Hiding the West’s ongoing neo-colonialism in Lebanon via blaming Iran (1/2)

by Ramin Mazaheri for the Saker Blog

I have spoken with many in France’s huge expatriate Lebanese community – and from all groups – and not a single person has ever claimed that Iran was the power behind the scenes in Lebanon. Without fail I was told that this title belongs to France.

It shouldn’t be surprising: France completely devised modern Lebanon.

Many Lebanese don’t like to be reminded of this, but Lebanon is an artificial nation which France constructed entirely on the basis of racism: just as Zionists to the south wanted a “Jewish nation”, Lebanon was hacked off of Syria in 1920 to create a new Christian-majority nation.

That’s a “no longer relevant” tale of divide and conquer to some, even though a few centenarians may still remember the actual event.

France also devised Lebanon’s sectarianism-enshrining, woefully unmodern constitution, which has ensured divisive identity politics ever since.

Thus, just as Israel is a little part of the USA in the Middle East, Lebanon is the older, French version. The saying, “Beirut is the Paris of the Middle East” could not be more correct.

And yet, were an alien to visit and read Western mainstream media coverage of the recent protests in Lebanon it would not imagine that France ever had any role in Lebanon, much less a prominent role there today.

Instead, Western headlines and reports all push the totally absurd claim that Iran has somehow become the neo-colonial master in Lebanon. Somehow – and via the poorest, most marginalised sectors of Lebanese society, no less – Iran has been able to usurp a century of French power.

Furthermore, despite the century of French involvement it is not France but Iran which is responsible for the corruption that has pushed so many Lebanese into the streets.

Apparently Iran took power and also became corrupt so very quickly that the Lebanese themselves didn’t even realise it! The idea is laughable.

Or perhaps: the Lebanese themselves don’t know what is actually going on in their own country – the West knows better.

These are the kind of ideas only a Westerner could believe.

The reason is simple: advertising works. Astute observers already realise that when it comes to the Middle East every problem – big or small – is blamed on Iran in the West.

However, what’s rarely examined is how this very real Iranophobia allows the West to obscure places where their neo-colonial machinations could not be more obvious, such as in Lebanon.

If it’s not Iran then it must be Hezbollah, but it can never be France

If the West cannot destroy Iran in 2019 they will happily settle for destroying Hezbollah.

There are two types of political parties: those which citizens fight to destroy (like the Yellow Vests and the three mainstream political parties in France), and those which citizens fight to preserve. There is no doubt which camp Hezbollah belongs to.

Hezbollah is the “Party of God” and the party of Lebanon’s poor, but many insist they are not a political party but a larger “resistance movement”. Amal is a political party allied with Hezbollah, and Western media coverage is doing their best to lump both in with the older, Western-aping, billionaire-backed parties which are the true cause of the recent corruption protests.

Hezbollah has always said they would never turn their guns on Lebanese, and even if the West doesn’t want anyone to know that the Lebanese certainly do. They know that without Hezbollah southern Lebanon would be called “Northern Israel” today. Or, nearly as badly, it would still be the State of Free Lebanon, that stillborn Israeli client from the early 1980s which no country besides Israel recognised. (That’s just more “no longer relevant” history to Western mainstream journalists of course.)

The West hates Hezbollah for the same reason Lebanon supports it – Hezbollah is what ensures Lebanon’s security from repeated, deadly, infrastructure-ruining Israeli invasions. After the 2006 war with Israel most Sunnis and an estimated 50% of Christians supported Hezbollah – that’s hardly sectarian hatred.

After saving the Lebanese from Israel on multiple occasions, the undeniable and enduring popular support of Hezbollah and Amal comes from their education, health and other social welfare organisations. Southern Lebanon is most notable not for being mostly Shia but for its extreme poverty, which was the result of decades of neglect from Paris-allied Beirut. Hezbollah and Amal helped reverse that, to the extreme embarrassment and consternation of France, Israel and their many sectarian militias, mafias and political puppets in Lebanon.

And yet despite being so late arriving to power, despite being anchored in the poorest regions, despite decades of neglect from Beirut, and despite illegal and inhuman US-led sanctions on Hezbollah… the West wants us to believe that Hezbollah and Amal are the ones responsible for the corruption at the heart of the current protests!

