Hezbollah and other armed groups in Lebanon should be disbanded with the government extending its authority throughout the country, the State Department said Thursday. Independent armed militia “are not a recipe for success and do not contribute to stability” in Lebanon, spokesman Adam Ereli said. But a former U.S. ambassador to Syria, Theodore Kattouf, said any Lebanese government that tried to disarm Hezbollah would collapse. “I think Hezbollah should be disarmed,” Kattouf said at the Nixon Center, a private research organization. “But I don’t think we should bludgeon Lebanon as its first order of business.” Full Story