Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri stressed the expulsion of Iran's envoy ‘will not pass’ and demanded Beirut cancel its decision
News Desk - The Cradle
The Iranian Foreign Ministry announced in a statement on 30 March that its ambassador to Lebanon will remain at his post, several days after Beirut issued a decision to expel the envoy.
“Considering the discussions raised by the relevant Lebanese parties and the conclusions reached, the Iranian ambassador will continue his work as ambassador in Beirut and is still present there,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said.
Diplomatic sources told AFP that the Iranian envoy “will not leave Lebanon, in accordance with the wishes of the speaker of parliament Nabih Berri and of Hezbollah.”
Hezbollah and the Lebanon's Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, who also serves as the head of the Amal Movement, rejected the Lebanese Foreign Ministry's decision to expel Iran’s ambassador.
Amal Movement and Hezbollah MPs boycotted parliamentary sessions last week when the decision was made. “This cannot pass,” Berri was quoted as saying by Al-Joumhouria newspaper, demanding “the cancellation of the decision to expel the ambassador and nothing less than that.”
“No one should talk to me, go and deal with the crisis, the solution is clear,” he added.
The Lebanese decision, which gave ambassador Mohammad Reza Sheibani until 29 March to leave the country, cited what Beirut claimed was a “violation of diplomatic norms and established practices between the two countries.”
The decision will reportedly not materialize after Berri’s intervention. Lebanon has not issued another official statement since the deadline for the ambassador to leave expired on Sunday.
The Amal Movement reportedly told the Iranian ambassador to reject the Lebanese Foreign Ministry's decision.
Days before Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji announced the move, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam accused Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of “managing” Hezbollah’s military operations.
Over the past year and a half, Lebanon’s government has used increasingly charged rhetoric against the Islamic Republic, under heavy pressure on Beirut regarding Hezbollah and its weapons.
The Lebanese resistance and the IRGC have been carrying out joint rocket and missile operations since Hezbollah joined the war on 2 March, responding to over a year of Israeli ceasefire violations, following the assassination of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
An industrial building and fuel tanker at the Bazan Oil Refinery in Haifa were struck during a joint rocket and missile attack launched by Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic on 30 March, resulting in a large blaze.
Iranian undergrads form a human chain around Fordow nuclear facilitiy as to support the nuclear activity of the country on November 19, Qom, Iran. [Stringer/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images]
“The world cannot preach non-proliferation while practising selective permission. That is not law – it is hierarchy.”
The global discourse on nuclear weapons has drifted far from its stated goal of disarmament. What remains today is not a principled framework for peace, but a deeply unequal system of control – one that determines who may possess the most destructive weapons ever created, and who must remain permanently under suspicion.
At the centre of this unequal order stands Iran: scrutinized, sanctioned, and threatened, not for what it has done, but for what it might one day choose to do. This is not non-proliferation. This is nuclear apartheid.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entered into force in 1970, was premised on a fundamental bargain. Non-nuclear states agreed to forgo nuclear weapons in exchange for access to peaceful nuclear technology and a binding commitment by nuclear-armed states to pursue disarmament under Article VI. More than fifty years later, that promise stands betrayed.
The five recognized nuclear powers – United States, Russia, China, France, and United Kingdom – have not only failed to disarm, but have actively modernised their arsenals. Vast resources continue to be poured into enhancing nuclear capabilities, refining delivery systems, and ensuring the long-term viability of weapons that can destroy humanity many times over.
At the same time, states outside the NPT framework – such as India and Pakistan—have developed and maintained nuclear weapons with limited global penalty. Most strikingly, Israel, widely believed to possess a sophisticated and undeclared nuclear arsenal, has never signed the NPT and remains entirely outside its inspection regime.
The result is unmistakable: a two-tier system – one for the powerful, and one for the rest.
To understand why Iran is singled out, one must step beyond present-day accusations and examine history, law, and geopolitical power.
Iran’s nuclear programme did not begin in defiance. It began with encouragement from the United States under the “Atoms for Peace” initiative in the 1950s. At that time, Iran was a strategic ally, and its nuclear ambitions were supported rather than feared.
What changed was not technology – but politics.
The 1979 Revolution transformed Iran from a Western-aligned monarchy into an independent republic asserting sovereignty over its political and economic choices. From that moment onward, its nuclear programme was reframed—from legitimate development to potential threat.
Yet Iran remains a signatory to the NPT. It has accepted inspections and consistently maintained that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, even invoking religious prohibitions against nuclear weapons.
