The Trump administration is worried that Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime is working to undermine neighboring Lebanon by driving up exchange rates for its weakened currency and ratcheting up influence on the fragile government through Iran-backed Hezbollah, according to a State Department finding shared with Congress this summer and obtained by Foreign Policy.
Under pressure from U.S. and international sanctions over its human rights abuses and chemical weapons use during the nearly decadelong Syrian civil war, the Assad regime has long been dependent on siphoning money from the Lebanese banking system and smuggling the cash across the border along with fuel, flour, and wheat, experts said, something that Lebanon’s authorities have had trouble preventing.
