'create chaos and keep the money flowing' is about as much as any of these twits have on the docket. They're so desperate to counter Hizbu'llah that there's nothing on the table that would be considered too insane by the Saudi and US ambassadors; Jeffrey Feltman, in a variety of positions (Ambassador from 2004-2008, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs since then--though I've heard he's stepping down from that soon, possibly to a position in the UN--horrifying thought but whatever) has led the charge with this bonkers approach, it looks like he thinks he runs the Lebanese government sometimes. Giving al-Qai'dah and its kindreds Tripoli as a base for blowing things up?--on paper that seems nuts, but that's been officially unofficial US/Saudi/Hariri policy since about 2008 (possibly before then, but certainly after the brief conflict in 2008 showed how absolutely inept M14's militias would be against Hizbu'llah and its allies).
Israel's former proxies have been so thoroughly defeated and discredited that the zionists actually have little effective influence on the ground. They try to plant spies within Hizbu'llah, but the latter's counterintel apparatus is very effective at sniffing out foreign operatives, reference the remarkable operation uncovering CIA operations over the last couple years that so thoroughly embarrassed the Agency that they shut down almost all active ops on the ground.
It's all from the "West" and the Gulf now, mostly Saudi Arabia. The bandit kingdom does nothing except sow chaos as a basic principle of foreign policy, which incidentally also has a pretty high batting average for "blowback". Their one and only move is to promote the most fanatic preachers with loads of cash and guns and send them out to do their thing--which is exactly what's going on at the moment. The basic plan, in as much as there is one, is to keep Hizbu'llah and the government busy fighting salafist militias in the north and in Syria, so they cannot pose any possible resistance to the aggressive US/Saudi/Israeli policy against Iran.
It was a barely covered story, but there was recently an alliance engineered by Qatar between Hariri Jr's "pro-West" Mustaqbal (Future) Party and the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood--the same organization dominating the opposition in Syria. Tripoli is something of an economic backwater in terms of the rest of the country, which makes it a good recruiting ground for aforementioned preachers. And they have very close ties to the armed gangs blowing things up in Syria, some experienced commanders on the ground from the war in Iraq as well. Fun times to follow. I should be visiting the area later this summer, hopefully my friends aren't dead then; that always puts a downer on vacations.
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