Contrast this with Israel.
Israel maintains a long-standing policy of nuclear ambiguity. It neither confirms nor denies its arsenal, avoids international inspections, and remains outside the NPT altogether. Despite this, it faces no comparable sanctions regime, no sustained diplomatic isolation, and no credible threat of enforced disarmament.
This disparity is not incidental. It reflects geopolitical alignment.
Similarly, nuclear-armed states—both within and outside the NPT—continue to expand and refine their arsenals without facing existential scrutiny. The international system tolerates nuclear weapons in the hands of allies while criminalizing their pursuit by adversaries.
Iran is not singled out because it is uniquely dangerous. It is singled out because it is politically inconvenient.
The dominant justification for nuclear weapons remains deterrence—the idea that possession prevents aggression. Yet deterrence is not a neutral doctrine. It is a privilege reserved for those already in possession of nuclear weapons.
For states like Iran, surrounded by nuclear-armed powers and subject to repeated threats of military action, the logic of deterrence becomes difficult to ignore. The existence of nuclear arsenals elsewhere creates the very conditions under which others feel compelled to pursue them.
This is the central contradiction of the non-proliferation regime: it seeks to prevent proliferation without addressing the incentives that drive it.
So long as nuclear weapons are seen as guarantors of security for some, they will remain objects of aspiration for others.
Under Article X of the NPT, any state has the sovereign right to withdraw if it determines that extraordinary events jeopardize its supreme national interests. This provision is not exceptional – it is foundational.
If Iran were to exercise this right, it would not be acting outside international law. It would be exercising a legal option embedded within the treaty itself.
The real question, then, is not legality – it is legitimacy.
Why should a state remain bound by a treaty that is applied selectively? Why should obligations be enforced unevenly while privileges remain protected? A legal framework that lacks reciprocity cannot command enduring compliance.
The moral argument against nuclear weapons is not abstract – it is rooted in history. The Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, carried out by the United States, demonstrated the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear warfare. Entire cities were obliterated. Generations suffered from radiation, illness, and trauma.
These events should have marked the beginning of the end for nuclear weapons.
Instead, they marked the beginning of their normalization.
In response to this enduring threat, the international community has moved – however unevenly – toward prohibition. The Treaty on the Prohibition of nuclear weapons, adopted in 2017, represents a clear legal and moral rejection of nuclear weapons, declaring them incompatible with international humanitarian law. Yet none of the nuclear-armed states have joined it.
Once again, the pattern is unmistakable: law for some, exemption for others.
The path forward cannot be built on coercion or selective enforcement. It must be grounded in universality. A credible non-proliferation regime requires that all states—without exception – commit to disarmament. This includes the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, as well as India, Pakistan, and Israel.
The principle must be simple and uncompromising: no nuclear weapons anywhere, no exceptions, no hierarchies. Anything less is not non-proliferation – it is discrimination.
But disarmament cannot remain a rhetorical aspiration. It demands verifiable timelines, binding commitments, and enforcement mechanisms that apply equally to all states. Without such measures, treaties risk becoming instruments of pressure rather than pathways to peace. The authority of international law depends not only on what it proclaims, but on how consistently it is applied.
The current nuclear order is unsustainable because it is fundamentally unjust. It divides the world into those permitted to wield ultimate violence and those permanently denied that power under threat of punishment.
Iran’s case lays bare this contradiction with clarity. Whether one agrees with Iran’s policies or not, the principle remains clear: international law cannot survive selective application. A system that enforces restraint on some while excusing excess in others undermines its own legitimacy.
If the world is serious about peace, it must move beyond power and toward principle—beyond dominance and toward equality. Not a peace imposed by deterrence, but a peace secured by justice. Not a stability rooted in fear, but one grounded in mutual restraint and shared accountability.
Until then, the truth will remain stark and unavoidable:
There can be no peace with nuclear weapons. And there can be no justice with nuclear apartheid.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei has expressed his gratitude to Iraq’s religious authority and nation for their “explicit” stance on the unlawful war by the United States and the Israeli regime against the Islamic Republic.
In a message on Sunday, Ayatollah Khamenei commended support of top Iraqi religious clerics and nation for Iran in the face of the US-Israeli war of aggression, which began on February 28 by assassinating then-Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and several senior commanders.
Iran’s Ambassador to Baghdad Mohammad Kazem Ale Sadeq handed over the Leader’s message to Head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq Shaikh Humam Hamoudi.