One has to wonder: if these two groups are so corrupt then where is the money, because it is certainly not in southern Lebanon?

The idea that Hassan Nasrallah, who can make a fair claim to be the most popular Muslim leader and hero in the world currently, is about to fall due to decades of corruption in Beirut is an absolute fantasy which can only be taken seriously in the West.

Again, what we have here is another situation where Western propaganda is aiming to manipulate legitimate unhappiness created by long-tenured Western client politicians in order to deny the West’s neo-colonial culpability. The legitimate demands in Yemen, Palestine and Iraq are all being portrayed as being caused by an Iranian neo-colonialism which does not exist, when the real culprit is the very real and very accurately-named Western neo-colonialism.

The West, of course, may speak of neoliberalism but never neo-colonialism.

The long-running source of corruption in Lebanon: Western-allied, neoliberal & neocolonial puppets

I would imagine that up to this point a Lebanese reader has been quite bored – I have only relayed things which he or she already knows quite well. But perhaps a Lebanese expatriate in Brazil or the United States – who cannot visit Lebanon so easily and who foolishly relies on the Western mainstream media – may not know some of these things.

What most Lebanese know quite intimately is that they no longer have a “real” economy. Their export capabilities are so woeful that scrap iron was their third top export in 2017, at just $179 million.

This is unsurprising, because Lebanon’s longtime function was to serve as France’s Middle East banking haven, with Switzerland-level secrecy laws dating to 1956. However, they have increasingly been replaced by Qatar and other Persian Gulf nations.

Banking is still a strong sector of their economy, but now mainly due to the huge number of remittances (only 4 million Lebanese live in Lebanon but there are an astonishing 8-12 million living as expatriates).

All this wouldn’t be a problem if Lebanon had a strong government to centrally plan and direct their limited economy, and also a government which cared for their 99% instead of their 1%, but Lebanon has neither of these things. The reason for this has nothing to do with Hezbollah, but everything to do with the real root of the current protests.

After the Taif Accords in 1989 and the fall of the USSR in 1991, Rafic Hariri, who became Lebanon’s richest man/prime minister thanks to earning billions via construction with the House of Saud, embarked on the massive “Horizon 2000” privatisation plan, which sold off the major industries and real estate of the Lebanese people. Hariri, in classic Western fashion, privatised the people’s wealth mainly to himself, but also to French companies.

Hariri’s “There Is No Alternative” (to neoliberalism) plan also included massive efforts to attract foreign investment, which ballooned the national debt – the funds were not spent on the poor, of course, but lined the pockets of the rich. France is always the one who organises the regular international debt conferences to restructure Lebanon’s debt, reaping compound interest payments all the while. Rafic Hariri was yet another Arab aristocrat who yoked his people to Western debtors for generations.

Hariri also banned protests and encouraged bribes and kickbacks to the army in order to continue his neoliberalisation drive totally unfettered.

For these reasons (i.e., he made them rich via ruthless self-interest) the assassinated Hariri is worshiped in the West as a true martyr to the neoliberal faith, whereas his corruption in Lebanon was infamous and resented. The most common phrase about him is, “He treated the state as if it was his home.”

His son Saad could have hardly done worse, but he certainly has tried: $16 million to a bikini model mistress, getting abducted by the Saudis and then resigning on their TV, etc. Saad Hariri has held so very many closed-door meetings with France’s president over the past decade that I truly just got tired of covering it for PressTV – I think he must have a private room at Élysée Palace?

What I have described is three decades of oligarchic economic corruption, mismanagement and economic far-right neglect, and here is the bill: At 158% Lebanon’s debt to GDP ratio is the 5th highest in the world, just behind Greece.

Few commentators go further, however: Lebanon’s external debt to GDP ratio is only around 45%, implying that there is a lot of money in Lebanon but held – in an inherently corrupt manner – by extremely few hands. And this is certainly the case: Lebanon’s richest 0.1% own the same amount of wealth as the poorest 50 percent, making Lebanon one of the most unequal countries in the world.

Lebanon is thus an economically rudderless, economically unequal and economically corrupt nation, and it is quite obvious that none of this happened because of late-arriving, poor-loving Hezbollah or Iran.

