by Hassan Mahmoudi
Lebanon is facing the worst consequences of Iranian meddling and Hezbollah’s domination
One year after the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the number one man in promoting the Iranian regime’s terrorist policies in the region, the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the father of Iranian nuclear activities, took place, virtually without retaliation.
Then, in the Belgian court in Antwerp, Assadollah Assadi, the diplomat terrorist of the regime in Austria, went on trial for carrying a bomb to be installed at the annual gathering of the Iranian Resistance, despite regime attempts to have him returned to Iran and open threats if the trial went ahead.
The consequences of these three strategic blows have had a profound effect on Iran and the region, greatly reducing the authority of the savage and bloodthirsty fundamentalists, and eroding the regime’s defense embankments, which it had spent years and huge amounts of assets to build.
Some of the effects of these blows are:
1. The people of the region, especially Iraq, in protest against 16 years of corruption, unemployment, bloodshed and the interventions of the Islamic Republic of Iran through armed proxy groups in Iraq, revolted in October 2019. This uprising is ongoing and expanding daily. This uprising has all but erased the sense of invincibility of the regime’s proxy armed forces in the mind of the masses.
2. Now, on the anniversary of the Iraqi uprising, after 3 days of conferences at the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, where Ayatollah Sistani, the senior Iraqi Shiite cleric, lives, four Iraqi popular militia groups (joined with Hashd Al-Shaabi) have denounced the Islamic Republic of Iran.
These four militia groups are: Lavaye Al Nessar Marjaeyat, Lavaye Ali Al-Akbar, Ferqat Al-Abbas Al-Qataliyya, and Ferqat Imam Al-Qataliyya. They had previously requested to be separated from Hashd Al-Shaabi.
3. Following a wave of pressure from Iranian-backed political parties in Iraq, such as Al-Fatah (affiliated with Hashd Al-Shaabi) and Dolat Qanoon against Saudi Arabia and Iraq rapprochement, finally the tables have turned against Iran and after 29 years a Saudi high-level delegation, led by the Saudi Minister of Commerce and Investment, Majid al-Qasbi, traveled to the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, on Monday 7 December to sign several memoranda of understanding and economic agreements.
4. In Yemen, no one can tolerate the Houthis, affiliated with the Iranian regime, and in Syria, every day, IRGC commanders are killed and the mullahs do not dare announce the news.
5. In Palestine, pro-regime forces can no longer freely employ Hamas, Jihad-Islamic and Hezbollah. Fatah and Hamas have formed a coalition in solidarity.
6. Today, Lebanon is facing the worst consequences of Iranian meddling and Hezbollah’s domination. It is devastated economically and politically and is in complete international and Arab isolation. It has suffered a catastrophic fate. Most Lebanese people hate Hezbollah’s domination and the Iranian regime that funds it.
As a result, while we will not rush to judge it as the “ineffectiveness of the Iranian regime” quite yet, certainly the course of developments in the Middle East has changed. The balance of power and rules of engagement for the Iranian regime have shifted and there is no return!
Hassan Mahmoudi is a Europe-based social analyst, researcher, independent observer, and commentator of Middle Eastern and Iranian Politics. He tweets under @hassan_mahmou1.
