What Took So Long?

Who Wants What?

So the Egyptian government has come to the conclusion that Hassan Nasrallah and his followers at Hezbollah in addition to Hamas and its leadership are in essence Iranian agents. My only question is: What took so long?

Walid Jumblatt declared over a year ago, on January 2, 2008 to be precise, that Nasrallah "is not a free man and his decision-making is not free." Then he went on to say that Mr. Nasrallah and his henchmen are paid Syrian and Iranian agents bent on destroying the Lebanese state in order to satisfy the grandiose visions held by their masters. Even two years prior to that, in the summer of 2006, Mr. Jumblatt explained that "We had been trying for months, to spring our country out of the Syrian-Iranian trap, and here we are forcibly pushed into that trap again."

It is important to note that Mr. Jumblatt was not alone in his assessment. A broad coalition of Lebanese political parties and associations questioned the motivations of the acts taken by Hezbollah by stating: "Is it Lebanon's fate to endure the killing of its citizens and the destruction of its economy and its tourist season in order to serve the interests of empty nationalist slogans?"

Many a journalist , blogger and analyst had arrived at the same conclusion four years ago. It was evident to whoever cared to look at the facts that Hezbollah’s interests were not compatible with those of an open, democratic and secular society. In the final analysis Hezbollah is a group of religious fanatics created to promote the interests of an Iranian theocracy. And as the saying goes :if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck then it is a duck.

It is unfortunate but it appears that many in Lebanon and the Arab world have chosen to conveniently forget the clear history of the evolution of Hezbollah. The para-military and illegal militia was established by generals from the Iranian Pasadran, funded by Iranian money, supplied with smuggled Iranian and Syrian arms, trained in illicit bases in Lebanon by Iranian personnel and is structured to serve the Iranian national interests as seen through the eyes of the Grand Ayatollah to whom Hassan Nasrallah pays ultimate homage as he himself has declared in 1987 that “Those who reject the Faqih’s authority are rejecting God and the descendents of the prophet Mohammad.” Some might need to be reminded that the Wilayat Al Faqih concept started with Ayatollah Khomeini in 1978 and is interpreted to mean that the Grand ayatollah has power over all Shiite in the world and in all fields: religious, social and political.

Those who willingly choose to live in denial do so at their own peril. When will the Arabs, in general, and the Lebanese, in particular, decide to wake up from their slumber and call things by their real name? The Arab- Israeli conflict has been transformed over the past decade into an Iranian- Israeli conflict except that the ones who are doing the dying, the suffering and the fighting are Arabs. Iran has been able to penetrate masterfully the Arab ranks through its creation, funding and support of Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran has hijacked the Arab –Israeli conflict with the express complicity of these two parties and the cooperation of the isolated weakened and desperate Syrian regime.

To expect loyalty to a state and support for democracy and diversity by those whose founding charter declares: “We, the Umma of Hezbollah, consider ourselves part of the Islamic state of Iran… We are committed to the orders of one leadership, represented by the Wilayat Al-Faqih, the supreme leader” is the biggest of all follies.