Ari Lieberman
By any metric, Lebanon represents the classic textbook definition of a failed state. The nation is characterized by sectarian rivalry, bread lines, chronic fuel shortages, rolling blackouts, substandard healthcare, and mountains of uncollected garbage. Bullet-riddled buildings, pot-marked by years of internecine conflict, dot the Lebanese landscape. Lebanon’s judiciary remains virtually non-existent, except in rare instances where Lebanese citizens are caught maintaining benign, cordial contact with the “Zionist Entity.” In those cases, the Lebanese judiciary acts with alacrity to prosecute the “guilty.”
Lebanon’s caretaker government has defaulted on its foreign debt. Hyperinflation has wiped out the lifesavings of most Lebanese, 80 percent of whom live at, or below the poverty line. Banks remain shuttered for obvious reasons. Some Lebanese have resorted to self-help methods to retrieve their money. In one notable instance, a Lebanese man walked into a bank with a loaded firearm demanding to withdraw his money. The bank manager dutifully complied. Though arrested, he was soon released because of intense public pressure and will likely walk away with barely a slap on the wrist.
Part of the reason for this disfunction lies with the government, which is rife with corruption and mismanagement. But the main reason for Lebanon’s disfunction, paralysis and failed-state status is the existence Iran’s malignant proxy militia, Hezbollah.
The terrorist organization maintains a massive arsenal of between 130,000 to 150,000 missiles and rockets of various calibers – from short-range and inaccurate Katyusha rockets to more devastating and accurate Scud B and C variants that are capable of leveling city blocks. Hezbollah is also known to deploy a sizable UAV fleet, courtesy of the Islamic Republic.
It would be inaccurate to say that Hezbollah maintains a parallel army alongside the Lebanese Army. That would imply some form of parity between the two. In actuality, the Hezbollah military machine dwarfs the Lebanese Army. Most of Hezbollah’s funding comes from Iran, which provides the group with $700 million annually. Hezbollah supplements this income with transnational organized crime ventures including drug trafficking, money laundering and counterfeiting schemes. They partner with notorious drug cartels and corrupt regimes, like Maduro’s Venezuela, to facilitate their operations.
Hezbollah maintains significant control over all of Lebanon’s ports of entry, allowing the group to smuggle arms, drugs, and cash with impunity. On August 4, 2020, 2,750 tons of negligently stored ammonium nitrate stored at Beirut’s seaport exploded killing approximately 215 people and injuring an estimated 6,000. Property damage neared $15 billion and an estimated 300,000 people were made homeless by the blast. Hezbollah’s culpability in the blast is undeniable and explains why the group has stymied investigative efforts to uncover its causes.
But it is in the realm of foreign policy where Hezbollah, and by extension Iran, truly flexes its muscles. During Syria’s civil war, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, acting on orders from his mullah bosses in Iran, sent substantial forces to Syria to prop up the Assad regime against a largely Sunni revolt. That unilateral action dragged Lebanon into Assad’s quagmire.
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