In a statement, which was read out during the Eid al-Fitr prayers on March 21, the top Muslim Shia cleric in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali al-Sistani, strongly condemned the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran.
Ayatollah Sistani said in the statement that the flames of fire were raging over homes in Iran and Lebanon while the two Muslim countries were under military aggression.
“We use the strongest words to condemn this oppressive war and call on all Muslims and freedom-seekers of the world to condemn it and show solidarity with the oppressed nations of Iran and Lebanon,” the statement said.
Ayatollah Sistani, a source of emulation for tens of millions of Shias in Iraq and around the world, also called on influential countries and actors in the world as well as Muslim states to do their utmost to help stop the aggression.
Meanwhile, following Ayatollah Sisitani’s call for providing aid to the Iranian and Lebanese nations, the first convoy of the Iraqi people’s help was sent to Iran.
Behind the polished image of Qatar’s flagship media project lies a tightening grip on dissent, where speech – and even silence – is increasingly policed in line with shifting regional alignments.
The choice of a cubic structure for the building in Education City was not incidental, nor merely an architectural decision. The project, launched under the umbrella of Northwestern University in Qatar and promoted as a global symbol of free media, was framed as a new “Media Kaaba” – a center around which narratives revolve, and a supposed beacon of free expression in the Arab world.
Yet this polished image has steadily unraveled with each real political test. The US-Israeli war on Iran proved decisive, stripping away what remained of the facade and exposing the “Media Kaaba” as little more than a soft projection masking far firmer policies aimed at controlling public opinion.
At a sensitive regional moment, Qatar did not confine itself to articulating positions in international forums. It turned inward. The public sphere began to be reshaped with visible force. The issue is no longer limited to dissenting voices – it now extends to those who remain silent. The emerging equation leaves no room for neutrality: align fully with the official narrative, or fall under suspicion.
This shift is reflected in a wave of arrests targeting dozens, even hundreds, of residents from various nationalities under vague charges such as “inciting public opinion” and “spreading rumors” – charges broad enough to capture virtually any speech deemed undesirable.
Baraa Rayan: a tweet and forced exile
The case of Palestinian academic Baraa Nizar Rayan stands as one of the clearest examples. Rayan, who is the son of a Hamas leader and professor at Qatar University, posted a tweet stating: “They paid Trump trillions to protect them, but instead he set their house on fire. So Learn from this, O people of insight.”
The tweet posted after the 12-day June war last year fell squarely within the bounds of political critique, pointing to the contradiction of massive financial outlays to the US alongside the outbreak of war in the region. But even that narrow margin proved intolerable.
Within less than 24 hours, Rayan was summoned, arrested, and subjected to intensive interrogation and pressure, including demands to unlock his phone and surrender personal accounts. His refusal – rooted in protecting his family’s privacy – was met with further escalation.
The episode concluded with his deportation alongside his family, a ban on his return, and the loss of his livelihood. He was charged with “inciting public opinion,” an offense carrying a potential three-year prison sentence.
What deepens the case is what sources tell The Cradle: Qatari authorities allegedly asked Hamas to intervene and pressure Rayan to delete the tweet and close his account.
According to the sources, the movement complied, pointing to a notable overlap between security coordination, political pressure, and influence networks.
When silence is treated as defiance
If Rayan’s case illustrates the limits of speech, the arrest of political analyst Saeed Ziad reveals something more fundamental: the criminalization of silence itself.
Ziad, known for his media presence, did not publicly attack Qatar. Available information suggests he chose restraint on certain sensitive issues. But even that restraint proved unacceptable.
Sources indicate he was contacted from within circles linked to Al Jazeera and informed of the expected media line in the coming phase. When he failed to demonstrate clear alignment, his arrest followed swiftly.
It is no longer enough to avoid opposition. One is expected to actively reproduce the official narrative. Silence is no longer treated as neutrality, but read as implicit rejection, and that rejection is enough to trigger punishment.
Alongside these arrests, the name of media figure and “the first face of Al Jazeera” Jamal Rayan surfaced amid widespread controversy over his sudden death, announced without clear details or publicly available medical reports. While there is insufficient evidence to draw firm conclusions, the timing – coinciding with a tightening media environment and a lack of official transparency – fueled speculation across social media.
Many interpreted the episode within a broader climate marked by growing pressure and diminishing clarity.
The campaign is not limited to Palestinians. It extends to Arab residents of multiple nationalities. The arrest of Egyptian national Mohamed Tawhid, over posts criticizing US bases, illustrates that the issue is no longer tied to political affiliation but to any discourse crossing lines deemed sensitive by the state.
