Graham asks Haykal if army considers Hezbollah 'terrorist', cuts meeting shortly after

Top U.S. military officer General Dan Caine met with Rodolphe Haykal this week, a spokesman said Thursday, after a previously planned visit by the Lebanese army commander to Washington was scrapped.

Caine held talks with Haykal on Tuesday and Qatar's defense chief the day before, "reaffirming the importance of the United States' enduring defense relationships in the Middle East," U.S. Joint Staff spokesman Joseph Holstead said in a statement, without providing further details.

Haykal was scheduled to visit Washington in November 2025, but the trip was called off after U.S. political and military officials canceled their meetings with him just hours before he was scheduled to depart, a military source told AFP at the time.

Those who canceled included influential Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who at the time slammed what he said was Haykal's "almost non-existent effort to disarm Hezbollah."

On Thursday, Graham said on X he had abruptly cut their meeting short after asking Haykal whether the Lebanese military considered Hezbollah to be "a terrorist organization."

Graham said that Haykal replied, "No, not in the context of Lebanon."

"They are clearly a terrorist organization. Hezbollah has American blood on its hands. Just ask the U.S. Marines. They have been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by both Republican and Democrat administrations since 1997 – for good reason," Graham wrote on X.

"As long as this attitude exists from the Lebanese Armed Forces, I don’t think we have a reliable partner in them. I am tired of the double speak in the Middle East. Too much is at stake."

The Lebanese military announced last month that it had completed the first phase of its plan to disarm the militant group, covering the area between the Israeli border and the Litani River.

Under a November 2024 truce that sought to end more than a year of hostilities, Iran-backed Hezbollah must withdraw its forces north of the Litani and have its military infrastructure dismantled in the evacuated areas, while Israeli forces must exit Lebanon.

But Hezbollah has rejected calls to surrender its weapons, and Israel has kept up regular strikes on Lebanon while maintaining troops in five areas near the border that it deems "strategic".

Haykal also met in Washington with U.S. President Donald Trump's senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs, Massad Boulos, who described their meeting as "excellent".