Few were shocked to learn that prominent Iranian diplomats are intricately linked to Hezbollah’s command structure. This was confirmed when the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon reportedly lost an eye in an attack targeting the group’s communication devices on Tuesday.
Israel’s truly remarkable two-day remote-explosion campaign must, unfortunately, be tempered by one cold reality: It remains the target of Hezbollah’s arrows, directed by the archer, Tehran.
The looming fate of Beirut — once the bastion of pluralism and openness in the Arab world — was decided long ago by Iran. Having bent the will of Lebanese society to the brink of collapse before pulling back just in time to preserve Hezbollah’s strategic presence on Israel’s northern border, Iran has invited calamity onto tiny Lebanon. Worse yet, the mullahs won’t be around to rebuild its capital in the event of the devastation Israel may rain down upon it. Iran spares no Arab in its quest for regional hegemony.
At the root of this conflict is the American Left’s (and increasingly pockets of the American Right’s) inability to properly diagnose radicalism. When the Iranian legislature bursts into its occasional Marg bar Amrika (“Death to America”) chant, many reflexively wonder what the U.S. did to engender such hatred against them. The survival of despotic regimes, such as Iran’s, is predicated on a perpetual campaign of historic grievances and victimization to justify whatever the current political ambition may be. Iran is not seeking an apology; it simply desires capitulation.
Whether in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, or Iraq, Ayatollah Khamenei foments chaos and disorder. The Iranian revolutionary regime feeds on such sectarian strife before swooping in as the patron for whichever new dependent militia offers the most promise, only to dispose of it when convenient.
Before they turn to the United States and/or Israel, university activists and others bemoaning imperialism should direct their ire at the non-Arab theocracy attempting to impose its narrow (and largely unpopular) brand of religious particularism across the entire region. Instead, those activists have earned a ringing endorsement from it.
The Islamic Republic’s recent hack of the Trump campaign — and efforts to funnel sensitive information to the Harris team — gives Americans an idea of which candidate the regime expects to garner more sympathy from.