- 15
- Apr.
- 2025
The Shia of Lebanon who pledge allegiance to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei should ask themselves these questions: Why do they boycott American products when Khamenei invites Americans to invest in Iran and promises Washington $4 billion in contracts? Why do these Shia have to live in tents, erected atop their razed homes, and not surrender Hezbollah’s arms in return for reconstruction money? Why does Khamenei concede on his nuclear program while Hezbollah fights for a worthless sliver of border territory disputed with Israel?
The answer to all these questions is one: Since 1979, Islamist Iran has been using the Shia in Arab countries as fuel for the massive bonfire it has lit to blackmail the world. Iran solicits the highest international bidder to extinguish or contain the flames—until it needs to light the fire again.
Pro-Iran Shia of Lebanon should wake up and smell the coffee. There will be no global Shia Islamist republic. There will be no liberation of Palestine. There will be no salvation. It is what it is. Every nation is fighting for its own survival and interests. It is high time the Shia realize that cash and arms from Iran are short-term gains that come at a high cost—in blood and treasure.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies the death of over 5,000 of the best and brightest Shia men in the war that Hezbollah started with Israel. Jerusalem is not Lebanese, and the road to it should not be lined with Lebanese Shia blood. Shia voices should rise up and say: enough is enough.
Speaker Nabih Berri, the top Shia official in Lebanon, must give up populism and tell the Shia what is in their interests, not what the pro-Iran Shia like to hear. Detaching the Shia of Lebanon from Islamist Iran is imperative and is in the best interests of the Shia and Lebanon at large. Pro-Iran Shia should stop behaving as a fifth column and endorse Lebanon, whose national interests are their own.
Although they are not Shia, President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam must step up and treat the Shia of Lebanon as Lebanese citizens—not as a separate entity. Invite Hezbollah to surrender its arms and give it a deadline. If it does not, rally the Lebanese and the army to disarm Hezbollah, forcefully if need be. If pro-Iran Shia are crazy enough and enjoy suicide from time to time, the state should not let them drag Lebanon into their endless infernos.
Islamist Iran may strike a deal with America—or it may not. Aoun and Salam have thus far waited and watched. If a deal is reached, they will avoid confronting Hezbollah. If no deal is made and Iran is struck, they will likely intensify pressure on Hezbollah to disarm.
Regardless, Beirut must act to disarm Hezbollah—with or without an American nuclear agreement with Iran. Aoun and Salam can rescue Lebanon from regional conflagration by neutralizing the militia. If they fail to do so, no amount of reconstruction or reform will be enough to fix the country.
As for Lebanon’s pro-Iran Shia, they must reexamine the fallacies they continue to peddle day and night. The claim that Hezbollah’s arms protect them has proven false. When it came to facing Israel, the Jewish state chewed up Hezbollah and spat it out—killing Nasrallah and dozens of his lieutenants, razing Hezbollah strongholds, and seizing five strategic hills.
If Hezbollah’s weapons were meant for defense, they failed. Instead, they brought death and destruction to Lebanon and the Shia.
The late Hassan Nasrallah often mocked the adage that “Lebanon’s strength lies in its weakness,” insisting instead that Hezbollah’s might had empowered Lebanon and deterred Israel. So where is Nasrallah now, and what remains of his theory about Lebanon’s strength? Nasrallah is dead, and with him, Lebanon must bury the flawed thinking that overestimated the power of Hezbollah and the state it claimed to serve.
Lebanon’s strength does indeed lie in its weakness—in its distance from regional entanglements. The sooner Aoun and Salam realize this and act swiftly to disarm Hezbollah, the safer Lebanon will be.
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