Early last month US President George W. Bush signed into effect the Executive Order, “Blocking Property of Persons Undermining the Sovereignty of Lebanon or Its Democratic Processes and Institutions." The document, say sources on the ground in Beirut, has some Lebanese political figures panicked for their future financial well-being. “Good,” one US administration official told NOW Lebanon. “It was meant to.”

There are a number of Lebanon’s political leaders and officials who reportedly have funds, assets and business concerns in the US, including Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, whose family is said to have extensive American holdings. However, both Lebanese and American political circles agree that the most obvious target of the Executive Order was Michel Aoun’s parliamentary bloc and financial backers in the US.

“It was a warning shot across Aoun’s bow,” says David Schenker, a senior fellow in Arab politics at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy who was previously the top policy aide for the Levant at the Pentagon under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “It is a clarifying statement from the White House,” Schenker says. “Washington wanted to signal their displeasure with Aoun’s role in Lebanon and that there was a price to be paid for trucking with Syria and Hezbollah”...