It is absolutely preposterous to believe that Iran or Hezbollah is the source of Lebanon’s inequality and corruption, and thus that they could be the true target of protesters. The Western Mainstream Media – mostly privately owned, incredibly chauvinistic – is trying to sell an anti-Iran/anti-Hezbollah conspiracy even though the Lebanese themselves will not be fooled by it for one second.

The West, especially France, created, applauded and profited Lebanon’s economic corruption via their unstinting support for the corrupt and despised Hariris, and also Israel’s expatriate-inducing, infrastructure destroying invasions. France’s role in saddling Lebanon’s economy with two million of Syrian and Palestinian refugees is also glossed over by the Western mainstream media, of course.

I hope the true profiteers of Lebanon’s misery will finally be called to account. The Lebanese know who has robbed them, and it is not Hezbollah, Nasrallah or Iran.

Part 2 in this series will give more details on the corrupt Lebanese politicians of today, most of who are associated with violent militias armed and funded by France and/or Israel.

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of the books I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China and the upcoming Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism. 

Who is pushing for another civil war in Lebanon?

Secretary-General of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has warned that foreign elements and certain political parties are seeking to “exploit” recent protests in Lebanon and “create a political vacuum in the county.” But who are these voices of chaos in Lebanon?

“Some protests have been financed by embassies and suspicious sides. Certain elements are seeking to stir political tensions in Lebanon in a bid to create political vacuum in the country," Nasrallah said on Friday, warning that certain factions seek to take the country to “civil war", a reference to the country’s bloody 1975-1990 civil war.

Nasrallah, nonetheless, did not elaborate what political parties and foreign entities may be seeking to divert the major anti-corruption and economic protests which have continued for ten consecutive days.

The Hezbollah chief had previously lauded the protests as being initially “spontaneous” and independent from any foreign or domestic political influence.

Remarks similar to those by Nasrallah have been echoed among other Lebanese figures in recent days.

Last week, Lebanon's Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil warned of a “fifth column” seeking to provoke further tension in these heady days.

Similarly, Leader of the Arab Tawhid Party We'am Wahhab said that “foreign elements” were seeking to pressure Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri to resign and dissolve the government.

Nasrallah has said the government’s resignation is a “waste of time”.

New elections and the consequently timely formation of a new government will ultimately include the same combination of Lebanon’s various political parties already present in the cabinet, failing to address Lebanon’s “systematic” problems and further destabilizing Lebanon, Nasrallah has argued.

While many Lebanese leaders have warned against foreign and domestic parties seeking to destabilize Lebanon and weaken its government, none have specified the names of foreign entities and domestic parties seeking to benefit from the destabilization.

Certain factions among Lebanon’s political elite have, nonetheless, openly called for the resignation of the current government.

Samir Geagea, leader of the Lebanese Forces parliamentary bloc, was one of first Lebanese figures to call for Hariri to resign. He ordered his party’s four ministers in Hariri’s cabinet to submit their resignation last week.

Geagea and his party are known to have close links with Washington and Riyadh. During Lebanon's bloody 1975-1990 civil war, Geagea led the Lebanese Forces militia which formed an alliance with Israel.

The militias are known to have facilitated the infamous Sabra and Shatila massacre in Beirut, which lead to death of up to 3,500 civilians from Palestinian and Lebanese Shia backgrounds.

In 1994, Geagea was found guilty of ordering four political assassinations, including the killing of PM Rashid

Netanyahu’s reaction to Nasrallah’s remarks to serve his election campaign

:Senior Hamas member

TEHRAN, Jan. 29 (MNA) – A senior Hamas member, Mahmoud al-Zahar, told MNA that if all the countries and powers occupied by the Israelis regime come together, a so-called ‘Last Battle’ will take place, which will put an end to the regime.

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised interview with Lebanese Al Mayadeen TV on Saturday that at any moment a decision could be taken in Syria by Syrian leaders and the Resistance axis to confront the Israeli aggressions. In short, the message that Netanyahu has to receive is to consider these variables and not to make a mistake in its assement, which could lead to war in the region.

On the other hand, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Hassan Nasrallah's remarks, claiming Hezbollah was anxious and very confused.

According to Israeli media, Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting that Hezbollah's leader broke his silence during a televised speech, because this ‘militia’ faces financial pressure from US sanctions against Iran and that the recent Israeli operation has destroyed Hezbollah tunnels in the north.

