The Necessity of Severing Diplomatic Relations Between Lebanon and the Islamic Republic of Iran and Expelling the Iranian Ambassador Elias Bejjani/December 13/2024
What is known as the “Islamic Republic of Iran” is not the name of a normal state seeking balanced relations with its surroundings, but rather a mullah-led, expansionist, sectarian, and terrorist regime that, since its establishment in 1979, has been built on exporting Shiism, chaos, violence, sectarianism, and fanaticism under the slogan of “exporting the revolution.” This regime has never recognized the borders or sovereignty of states, but instead has treated the countries of the region as open arenas of influence. Lebanon has been—and continues to be—one of its most prominent victims.
Thus, Lebanon does not suffer from Iran’s criminality and terrorism as a geographically distant regime, but rather suffers from it as a regime effectively residing within its territory, imposing its decisions, paralyzing the state, confiscating the future, security, and coexistence of its people, and assassinating sovereignists and free individuals through its military, sectarian, terrorist arm, falsely and deceitfully called Hezbollah.
It is necessary to recall that Lebanon and the Lebanese people—particularly the Shiite community—did not choose the Iranian regime, nor were they behind the emergence of the Iranian terrorist proxy, Hezbollah. Iranian hegemony over Lebanon never came with the consent of the Lebanese people, nor even with the consent of the Shiite community itself, which has been abducted, confiscated, and turned into a hostage in the hands of Hezbollah, along with the Lebanese state and the Lebanese people.
Hezbollah was born under the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, with the direct sponsorship of the Hafez al-Assad regime, which facilitated and sponsored the violation of Lebanese land, institutions, and security agencies by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. At that stage, Hezbollah was not merely a resistance organization, but a closed ideological project whose goal was first to fully control the Shiite community, then to use that control to dominate the Lebanese state and transform Lebanon into an arena and base for Iran’s expansionist wars.
Under the false slogan of “resistance,” pluralism within the Shiite community was abolished, the community was politically, militarily, and financially subjugated, and turned into a human reservoir for an Iranian project that has nothing to do with its people, Lebanon, or Lebanese interests.
In 2005, the Syrian occupation army was forced to withdraw from Lebanon under the pressure of the Independence Intifada and international resolutions. However, the Lebanese did not regain their sovereignty, because the occupation did not end—it merely changed its form and tools. Instead of the state returning to its people, guardianship was transferred from Damascus to Tehran.
At that pivotal moment, Hezbollah replaced the Syrian army—not merely as a military force, but as a direct instrument of Iranian occupation. It gradually transformed from an armed militia into a state within the state, then a state above the state, and finally the state itself.
Since then, Hezbollah—composed of Lebanese mercenaries—has decided war and peace, paralyzed the parliamentary system in all its forms, imposed or toppled governments, dominated security and military decision-making, paralyzed the judiciary, and used state institutions as a superficial façade for its external project. Thus, Lebanon is no longer a partially hijacked state, but a fully confiscated one.
More dangerous than the occupation itself is the arrogance of Iranian rhetoric. Senior Iranian officials, led by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have never attempted to conceal their interference in Lebanese affairs. On the contrary, they have openly boasted that Lebanon is part of their “axis,” that its decision is not independent, and that Hezbollah’s weapons are a red line decided in Tehran, not Beirut. These are not verbal slips, but a systematic official policy reflecting a condescending view of Lebanon, its people, constitution, and institutions, as if the Lebanese are incapable of governing their own country and in need of a “Supreme Jurist” to rule them from abroad.
Today, after Hezbollah’s military and political defeat, and after the issuance of clear international resolutions aimed at ending the state of illegal weapons and restoring Lebanese sovereignty, Iran insists on rejecting the new reality. Iran is not defending Lebanon, nor the Shiite community, but rather its last foothold on the Mediterranean coast. Therefore, it refuses to hand over Hezbollah’s weapons—which are, in reality, its own—refuses to return decision-making to the state, refuses to abide by international resolutions, and insists on keeping Lebanon, through Hezbollah, hostage to its regional project, even at the cost of what remains of the country.
Accordingly, there is no meaning or legitimacy for any diplomatic relations between Lebanon and a state that occupies its political decision, possesses an armed militia on its territory, openly interferes in its internal affairs, and treats its institutions with contempt.
Since diplomatic relations between states are based on parity and mutual respect—not on a relationship between a sovereign state, a regional master, and an affiliated militia—severing Lebanese–Iranian relations and immediately expelling the Iranian ambassador becomes an obvious sovereign step, not provocation or hostility, but a national rescue duty. There can be no liberation of the state while the embassy of an occupying power remains, and no sovereignty with a militia obeying foreign orders.
Lebanon will not be a state as long as Hezbollah is the state. It will not be independent as long as decisions of war and peace are made in Tehran. It will not rise as long as it remains occupied by weapons, terrorism, and Iran’s sectarian ideology. Therefore, cutting relations with Iran is not the end of the problem, but its correct beginning.
What is required, clearly and without hesitation, is: to prosecute Hezbollah’s leaders as war criminals and traitors, to completely disarm this Iranian terrorist proxy, to dismantle all its security, social, cultural, intelligence, and financial institutions, to officially designate it as a terrorist organization, as it is classified in dozens of countries around the world, and most importantly to prevent any ideologically indoctrinated Hezbollah member from entering state institutions, especially security and military ones.
Without this, Lebanon remains merely a name on a map, not a truly sovereign, free, and independent state.
