Negotiating in Vienna and contesting in Lebanon

December 02, 2021

Sajaan Azzi

@AzziSejean

(See Translation in Arabic Section

In our home Iran, what should we do? Some of us consider her at home. Some of us consider it an occupation. And there are those who have found in it, a temporary Mahdi, until the awaited Mahdi comes. Iran financed Lebanon as part of its strategy as:

1) It represents the only country in the Middle East that is ruled by a Christian.

2) It includes a significant historical Shiite presence.

3) The Sunni sect plays an influential role in it.

4) Is located on the northern border of the State of Israel.

5) It constitutes the south-western term in the Shiite Crescent project.

6) It interacts positively with the Arab Gulf states.

7) It cooperates with open arms with America and Europe.

8) It is easy to interfere in its affairs and control it because of its fragile sectarian structure and weak unity.

Iran has adopted Lebanon as a vast stadium in which the Arabs and the world are dueling, in the absence of any local government, national rule, or Arab and international deterrent. In the beginning, the Lebanese did not pay enough attention to the Iranian plan, which gradually revealed later, for the following reasons:

1) That the multinational forces present at that time in Beirut would repel the Iranian expansion, but they were cowardly and reneged.

2) that the Lebanese generals withdrew from their promises in the Khomeinist project.

3) That Iran withdraw after the defeat of 1988 against Iraq.

4) The Syrian regime, which was ruling Lebanon at the time, should not allow Iran to share control with it, and if it faltered, Israel would destroy the military machine of Hezbollah.

5) That Syria, and even Iran, will use Hezbollah in the south exclusively as a substitute for the Palestinian organizations until Syria signs the peace that was on the doors in the mid-1990s after the Madrid Conference, the Oslo Agreement and Yitzhak Rabin's letters to Hafez al-Assad.

Everything that happened went against everyone's expectations: Rabin was assassinated. Hafez al-Assad died. Iran overcame the defeat against Iraq. It took advantage of America's wars in Kuwait and then in Iraq for its own advantage, and it expanded in the region at the expense of the Arabs. Syria withdrew from Lebanon, and Iran, through Hezbollah, strengthened its position as the new guardian. The Arab revolutions erupted in 2011, and Syria and the other regimes of the countries of the Middle East, Egypt, Yemen and Tunisia faltered. In the midst of this chaos, strategic changes, the emergence of takfiri movements, and the short-sightedness of the West, especially Washington, Tehran has revived its nuclear program and increased the rate of uranium enrichment, so that going backwards has become very difficult.

The nuclear program exemplifies the vertical greatness of modern Persian, and Iran's geographic expansion in the Middle East embodies the horizontal greatness of historical Persianism.

The Iranian regime has consumed eight Democratic and Republican American presidents without actually giving up its nuclear program. The nuclear program exemplifies the vertical greatness of the modern Persian, and Iran's geographic expansion in the Middle East embodies the horizontal greatness of historical Persianism. The Iranian regime has consumed eight Democratic and Republican American presidents without actually giving up its nuclear program.

Iran's strategy, as we know, is to seize the leadership of Muslims, both Sunni and Shiite, and transfer it from the Arabs to Persia, and to re-engineer the regional system from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. Since the first Cyrus (559-530 BC) and the Persians have been seeking to control the area extending from the Euphrates and Asia Minor to Egypt and the country of the Greeks, that is, the ancient East.

The strategy of modern Iran -- as well as the old one -- has failed in both directions: Iran has not become the leader of Muslims, not even all Arab and Asian Shiites, and it has not been able in the end to establish a new regional order for its own good despite its wide and temporary spread. So, the Arab countries reconciled and reconciled with Israel, and they have normalized with it, and we will soon witness an Arab/Israeli union.

In the face of these facts, Iran is clinging more than ever to its nuclear project as a future guarantor of its regime and its role in the region. Consequently, Iran's positions in the Vienna negotiations will be flexible in form to lift sanctions, and tough in substance to maintain its nuclear program. It may succeed in deceiving the Western negotiators who are currently negotiating with it over the nuclear file while their eyes are set on Iran's oil and its major projects.

Historically, the Persians did not admit defeats, as their kings used to return from losing wars against the Greeks, Pharaohs, Romans and Ottomans, and were received as victorious conquerors and distributed the captives and spoils to the people. Today, although the Iranian regime is not the strongest, it does have solid negotiating cards in Vienna (increasing the rate of uranium enrichment, alliance with China, raising oil prices, attacks on American bases, Houthi marches against Saudi Arabia, control of Lebanon, etc.).

Khomeinist Iran behaves as if the ancient empires that defeated the kings of Persia are embodied in the West in general, and in America in particular. In the twenty-first century, it wants to avenge the West for all the wars it has lost since before Christ. It wants to avenge its kings Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, Khosrau and Shah Abbas. And it aspires to take revenge, with a retroactive effect, from Alexander, Temistokel and Heraclius, and even from Zaid bin Abi Waqqas, who defeated the Persians in the Battle of Al-Qadisiyah in 636.

Alexander, Temistokel and Heraclius, and even from Zaid bin Abi Waqqas, who defeated the Persians in the Battle of Al-Qadisiyah in 636.

If these historical whims cross the Persian national imagination, they have no place in the reality of the modern age. We are in a time of cooperation and solidarity, not in times of victories and defeats. Iran, the heir of one of the great ancient civilizations, should join the system of modern civilized states. But these appeals, addressed to Iran 40 years ago, fell on deaf ears.

The obstruction of the state of Lebanon is evidence of Iran's poor performance. The Iranian nuclear program has made Lebanon a corridor for negotiations with the West and the Arabs, and the Iranian expansion has taken it as a base for the deployment of the Shiite Crescent.

Lebanon today is the focal point of Iran's expansionist project, as in the 1970s it was the main base of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and in the 1980s until 2005 the auxiliary regime for Syria. It is noteworthy that Iran is seeking to calm its front with America and the Gulf states and heat up the Lebanese situation, as the regime of Hafez al-Assad used to open the front in southern Lebanon against Israel and make peace with it in the Golan.

I am not waiting for Vienna to know the fate of Lebanon in particular, but rather the fate of Iran and the region in general. Not more than today, Iran was closer to a nuclear bomb, America closer to concessions, Europe closer to bargaining, and Israel closer to considering military action against Iran. Not once was Lebanon closer than it is today to an unknown change.