KNOWING YOUR ALLIES:

The day after Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri met with President Trump at the White House, a member of his delegation saluted Hezbollah on social media from Washington. Last Wednesday, former minister, and current advisor to the Lebanese president (a Hezbollah ally), Elias Bou Saab, tweeted a salute to "every resister"--a euphemism for Hezbollah fighter--and "every soldier" fighting in the outback of the northeastern Lebanese town of Arsal, on the border with Syria. Later that same day, Bou Saab, who is the Executive Vice President of The American University in Dubai, and is widely seen in Lebanon as a sympathizer of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, posed for a picture with a journalist from the pro-Hezbollah TV channel, NBN. The journalist posted the photo on her Facebook page. It shows Bou Saab and the journalist on a street in Washington, holding a placard with another salute to Hezbollah. It reads: "From the outback of Washington, a salute to the heroes in the outback of Arsal."

Bou Saab's boss, Hariri, was only slightly more reserved in his public alliance with the Lebanese terror army--aka "the resistance." After his press conference with President Trump, in which the U.S. president described Hezbollah as regional menace and long arm of Iran, the prime minister told Lebanese reporters, "We fight ISIS and al-Qaida. Hezbollah is in the government and part of parliament and we have an understanding with it."

An understanding with Hezbollah sounds about right. Hariri's visit with Trump was part of a coordinated, multifaceted information campaign to swindle the U.S. government into continuing its military support and extending political cover for the evolving pro-Iran order in Lebanon and Syria. Everyone--Hariri, Hezbollah, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and its supporters and publicists in Washington--is in on the con.

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