Iran “must stop meddling in Arab affairs, from Yemen and Bahrain to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon,” former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri wrote on Thursday in The New York Times.
Hariri’s father Rafik, also a former prime minister, was assassinated in 2005. An international tribunal at The Hague determined that the assassination was carried out by the terrorist group Hezbollah. If the charges are proven, Hariri wrote, “that would mean his assassination was carried out by Iran’s allies in Lebanon, who are financed and controlled by the regime in Tehran.”
Saad, who was prime minister from 2009-2011, reminded readers that Hezbollah occupied Beirut in 2008, promising that its substantial arsenal, which had been provided by Iran, would be used to defend Lebanon from Israel. Instead, Hezbollah “turned its weapons against the Lebanese people.” It is also currently blocking the election of a new Lebanese president.
Hezbollah has also “sent thousands of young Lebanese men” to support the brutal dictatorship of Iran-backed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Assad, has presided over the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrians and, along with Iran and its proxies, “created the worst refugee problem since World War II, ruthlessly displacing millions of people into neighboring countries and Europe.”
“We Lebanese are all too familiar with the violence, discord, sectarian hatred, brutality and terrorism that Iran and its allies inflict on other countries, whatever Iranian officials might try to claim to the outside world,” Hariri wrote, noting that since the late 1970s, Iran has been the leading state sponsor of terror in the world. Americans also have suffered from Iranian-sponsored terrorism, including the 241 Marines who were killed in the bombing of their barracks in Beirut in 1983.
Iran has also backed the ongoing Houthi rebellion against the government of Yemen. Hariri noted that Iranian officials have boasted of controlling four Arab capitals—Beirut, Baghdad, Sana, and Damascus. That boast should be understood as a threat that Iran seeks “to expand its influence in the Middle East by sowing discord, promoting terrorism and sectarian hatred, and destabilizing the region through proxies.”
Hariri concluded by calling on Iran to help fight extremism, rather than support it, and to cease its aggressive behavior towards other countries in the region. He also called on Iran to withdraw its Afghan, Iraqi, and Lebanese proxy militias from Syria. Doing so would be “a great first step to clear the last tactical hurdle facing those who are really fighting extremism in the Muslim world.”
[Photo: Υπουργείο Εξωτερικών / Flickr ]