Official statements confirmed the detention of around 194 individuals on charges related to publishing “misleading content.” In practice, however, the determining factor appears to be alignment with the official narrative.
Narrative management and coordinated messaging
This tightening has not unfolded quietly. Parallel to the arrests, a counter-campaign emerged, driven by influencers and media figures emphasizing that Qatar continues to respect freedom of expression.
Among them was activist Mona Hawa, who denied experiencing restrictions and affirmed that she lives safely in Doha.
However, sources inform The Cradle that official entities requested a number of influencers – including Hawa – to publish supportive content at the height of the crisis. This raises questions about the authenticity of such testimonies and whether they form part of a coordinated effort to recalibrate public perception.
Foreign policy realignment, domestic consequences
These developments cannot be separated from Qatar’s position within shifting regional dynamics. For years, Doha pursued a strategy of balancing – hosting the largest US military base in the region while maintaining open channels with Tehran.
The war exposed the fragility of that balance. Under mounting polarization, Qatar moved toward clearer alignment with the broader Gulf position, condemning Iran in international forums.
This external shift has translated directly into domestic policy. Any media or political tone perceived as sympathetic to Iran is now met with firmness – and, at times, direct repression.
The linkage between foreign policy and domestic control is now explicit. Managing public opinion is no longer an internal matter alone; it has become a tool of regional positioning. The result is a push toward unified messaging and the marginalization of voices that fall outside clearly defined lines.
In this context, Qatar’s relationship with Hamas also appears to be undergoing recalibration. The visibility once afforded to the movement in Qatari media has diminished. Statements from its leadership receive less emphasis, while narratives more closely aligned with official policy gain prominence.
As pressure mounts on figures associated with this Axis of Resistance, the contours of a new phase emerge – one defined by narrowing space, not only for opposition but even within circles previously considered acceptable.
A broader Gulf pattern of control
What is unfolding in Qatar is part of a wider Gulf trend, where external alliances increasingly take precedence over domestic openness.
With the escalation of the US-Israeli war on Iran, policies across the region resemble a restructuring of the public sphere to align with political positioning rather than temporary security measures.
Similar patterns are visible elsewhere. In the UAE, a content creator known as “ElonTrades” faced legal action after posting footage of a hotel fire in Dubai, eventually forcing him into hiding and departure via Oman. A 60-year-old British tourist was detained for filming missiles in Dubai’s sky, amid official warnings that content deemed capable of “causing panic” could result in imprisonment and fines.
In Saudi Arabia, reports circulated regarding the detention of Egyptian academic Walid Mohamed Ibrahim following a post criticizing reliance on the US.
Across these cases, the pattern is consistent: any content touching on relations with Washington or intersecting with official narratives becomes sensitive and subject to scrutiny.
The scope extends beyond individuals. Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar have all urged residents to refrain from filming or sharing footage from incident sites.
What connects these developments is a widening circle of control. It now encompasses not only dissenters but also observers and those documenting events. Posts and videos are subjected to security review within an environment where freedom of expression is redefined according to political boundaries set in advance.
The cost of speaking – and not speaking
In the end, the “Media Kaaba” reflects the shift itself. What was presented as a beacon of free expression now operates as something else – where opinions are measured by their alignment with policy, not their legitimacy.
The gap between rhetoric and practice is no longer easy to conceal. In Qatar today, punishment does not stop at opposition. It reaches hesitation, silence, and even minor departures from the accepted line.
Freedom of expression is not defined by official claims, but by the consequences of speaking.
US President Donald Trump addresses a meeting with Gulf leaders of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Riyadh on May 14, 2025. [Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images]
I have always found it interesting, and at times revealing, when seasoned activists and intellectuals in the West, including those who see themselves as deeply committed to Palestine, raise the same familiar point: Arab governments must stand up to Israel and the United States in solidarity with their brethren in Palestine.
The argument often comes wrapped in a perplexed question: why are Arabs and Muslims not doing anything for Palestine?
What makes this particularly puzzling is that the question is often posed by respected analysts and historians—people who should recognize that the issue is far less sentimental than structural.
At first glance, the question may not seem bizarre. Palestinians are tied to their neighbors through history, geography, demography, religion, language, collective memory, and a shared experience of Western domination and Israeli colonial violence.
Additionally, Israeli leaders speak openly in expansionist terms, and they act accordingly, whether in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, or elsewhere. The people on the receiving end of this violence are often the same native communities of the region: Arabs, Muslims, and Christians alike.
