Iran Undermines Lebanon’s Attempts at Confronting Hezbollah

A tense impasse over the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon’s presence in the country is emblematic of a growing Beirut dilemma. Fed up with the Islamic Republic’s decades-long ruinous power over the country, the Lebanese government is unable to confront Iran or its loyal local proxy, Hezbollah. A day after the Lebanese government ordered the ambassador, Mohammad Reza Shibani, to leave Beirut by Sunday, the Islamic Republic announced that the envoy would remain in place. Mr. Shibani “will continue his work as ambassador in Beirut and is still present there,” Tehran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, told reporters on Monday. Far from a hub for diplomacy, the Iranian embassy at Beirut is widely seen as headquarters for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, from which it coordinates the war against Israel with its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah. “Iranian ambassadors are not diplomats in the traditional sense of that word. They’re IRGC operators,” the founder of Alma Research, Sarit Zehavi, tells the Sun.One of those injured in Israel’s December 2024 beeper operation against Hezbollah was Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon at the time, Mojtaba Amani. His hands and eye were severely wounded in the attack. “Why was he carrying a Hezbollah beeper?” Ms. Zehavi asks. The Lebanese government declared the current Iranian ambassador, Mr. Shibani, persona non grata and ordered him to leave the country. Yet the Islamic Republic is justifying his presence there, citing support for its position from politicians from Hezbollah and Beirut’s largest Shiite party, Amal, who are demanding that the ambassador remain in his post. Hezbollah’s attack on Israel on behalf of Iran in early March, which dragged Lebanon into a new war with Israel, raised anger across the country. Under public pressure, a longtime Hezbollah ally, the 88-year-old parliament speaker Nabih Berri of Amal, expressed support for the Lebanese Armed Forces to disarm the group. Now, though, he is back in the IRGC fold. “It’s hard to understand,” a Lebanese-born Middle East analyst at the Washington-based New Line Institute, Dania Arayssi, tells the Sun. “One day Berri is supporting disarming Hezbollah. Then, if we kick the ambassador of Iran from the country, he’s pressuring the government to change its decision.” As the Lebanese government proves its inability to rein in Hezbollah, the Israel Defense Force is conducting extensive operations against the terror group. Israel ordered civilians to evacuate Lebanon’s mostly-Shiite area south of the Litani River. The Israelis now fight Hezbollah forces there, capturing the organization’s positions overseeing the Galilee. “Public criticism of Hezbollah is growing even among the Shia in Lebanon,” Ms. Arayssi says. “Their frustration is likely to increase. As Israel creates a buffer zone, many can’t return to their villages and blame Hezbollah for dragging Lebanon into a war they never signed up for.”Hezbollah was significantly weakened when a cease-fire was reached in Lebanon in December, 2024. Top officials, including the Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah, were killed and much of the group’s missile and drone arsenal was dismantled. Since then, though, Iran has reportedly transferred $1 billion a year in an attempt to rearm Hezbollah. On Monday Israeli jets flattened two highrises at Beirut, which the IDF said hosted Hezbollah control and command positions. Hezbollah, meanwhile, is coordinating with the IRGC simultaneous attacks on northern Israel. An Iranian ballistic missile hit an oil refinery at Haifa on Monday. A Lebanese television reporter for the Hezbollah-affiliated Al Manar channel, Ali Shoeib, was targeted and killed by Israel on Monday as well, raising an outcry in some quarters. “We’ve known him for years,” Ms. Zehavi says, “He was an intelligence official for Hezbollah, and was on its payroll.” In the last few days Hezbollah attacks on Israel’s northern towns have eased slightly. The terrorists are now concentrating their fire on IDF forces in southern Lebanon, rather than on northern Israel, according to Ms. Zehavi, whose Alma institute is located near the Lebanese border. “People of the north are resilient,” she says. “We’re calling on the IDF to hit Hezbollah hard and ensure that this round of war in Lebanon would usher a long era of quiet to the region.”How long? That, Ms. Zehavi says, depends on the outcome of the Israeli-American war in Iran. Lebanon could eventually take its country back but “unless the Iranian regime collapses, the government at Beirut will never be able to effectively confront Hezbollah.”

Iran Undermines Lebanon’s Attempts at Confronting Hezbollah

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