To shed further light on this, Mehr News conducted an interview with Mahmoud al-Zahar, co-founder of Hamas and a member of the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip, which is as follows:

In the past few days, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah broke his media silence after two months and took positions on the developments in the region with special Zionist threats. What impact did his recent remarks have on deterrence of the Israeli regime’s authorities?

First, Netanyahu claims in his remarks that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had been disappointed, one of his lies, and that the purpose of the plan was, on the one hand, to increase the morale of the Israeli side and, on the other, part of the campaign's pre-election propaganda, in particular after the issue of tunnels in southern Lebanon. As many sources stressed that there was no tunnel in that area, it was only Netanyahu's trickery and deception on the Israeli community to frighten them from the resistance in the north of the occupied lands.

Netanyahu also claimed that the Resistance in the north and south failed to stabilize the spirit of the Israelis. Everyone knows that Nasrallah does not need these things and does not tremble with these words. Because people back him, and Resistance is with him and the great powers also support him.

Lebanese Hezbollah secretary general announces Lebanese resistance forces to enter Al-Jalil district in case of confrontation with the Zionists. How do you evaluate this capability?

There are powers that, if united and coordinated, are able to defeat the Zionist regime. First, a part of Lebanon's territory is occupied and Lebanon's Resistance has been able to strike Zionist enemy in some of these areas and it can complete this process; thus they can enter the occupied territories of northern Palestine. In the case of Syria, after retaking its lands completely, Damascus is able to attack Israel to reclaim its territory and end Israeli’s occupation of northern Palestine.

On the other hand, the Palestinian Resistance can also strike the occupiers in southern regions, as it did in the past. Therefore, if all the countries and powers that occupied by Israelis are united, ‘The Last Battle’ will happen and this alien regime will be wipe off.

Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah maintained that discovery of Resistance tunnels after 13 years shows the weakness of Zionist intelligence. What is your analysis of the Israel’s security situation?

Suppose that the Zionists discovered the tunnels. Is this a miracle? These are, in fact, fictitious victories, indicating that owners of occupied lands (Palestinians) may use invisible tools to gain victory. Palestinian Resistance also dig tunnels and discovering that is not a major achievement.

Because we do not talk about ghosts and shadows, but about the land and the land is also visible. There are plenty of ways to explore the tunnels, but the true desire of Resistance to use all of the ways, including the tunnel for the destruction of Israel, cannot be eliminated.

In general, is there any possibility of conflict between the Zionists and the Resistance Axis in the New Year? Which side is going to win?

Firstly, the issue of war is one of the Zionists' propaganda tool before the parliamentary elections. They believe that Gaza and the Palestinian Resistance group in the south of the occupied territories are weaker than Resistance group in the north, even in this situation, they cannot again defeat Palestinian Resistance. Netanyahu does not want to fail upcoming elections, and because of the defeat in the south, he is looking for victory in the north. The truth is that the "The Last Battle" is God's will to destroy Israel, and in spite of the normalization of relations with the Zionists, there is a power called Resistance in the region to destroy Israel and change the political geography of the region.

Nasrallah: Hezbollah Stronger Than Zionist Army

BEIRUT – Secretary General of Hezbollah said late Tuesday that U.S. sanctions against Iran and Lebanon's resistance movement will not have major effects on them and will not lead to regime change in Tehran.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech marking the 12th anniversary of the end of the 34-day war with the occupying regime of Israel that the Trump administration is "mistaken" by thinking the sanctions will lead to riots in Iran.

Last week the U.S. began restoring sanctions that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which President Donald Trump withdrew from in May.

"Iran has been facing sanctions since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979," Nasrallah said. "He (Trump) is strengthening the sanctions but they have been there since 1979 and Iran stayed and will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the victory of its revolution."

The Hezbollah chief spoke to thousands of Lebanese gathered at a rally south of Beirut, where they watched his speech on giant screens.

Speaking about the restoration of the sanctions by the Washington, Nasrallah said: "I can tell you and I have accurate information they are building dreams, strategies and projects that Iran will head toward chaos and the establishment will fall. This is illusion, this is imagination and has nothing to do with reality."

