qassem Soleimani doesn’t’ consider elections in Israel when he acts day by day against the US and Israel. Pompeo was referring that that groundbreaking conversation in Khamenei’s office on Feb. 25. The presence of a highly representative Hizballah official at that meeting, alongside Assad and Soleimani, signified Tehran’s decision to treat Syria and Lebanon as a single political and military entity.

Iran in fact is taking the first steps towards Syria’s annexation of Lebanon.
Neither Washington nor Moscow are ready to countenance this step. It is therefore possible that President Vladimir Putin may agree to overtly join or quietly support US and Israel counter-action.

He already sent Defense Minister Gen. Sergei Shoigu to Damascus on Tuesday, March 19, the day after the Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi chiefs of staffs sat down to prepare joint operations in line with their new orders. Shoigu warned Assad against going through with the plan to join Iran, Iraq and Hizballah in a new axis non-aligned with any world powers. Shoigu told him that Russia was ready to put a stop to it taking off.

The Trump administration is setting two steps in train:
1-It was announced that the time had come for the US recognize the Golan as sovereign Israeli territory.
Pompeo arrives on Friday, March 22, for a two-day visit with a warning to 2-deliver to Lebanese President Michel Aoun: If his government joins the Iranian-Syrian-Iraqi-Hizballah axis, the US will hit hard against it, including the imposition of sanctions against Lebanon’s banking system.
US recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Golan, though important, does not mark the end of the struggle for this strategic plateau; just the beginning

Pompeo Deems Hezbollah as ‘Risk to Middle East Stability’ Ahead of Beirut
Kataeb.org/Thursday 21st March 2019
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Wednesday deemed Hezbollah as a risk to the Middle East stability, one day before his scheduled visit to Beirut.
Following meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem, Pompeo described Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemen’s Houthis and all Iran-backed proxies as “entities that present risks to Middle East stability and to Israel”.
“They are determined to wipe this country off the face of the planet and we have a moral obligation and a political one to prevent that from happening. You should know that the United States is prepared to do that,” Pompeo said during the meeting. Pompeo voiced regret over the leniency of former U.S. administrations in dealing with Hezbollah and curbing it.
“We’re going to be very clear about how America sees Hezbollah and our expectations about how Lebanon’s success depends on the Lebanese people demanding that a terrorist organization not be in control of their government and not drive policies and create risk for their country as well,” he told reporters.
“We all know the risk, right? Hezbollah does something inside of Lebanon, the risk of escalation is real.””The people of Lebanon don’t want that. The people of Israel don’t want that. The people of the United States of America don’t want that,” Pompeo stated. For his part, Rivlin said that Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri “cannot say to anyone that Lebanon is separate from Hezbollah”, saying that the group is represented in both the government and Parliament. “If something will happen from Lebanon toward Israel, we will hold Lebanon as the responsible”, Rivlin warned.

Pompeo Says Former Administrations were Lax in ‘Reining in’ Hizbullah
Naharnet /March 21/19
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday voiced regret that the previous U.S. administrations did not do much to “rein in” Hizbullah. Pompeo made the remarks in an interview with Al-Arabiya television on the eve of an official visit to Lebanon. The top U.S. diplomat hopes to use his first visit to Lebanon to step up pressure on Hizbullah and its regional backer Iran. But he is likely to face resistance even from Washington’s Lebanese allies, who fear that pushing too hard could spark a backlash and endanger the tiny country’s fragile peace. Hizbullah wields more power than ever in parliament and the government. Pompeo will meet Friday with President Michel Aoun and will also hold talks with Speaker Nabih Berri and Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil — all three of whom are close Hizbullah allies. He will also meet with Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who is close to the West but has opted to strike a political settlement with Hizbullah.