The Iranian regime is not part of the solution for peace in Lebanon and the Middle East; in fact, it is at the heart of all the problems standing in the way of peace.
Since 1982, when the Iranian regime established Hezbollah in Lebanon, this terrorist organization has gradually taken the country hostage, tightening its grip on every aspect of life, from the economy and culture to political institutions. In recent years, this control has only deepened. Lebanon is now entangled in a war that is not of its own making, with its people, as French President Emmanuel Macron described, serving as a shield for the Iranian regime.
A nation once celebrated for the coexistence of diverse ethnic and religious groups has, due to Iran’s clerical regime, become a hub for exporting war, Shia fundamentalism, terrorism across the Middle East, and drug trafficking. The assassination of Lebanon’s nationalist Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who sought to unify and rebuild the country, was a turning point. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the Netherlands found that Salim Ayyash, a Hezbollah member, played a significant role in the 2005 Beirut bombing that killed Hariri. Even before this, on December 20, 2010, Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei dismissed the tribunal as “a sham,” declaring any verdict it issued null and void.
Lebanon’s persistent political paralysis, including years without a president, can be directly attributed to Hezbollah’s interference, backed by the Tehran regime. Iran has effectively seized control of the country from its rightful owners—the Lebanese people—just as it has usurped the national sovereignty of the Iranian people.
While the Iranian regime sheds crocodile tears for the victims of a war it started, it proposes peace initiatives for Lebanon, aiming to exploit a ceasefire to rebuild its proxy forces on the brink of collapse. Accepting this regime as a credible actor in the peace process is as naive as believing that transplanting cancerous tissue into a patient could cure them.
Emerging from an ideology rooted in the Middle Ages, this regime is incapable of fostering economic development or meeting the cultural and economic needs of its people. Since its inception, it has relied on domestic repression and religious dictatorship while exporting terrorism and warmongering abroad as a survival strategy. Terrorism and military aggression are not mere tactics but are central to the regime’s efforts to maintain its grip on power, as noted by Emmanuel Macron in his reference to the regime’s use of others as human shields.
It was in line with this strategy that, in 1988, Iran established the Quds Force, the extraterritorial arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to conduct special operations abroad. The Quds Force has since spearheaded Iran’s terrorist agenda in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and throughout the Middle East, while also shaping the regime’s foreign policy in these regions.
The regime’s history of terrorism is long and bloody. On October 23, 1983, a devastating suicide attack targeted the barracks of U.S. Marines and French soldiers in Beirut, killing 299 people and injuring hundreds more. These American soldiers were part of a U.N. peacekeeping force deployed in Lebanon to help end the civil war. Years later, the bombing of the Jewish center in Argentina was linked to top Iranian officials through the courageous investigation of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who ultimately paid with his life for pursuing justice.
The *Wall Street Journal*, in its September 28, 2015, editorial titled “Iran’s Bloody Hands,” highlighted the regime’s long history of terrorism, stating:
“Barack Obama is not the first U.S. president to try to ignore the bloodstained hands of the Iranian regime; Bill Clinton did the same during the FBI’s investigation into the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 American soldiers.”
The FBI director at the time confirmed that the highest-ranking officials in Iran, from the Supreme Leader to the Minister of Intelligence, were implicated in the attack. Yet, the only significant U.S. response was to withdraw American forces from the region.
In Europe, a plot to bomb a large gathering of the Iranian opposition in 2018, which included tens of thousands of participants and prominent European and American political figures, was thwarted thanks to the efforts of Belgian, French, and German police. More recently, the Iranian regime attempted to assassinate a former Vice President of the European Parliament, an effort that was fortunately unsuccessful.
Despite these threats, Western countries have often resorted to appeasement. Although the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to designate Iran’s most notorious terrorist entity, the European Union has so far declined to implement the decision. Tomorrow, Tuesday, October 22, as the European Parliament once again addresses the issue of the Iranian regime’s terrorism, will EU still refrain from adding the IRGC to the list despite the recent tragedies in Lebanon and Gaza?
The Iranian regime is not merely a part of the problem; it embodies the entire problem in the Middle East. As long as this regime continues to exist, both in the region and within Iran, the prospect of peace remains a distant illusion.
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