The recent explosion in Beirut and an emergency visit there by French President Emmanuel Macron was important not only because France suddenly remembered its former imperial greatness and its former mandate over Lebanon.
Perhaps most interesting was the fact that France - for the first time in many years - publicly opposed Hezbollah, since it was she who was the main European "lobbyist" for this Shiite military-political organization. In 2007, when Sarkozy became president, he invited a delegation from Hezbollah to Paris; in 2019, Macron himself, at a meeting with Iraqi President Saleh, said: "It is not for us to decide which Lebanese parties are good and which are bad."
And suddenly on August 6, after the port of Beirut took off, Macron in the Lebanese capital hugs ordinary people from the crowd, and the journalists' cameras stop at the loudest screaming unfortunate woman: “This is our government's fault, it is ruining our country. These are not politicians, but field commanders, and you always sit down with them at the negotiating table. How can that be? Who will think of us ?! "
Macron takes her hand and sympathetically says: “This will not happen again. I am here to help you. "
After Macron's departure, full of rage, like an angry Apollo, the Lebanese government fell like a house of cards - one minister after another. And in the end, Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned. Sad President Michel Aoun tacitly accepted his resignation, only asking for a temporary interim until a new government was formed. Diab was the compromise figure approved by Hezbollah for office six months ago, as well as Hezbollah-approved President Aoun. It cannot be otherwise here.
And it was against the government approved by Hezbollah that France, Europe and the International Monetary Fund rebelled, which demanded reforms from Lebanon, an audit of the Central Bank of Lebanon and much more, to which Hezbollah did not give the green light to either the government or the president (the latter, by the way, as and the Secretary General of Hezbollah, against the international investigation of the explosion in the port).
“There is one person in Lebanon who controls the country, and that is Hassan Nasrallah,” one of the resigned MPs, Nadeem Gmayel, told Le Point. “To elect a president or appoint a prime minister, you need the green light and permission of Hasan Nasrallah.”
French media cover Macron's visit to Beirut as follows: "Hercules Macron against Hezbollah," To cleanse the Augean stables of Lebanese politics, the President of the Republic faces a formidable adversary, "The new President of the Lebanese Republic." Not bad, of course. And it's familiar: France has a lot of problems, including the "yellow vests", and in April 2022 - the presidential elections, which Macron obviously wants to win. The #LebanonOur theme, the return of the French Republic as an influential player to the Middle East, is certainly a beautiful theme. But is it in Macron's teeth?
Let's look back a bit so that we can return to our days and to the Beirut quarters. Let's remember that if in the Arab Sunni world the British Empire was the most influential player (let's wave a hand to Lawrence of Arabia) and Anglo-Saxon influence is still colossal among the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, then it was France that played on the Shiite field.
From 1920 to 1943, Lebanon was under the French mandate, and it was the French who rebuilt the modern Lebanese state and created the Constitution of Lebanon, according to which the president is always a Christian Maronite, the prime minister is a Sunni, and the speaker of parliament is behind the Shiites. (Against this system of national quotas and, in general, against that sectarian Constitution, different political forces are fighting today at the same time).
Let us not forget that the greatest gift to the Iranians was also made by France, having sent Ayatollah Khomeini from Paris on February 1, 1979, on an Air France flight, who led the Islamic revolution and blew the shah's secular pro-American regime and the entire secular model of the Iranian state in general. (Of all the world powers, it was France that received the best preferences under the Khomeini regime and beyond: Peugeot, Total, Renault and others felt great in the Islamic republic for many years in the absence of competitors). And in 1982, in Lebanon, assessing the potential of the Shiite majority, Tehran creates Hezbollah, which gives Iran unique opportunities: access to the Mediterranean Sea and control of the front with Israel.
France not only participated in the creation of Iranian diasporas around the world, periodically allowing the Iranian regime (and the same Hezbollah) to reach out to eminent Iranian political emigrants naively hiding from the “Ayatollah regime” in France, but also furiously, to the last defended the "political branch of Hezbollah."
In general, the Shiite theme of France is very familiar, and, perhaps, love for one's own brainchild prevented us from fighting with it seriously. Well, here is like Schwartz: the one who defeated the dragon himself becomes a dragon.
Today, the EU is fighting with the United States over Hezbollah for inclusion in the list of banned organizations, making for now a rather symbolic concession to Washington and Tel Aviv in the form of including its political wing in the list of banned organizations.
In September 2019, the former US ambassador to Germany and now Trump's adviser Richard Grenell called on Germany to ban the political activity of the Shiite movement on its territory. To do this, in a column in the authoritative Die Welt, he turned to the newspaper's highest-ranking readers.
On April 30, 2020, Hezbollah's activities were completely banned in Germany. German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer reported to the world community with demonstration raids that took place simultaneously at dawn in several cities of the country. Several hundred police officers raided three Berlin mosques, the Al-Ishrad mosque in Bremen, Münster, and the center of the "Lebanese emigrants" in Dortmund. The German authorities have estimated the number of Hezbollah activists in the country at 1,000. Ksenia Svetlova, an Israeli expert on the Middle East, writes that "Hezbollah activists used the ultra-modern port of Hamburg as their base and traded drugs and weapons to finance Hezbollah in Lebanon."
Israeli head of diplomacy Israel Katz welcomed Germany's decision: "This is a very important decision, a significant step in the global fight against terrorism," he said, expressing "deep gratitude to the German government."
Almost all German cities where police raided are located in West Germany, close to Hamburg and the Netherlands ports - in a word, with access to the sea.
Austria followed the example of Germany.
Hezbollah has become a state within a state since the 2005 assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Saudi Arabia's overlord and great friend Jacques Chirac. In 2016, Hezbollah appointed the head of the main Christian party as president of the republic. In 2018, she took the top position in parliament and manipulated Prime Minister Diab until August 10. She is stronger than all the national security services. It controls the port, airport, overland crossings with Syria, ”writes Luc de Baroshez, a columnist for the influential French political weekly Le Point.
On July 23, 2020, Beirut was visited by French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who was dissatisfied with the fact that Hezbollah had blocked the reforms demanded by the Europeans (I wrote about this in the last column), and delivered an angry sermon to the political elite of Lebanon - an example of rhetorical art. At this very time, Iran, which is behind Hezbollah and flew out of the orbit of French influence, demonstratively proclaims the signing of a strategic military-economic partnership with China for 25 years (fainting in the White House: with Iran and Hezbollah, the entire Shiite axis goes under the Chinese protectorate !).
On August 4, 2020, the seaport of Beirut took off. 2750 tons of ammonium nitrate destroyed the basic infrastructure of Lebanon (and not only). Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal revealed new details of the explosion: it turns out that it destroyed almost all food supplies in the country, because it was on the territory of the port that there were grain storage facilities, which contained most of the wheat reserves, and 85% of food imports arrived through the Beirut port.
So Hezbollah, the country's most influential military and political force, has literally twisted its arms: apart from American sanctions, the Europeans are hitting the organization's European infrastructure, and the tragedy in the port of Beirut puts the entire Lebanon and millions of its inhabitants at risk of hunger and the most violent food riots ...
France (who, in general, no matter how she did, who created this whole tangle of intricacies from the beginning) has a plan for a new political reconstruction of Lebanon, which was put forward by the "anti-China club". He was voiced by Macron during his last visit.
A month of food riots (until September) should bring Hezbollah to the negotiating table. Macron's excitement is understandable: if successful in Lebanon, he will receive re-election in France.
Considering who is behind Hezbollah today, let's call the upcoming battle of the titans.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.