The ‘ghosts’ helping Iran flex its muscles in Lebanon

The Lebanese are holding their breath again amid fears of a Hezbollah-Israeli military confrontation that would add salt to the wounds opened by the Beirut port explosion a year ago.

They are told once again that maybe ghosts could have shipped, stored and later ignited the ammonium nitrate in the Lebanese capital — without the knowledge of the political or security establishment in Lebanon, of course.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned against “politicizing” the probe into the world’s biggest single explosion since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts 75 years ago.

In his televised speech, Nasrallah dismissed as “fabrications” and “ridiculous” the accusations that his party shipped and stored the deadly chemicals in Beirut to be used as barrel bombs directed at Syrian civilian towns and villages during that country’s civil war.

Despite its important timing — the speech coincided with dangerous skirmishes on the border with Israel — there was nothing new in Nasrallah’s statement for the divided Lebanese, apart from the fact that most might have missed watching it due to power cuts across the country.

For the first time Hezbollah militants and their missile launcher were intercepted by local villagers who feared Israeli retaliation, indicating a further erosion of the party’s standing among civilians in the south. The Lebanese army later released the militants, showing the extent to which its forces have been sidelined as Hezbollah entangles the country further in Iran’s continued shadow wars with Israel in Syria, Lebanon and beyond.

While Israel repeated its mantra that it will hold Lebanon and its army responsible for any attacks, even if Hezbollah or other groups are involved, Nasrallah reiterated that he will not be constrained by the country’s internal divisions or its economic crisis, warning Israel not to “miscalculate” and adding that the missiles fired last week have sent a “clear message.”

What is interesting is that Hezbollah’s leader acknowledged the country is caving in internally, an admission that showed more cracks are appearing in the traditional and tacit consensus that Hezbollah’s resistance reigns above all else. But the scale of the economic collapse has led many more Lebanese to question the role of the party and its regional operations as the “long arm” of Iran in its bid for supremacy in the Middle East.

The latest exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel began last Wednesday with a rocket strike for which no group claimed responsibility. That attack brought retaliatory Israeli air strikes unseen in south Lebanon for seven years, and came 15 years after the end of the July 2006 war.

The missile strike appears to be connected to the alleged Iranian attack on an Israeli-managed tanker in the Gulf last week in which two crew members were killed. Iran denied responsibility in keeping with what has become known as the ghost or shadow war between the two countries.

To many in Lebanon the link between the two violent developments is obvious. The G7, US and Israel pointed to Tehran as the culprit in attacking the Mercer Street tanker off Oman, saying that the drone was Iranian made. All this led the new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to say that his country was enlisting the world in response to the attack but warning that it is also capable of acting alone.

It is never up to Hezbollah alone to start a war unless its Iranian patrons call for one. Neither could Israel start a conflict without the blessing of the US. According to experts, Hezbollah’s targeting of wasteland rather than Israeli army positions demonstrates that the missile strike was designed to be a mere message or warning to Israel against any action aimed at Iran proper.

Condemnation and the threat of sanctions — covert responses or overt ones — look like the only game in town for the time being. The events of the past 10 days point toward classic Iranian posturing as its new president, Ebrahim Raisi, was sworn in. On the one hand, he offers the olive branch to make peace with Iran’s neighbors. And then he says during his inauguration speech that the regime “stands alongside the oppressed,” whether they be at the heart of Europe, in America, Africa or Yemen, Syria or Palestine. While Iranian operatives were sending drones to attack Israeli ships, Iran-allied militias launched projectiles from Gaza toward Israel, and “ghosts” fired volleys of missiles toward contested territories between Lebanon, Syria and Israel.

Lebanon’s border skirmishes that risk an all-out war should be seen through such a prism. Despite its struggle to alleviate its deep economic and social woes, Iran’s duplicity will continue with meddling, shadow or ghost mini-wars, while a busy West is hoping only to reschedule another round of talks in Vienna to restart the stalled 2015 nuclear deal.

• Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years’ experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy. He is also a media consultant and trainer.