Indeed, Arab and Muslim institutions themselves constantly invoke Palestine as a central cause. Arab summits still describe Palestine as a core issue, and public opinion across the region remains overwhelmingly aligned on that point.
For example, the 2024-25 Arab Opinion Index found that 80% of respondents across 15 Arab countries agreed that “the Palestinian cause is a collective Arab cause”, not solely Palestinian. The same survey found that 44% viewed Israel as the greatest threat to Arab security and 21% named the United States, far ahead of Iran at 6%.
So yes, the question of Arab and Muslim solidarity does not emerge from nowhere. On the level of popular feeling, it is entirely rational. It reflects a moral and political intuition that Palestine should be a point of unity.
But here is what that argument misses. Sentimental expectations aside, many Arab governments are not neutral actors waiting to be persuaded into solidarity. They are already positioned, structurally and strategically, within the US-led regional order. Some are client regimes in the classical sense. Others are so dependent on American protection, validation, or military partnership that calling them “partners” barely conceals the hierarchy embedded in the relationship.
The problem, then, is not hesitation. It is alignment.
The Gaza genocide offered a devastating example of this reality. While Palestinians were being starved and bombed, official Arab responses remained fragmented, cautious, and largely subordinate to Washington’s strategic priorities.
Some governments hardened their rhetoric later, but the early reactions were deeply revealing. Bahrain, for example, publicly condemned Palestinian resistance for October 7, rather than, at least, taking a position even remotely proportionate to the scale of Israeli violence and genocide. Egypt, meanwhile, allowed the narrative to circulate that it had warned Israel beforehand of “something big,” a framing that shifted attention toward Palestinian action rather than Israeli impunity.
Even more revealing was the economic dimension. As Ansarallah’s Red Sea operations disrupted maritime access to Israel in declared solidarity with Gaza, a land corridor developed to move cargo by truck from ports in the Gulf all the way to Jordan and finally to Israel.
Whatever diplomatic language Arab governments employed in public, trade and logistics were being quietly adapted in ways that helped Israel absorb the pressure and maintain continuity.
This was not an anomaly. It was continuity.
For decades, major Arab regimes have been deeply implicated in sustaining American military power in the region. USinstallationsin Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE and elsewhere have long served as the infrastructure through which Washington projects force across the Middle East. These bases are now the lifelines for the US-Israeli war on Iran.
This is why the constant demand that Arab regimes “develop” a stronger position on Palestine is ultimately misleading. Their position has already been developed. In many cases, it has taken the form of normalization, security coordination, military hosting, logistical facilitation, and political adaptation to US priorities. The action has already been taken. It is simply not taken in favor of Palestine.
And yet, despite this reality, the question continues to resurface. Why does it persist?
Part of the answer lies in the enduring belief that Arab and Muslim solidarity with Palestine is both historically logical and politically defensible.
Another lies in the fact that Israel’s ambitions do not stop at Palestine. Israeli leaders and institutions repeatedly articulate visions that implicate the entire region, whether through permanent military superiority, fragmentation of neighboring states, or the normalization of endless war.
These realities make the question emotionally and strategically compelling—even if it is ultimately misplaced when directed at regimes rather than peoples.
There is also a deeper reason: the historic failure of the West. Western governments are structurally biased toward Israel, and many intellectuals, activists, and ordinary people have concluded—reasonably enough—that if justice will not come from Washington, London, Berlin, or Paris, then surely it must come from the Arab and Muslim worlds. The instinct is understandable. But it confuses publics with regimes.
That misplaced expectation makes the current war on Iran all the more consequential.
The war on Iran may indeed become a wake-up call. As the joint US-Israeliassaulton Tehran is faltering, new realizations may be emerging in Arab capitals that neither Washington nor Israel can ultimately guarantee regime survival or regional stability.
At the level of ordinary people, the war has also generated a familiar sense of pride in resistance, not unlike what many felt during the steadfastness of Gaza and Lebanon. That may yet produce new conversations, perhaps even a new collective political imagination.
Until then, we would do better to understand Arab regimes according to their actual priorities, not our expectations. They are not “betraying” Palestine in the emotional sense, because Palestinian freedom, the defeat of Zionism, and the dismantling of imperial domination were never central to their governing agenda in the first place.
To the contrary, their overriding priority is the preservation of the regional status quo, whatever the human cost. And if maintaining that order requires the slow destruction of Palestine, many of them have already demonstrated that they are willing to pay that price.
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