Last Saturday, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri flew to Tehran to meet with President Ahmedinejad and other Iranian politicians. The purpose of the visit was to secure support for his country at a particularly tense time in Lebanese history, or at least in Hariri’s tenure as Prime Minister.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), which is tasked with investigating the death of the Prime Minister’s father, Rafik Hariri, is expected to charge members of Hizballah, and pressure has been rising daily in anticipation of the Tribunal’s actions. Hizballah has hinted at creating chaos if anyone attempts to arrest any of its members.
The last time Hizballah had a major problem with the government was in 2008, when the government tried to dismantle the group’s telecommunications system. Hizballah soldiers overran the capital and the government was forced to back down. The incident was a scary reminder of Lebanon’s civil war days (1975-1990), which took thousands of lives and cost the country billions of dollars in damages and time lost. Lebanon is still recovering from that period of time, and no one wants to see it repeated.
Which is why Hariri found himself in Tehran last week. Iran has a significant amount of influence with Hizballah, reportedly supporting the group with over $100 million per year in funding. In terms of Iran’s defense against Israel, Hizballah has been characterized as the “tip of the spear”. Revolutionary Guard operatives helped create the group in the early 1980’s to fight the Jewish State. Today, though Hizballah still owes its allegiance to the Ayatollah, the group has evolved into a political powerhouse in Lebanon, and there is much speculation on just how much control Tehran wields with the group, how much Hizballah operates on its own, and where Syria (Lebanon’s historical overlord) fits into the mix. The purpose of Hariri’s visit was to see if the Iranians would help to calm things down.
That was the purpose for Hariri, but the visit meant something different to the regime in Tehran. For them, Hariri’s visit was a way for the Prime Minister to smooth things over after the heated anti-Iran sentiment espoused by his party in the wake of his father’s assassination in 2005. There was a massive outpouring of frustration with Syrian and Iranian interference in Lebanese affairs, and Lebanon’s relations with each of them suffered as a consequence. Hariri traveling to Tehran to essentially “kiss the ring” was meant to be a display of Iran’s level of influence in Lebanon.
Iran is gravely concerned with Israeli aggression, as well as that country’s level of influence with the United States, which currently maintains duel occupations with Iran’s neighbors, Afghanistan and Iraq. As previously mentioned, Hizballah is meant to be Iran’s tip of the spear against Israel, and as a result, Israel is gravely concerned with Hizballah. If the outcome of Hariri’s trip is that Hizballah is essentially reigned in, this will demonstrate the power that Iran has over Israel’s fate in terms of war and peace. (Iran has been cultivating a similar relationship with Hamas over the years, but does not have nearly the influence that it does with Hizballah.)
Iran’s power in Lebanon could either be demonstrated by Hizballah making a mess or by Hizballah being reigned in. It seems the latter is preferred as, in the current world political climate, Iran is a pariah state, with trigger happy bureaucrats in Israel and the USA aching for a reason to attempt a “regime change”. So at the moment, the image of Iran as a peacemaker is a better image for the world to see. Does this mean that Iran is evolving into a more responsible neighbor in the region? It’s doubtful. But if indictments of Hizballah members by the STL are handed down without the Party of God taking to the streets, then Iran will happily take the credit.
Hariri’s trip to Iran is historic for many reasons, but it is merely a stop on the journey that began back in December 2009, when the new Prime Minister was struggling to form a government. The Saudis, staunch allies of the Hariri family, informed him that he would need to make nice with Syria, whom many at the time thought (and still think) was behind his father’s death. It must have been a bitter pill to swallow, but for the sake of Lebanon’s stability, he traveled to Damascus to “kiss the ring” of Bashar Assad in order to publicly acknowledge Syria’s own privileged position in Lebanon. Since then, Hariri has made two more such trips to Syria to cement the new (old) order.
Shortly thereafter, the reconciliation between Hariri’s party (which is strongly backed by the United States) and Iran began. Last October, Iran’s President Ahmedinejad was greeted by throngs of supporters as he made his first visit to Lebanon. This was Iran planting its own flag on Lebanon, and demonstrated to the Israeli’s just who was running things over their northern border.
When Hariri’s Future Movement, a coalition of Sunni, Maronite, and Druze politicians, came to power in 2005, it was on a wave of anti-Syrian sentiment and frustration with outside influence. For this reason, the Movement was strongly supported by the West, especially the United States, who were themselves frustrated with the actions of Iran and Syria in relation to the War in Iraq. But that political climate has evaporated and Lebanon’s era of independence proved to be short-lived. And over the last year, Saad Hariri has been on a mission to undo the acrimony his coalition had caused in the interest of keeping Lebanon out of another civil war.
Early on, Saudi Arabia recognized that stability in Lebanon could not be achieved without the blessing of the wily Syrians. So Riyadh began working with Damascus, and the Saudi-Syrian agreement (which recognized Syrian influence in Lebanon) that came out of it resulted in a government being formed in Lebanon. Iran’s support for the Saudi-Syrian agreements could go a long way to prevent a future outbreak of violence, but it remains to be seen just how much Hizballah will allow itself to be corralled. If the indictments are handed down and chaos erupts anyway, then this could be evidence that the Party of God is less capable of being pacified than previously thought.