He added that Hezbollah is not scared of a possible war with the Zionist regime of Israel.

"No one should threaten us with war and no one should scare us by war," he said, adding: "We are not scared or worried about war and we are ready for it and we will be victorious."

Nasrallah said, "Hezbollah might not be the strongest army in the Middle East but it is certainly stronger than the Israeli army because we have more faith in our cause and greater willingness to sacrifice.”

"The resistance in Lebanon — with its arms, personnel, expertise and capabilities — is stronger than ever,” he added. 

Nasrallah also said Israel would fail to force Hezbollah away from the Syrian Golan, where the Zionists regime fears the resistance movement will set up bases to use for attacks against the occupying regime, and has pushed for Russia to enforce a buffer zone.

"The Israeli enemy, which has been defeated in Syria, is insolently seeking to impose its conditions in Syria, but this will not happen,” he said.

Palestinians demonstrate & reject Trump’s ‘Deal of Century’

Hundreds of Palestinians have once again expressed their complete rejection of the so-called “Deal of the Century” proposed by US President Donald Trump, demanding Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to stand firm against what they branded as the “Deal of Disgrace.” Palestinians from all walks of life marched through the streets of Ramallah, a major city in the occupied West Bank, on Monday, voicing their support of the Palestinian leadership and stressing that the US so-called deal would defiantly fall apart. The so-called deal, a backchannel plan to allegedly reach a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, was proposed by the US administration late last year. Although the plan has not been released, leaks signal it will consist of the same tried and failed ideas. Palestinians believe that the deal suggests building their own Jerusalem al-Quds from areas surrounding the existing city and forget about the historic place. They also believe that the US-drafted plan calls for keeping borders and security under Israeli control, while it keeps Israeli settlements’ final borders to be discussed in later negotiations. Earlier this month, Secretary General of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that Trump’s much touted “the Deal of the Century” aimed to terminate the Palestinian cause. Nasrallah added at the time that Israeli officials have been seeking to change the demographic make-up of Jerusalem al-Quds ever since the Tel Aviv regime was created. Last week, Trump’s senior adviser, Jared Kushner, said details of the proposed deal would be announced soon. A number of top Palestinian officials were also among the demonstrators, including Deputy Head of the Fatah movement Mahmoud al-Alul, member of the movement’s Central Committee Jamal Muheisen and the governor of the Ramallah and al-Bireh district Laila Ghannam. “We do not want your aid, we want a Palestinian state,” said al-Alul during a speech at the rally, addressing Trump. He added the US “is not qualified to lead the peace process”, stressing that Jerusalem al-Quds “is the capital of Palestine.” The protesters were waving the Palestinian flag and carrying pictures of President Abbas, as they chanted slogans denouncing the “ominous deal”, the overwhelming American support for the Israeli occupation. They also chanted slogans in support of Abbas and his “wise” policies, stressing the importance of Palestinian national unity. “You are aware of the price that our people have paid for liberation. Thousands of our people have martyred so far and thousands others are suffering in the Israeli prisons. Our pledge to our martyrs and prisoners is that we will not accept anything less than the liberation of our lands, independence and freedom of our people,” Alul further said during his speech. The US-Palestine ties deteriorated last December, when Washington recognized Jerusalem al-Quds as the “capital” of Israel and announced plans to transfer the embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city. Israel lays claim to the whole Jerusalem al-Quds, but the international community views the city’s eastern sector as an occupied territory and Palestinians consider it as the capital of their future state. The contentious move led Abbas to formally declare that Palestinians would no longer accept the US as a mediator to resolve the conflict, because Washington was “completely biased” towards Tel Aviv. The US embassy relocation took place on May 14, the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Nakba Day (the Day of Catastrophe), sparking deadly clashes in the Gaza Strip. “The rally is a message to the US administration and the Israeli government that the Palestinian people insist on resolving the conflict in accordance with relevant UN resolutions and refuse to abandon their inalienable rights,” said Dalal Salama, a member of Fatah’s central council, at the rally. Trump has times and again called his yet-to-be-released plan as “The Deal of the Century”, but it is coincidentally the title of a 1983 comedy, which features a bunch of hapless arms dealers, who compete to sell a weapon, called the Peacemaker, to a South American dictator.