White House seeks to leverage Israel's strikes to elect new Lebanese president: Axios

U.S. officials revealed the White House aims to leverage Israel's strikes on "Hezbollah's leadership and infrastructure" to accelerate the election of a new Lebanese president in the coming days, Axios reported. 

According to the news website, one of the candidates is Lebanese Army Commander General Joseph Aoun, "who is supported by the U.S. and France."

"With Nasrallah dead and Hezbollah at its weakest in years, the Biden administration thinks there is now an opportunity to dramatically reduce its influence on the Lebanese political system and elect a new president who is not an ally of the Shia militia," two U.S. officials stated, based on the Axios report.

The U.S. officials also revealed that the White House sees Lebanon's current situation "as an opportunity to break the deadlock over the election of a Lebanese president and thinks this should be the top priority, even before a push for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah."

U.S. officials emphasized that the immediate priority is to elect a new president, followed by seeking a diplomatic resolution to the Israeli-Lebanese border conflict based on the U.N. resolution adopted after the 2006 war and then appointing a new Lebanese prime minister.