By Nohad Topalian | 2024-03-03

BEIRUT -- Iran views Lebanon as an extension of it and is implementing its agenda through regional proxy groups led by Hizbullah, officials and analysts say.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian's recent pledge that Tehran will continue to support Hizbullah is further confirmation of the group's role in advancing Iran's expansionist plans at Lebanon's expense.

On a visit to Beirut February 9, Amir-Abdollahian said Iran "will continue to support the resistance [group] in Lebanon, as we consider Lebanon's security as the security of Iran and the region."

Fate of the region

"Hizbullah works for the interests of Iran and not that of Lebanon," said MP Ghayath Yazbeck, a member of the Lebanese Forces' "Strong Republic" bloc.

"In doing so, it is laying the groundwork for a disaster that nobody wants," he told Al-Fassel.

"Iran controls four Arab capitals... and it decides through them the fate of the region: either war or peace," Yazbeck said.

All of Iran's proxies, including Hizbullah and Hamas, "do not consider their countries to be political entities but rather Iranian territories," he added.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) on Tuesday (February 27) warned of a "concerning shift in the exchanges of fire" in recent days and "an expansion and intensification" of cross-border strikes between Hizbullah and Israel.

"Recent events have the potential to put at risk a political solution to this conflict," UNIFIL said in a statement, urging "all parties involved to halt hostilities... and leave space to a political and diplomatic solution."

Israeli raids near east Lebanon's Baalbek on Monday were the first in the area since hostilities began, and hit far beyond the usual southern border regions.

The Israeli army said the strikes targeted Hizbullah air defenses after the group downed an Israeli drone.

Cross-border exchanges since October have killed at least 284 people on the Lebanese side, most of them Hizbullah fighters but also including 44 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

'An Iranian province'

Iran views Lebanon as "an Iranian province," said political science researcher and professor Ahmed Yassin.

"Iran considers Lebanon, not just Hizbullah, a wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and has planted Hizbullah on the southern border with Israel to create chaos," he told Al-Fassel.

Hizbullah considers Lebanon an extension of Wilyat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist), in reference to Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, said Yassin, who took refuge in France in 2020 after receiving threats from Hizbullah.

"Hizbullah is a wing of the IRGC," he said.

"It derives its funding from its mentor. It implements the Iranian agenda in Lebanon with iron and fire. It steals and confiscates the decision-making process of the Lebanese state and all of Lebanon, and promulgates the principle of weapons in exchange for protecting corruption."

At a time when "the Lebanese do not want war and insist on the implementation of Resolution 1701, Hizbullah attacked Israel under the pretext of defending Hamas," Yassin said.

United Nations Resolution 1701 stipulates the creation of a Hizbullah-free zone south of the Litani River.

United front

Because of Hizbullah, Lebanon is "facing a threat to its identity, knowledge, thought and culture," Yassin said.

Therefore it is necessary to "form a national front and a real opposition to counter Hizbullah's attempts to infuse Lebanon with Iranian ideology and control," he added.

Former MP Mustafa Alloush also urged political forces to "unite to confront a party that is part of an IRGC-led regional system," and stressed the need to foster a sense of "patriotic nationalist sentiment" among the Lebanese.

Iran considers Lebanon an extension of it on the shores of the Mediterranean, he said, and defends its presence there by proxy through Hizbullah.

Alloush laid the responsibility for Amir-Abdollahian's statements with a segment of the Lebanese "who agreed to serve as Iran's army in Lebanon."

"Lebanon alone is not capable of confronting Iran's arms but needs an international response that puts a permanent end to Iran's behavior and its proxies in the region," he said.