The United States has floated a proposal for an economic zone in southern Lebanon in what analysts tell Al Jazeera is a far-fetched and poorly thought-out plan to incentivise the Lebanese government to push on with disarming Hezbollah.

The US envoy to the Middle East, Thomas Barrack, floated the economic zone during a visit to Lebanon on Tuesday but provided few details other than hints at financing.

“We, all of us – the Gulf, the US, the Lebanese – are all going to act together to create an economic forum that is going to produce a livelihood,” Barrack told journalists.

Experts said the idea could be based on similar zones in Jordan and Egypt, two countries with peace deals with Israel that Lebanon would be hard-pressed to replicate after last year’s Israeli war on Lebanon.

After the

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