Hezbollah faces rising dissent, efforts to end Iran's 'occupation'
of Lebanon
By Dalal Saoud
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Lebanon's financial collapse, which has pushed large segments of the population into poverty, has also seen growing anger against the powerful Hezbollah, with more voices openly blaming it for the ongoing crisis and for its allegiance to Iran.
Hezbollah's attempts to distinguish itself from the ruling corrupt political class, counting on its reputation as a resistance group that forced the withdrawal of Israeli occupying forces from south Lebanon in 2000 and battled the Islamic State in Syria, are no longer convincing to many, even to once loyal supporters.
The group's growing dominance in internal politics, engagement in regional wars and in thwarting the 2019 popular uprising is tarnishing its image as the nation's defender, critics say.
With a freezing winter, a continued 22-hour-a-day power cut, lack of diesel fuel and medicines coupled with exorbitant food prices, priorities are shifting to feeding the family, keeping warm, securing medical treatment or simply making ends meet.
The poverty rate has nearly doubled -- from 42% in 2019 to 82% in 2021, according to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. Over two years, the national currency has lost 90% of its value while the country witnesses a dramatic collapse in basic services, an unemployment surge and closure of businesses.
Not spared from the hardship, complaints within Hezbollah's own community are not hidden anymore.
"More and more people are expressing their discontent openly," said a Shiite woman, in her 60s from the Baalbeck region, a Hezbollah stronghold in eastern Lebanon with the highest number of the group's fighters killed in the Syria war. "They live day by day and are busy securing the basic things, like bread and diesel fuel."
Freezing temperatures and snowstorms have kept the Baalbeck inhabitants indoors, barely leaving their homes to buy food. "To spare on the costly diesel fuel, they use only one sobia [heater] in one room of the house, usually the kitchen, where they sleep, eat and spend the day," she said.
The fuel that Hezbollah brought from Iran via Syria at the peak of the fuel crisis last summer has run out. Such shipments have stopped, and Hezbollah charitable organizations are not providing services as before, according to the woman, who spoke to UPI on condition of anonymity.
"With the overall deteriorating economic conditions, people are speaking out, asking where Hezbollah chief [Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah] is taking us and for what?" she said. "We are ready to fight Israel and support the resistance, but why are we engaging in wars in Syria and Yemen while we are dying of hunger?"
'You kept silent'
Brig. Gen. Hisham Jaber, head of Middle East Center for Studies and Public Relations who was once close to Hezbollah and a staunch defender of its anti-Israel resistance, confirmed a growing dismay among the group's supporters in its main strongholds in southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa region.
"Yes, yes, yes...Today, Hezbollah has lost lots of its popular support," Jaber told UPI. "People consider that Hezbollah is part of this political class which led the country to this [collapsing] point, saying, 'You did not steal, but you kept silent on the thieves and covered up for them.' Hezbollah cannot deny that."
He argued that Hezbollah is "not aware of the danger" facing it and asked whether "it is political stupidity" or because it is "implementing orders from Iran."
Hezbollah, which has been armed and financed by Tehran since it was founded by Iran's Revolutionary Guard following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, emerged as a powerful force over the years. In the past decade, it helped Iran extend its influence and power in the region, engaging in the Syria war and supporting the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in the Yemen strife.
Jaber said Hezbollah still receives some $500 million a year from Iran, which has its own political interests in the region and is holding onto the group as an important card.
"This is very natural, but are the people [Lebanese] accepting this? No, they are not," he said.
Hezbollah officials justify their groups' reluctance to help fight corruption in the country by saying they fear a fallout with their allies, who are accused and blamed for the widespread corruption.
"They fear that this could lead to a big, bloody conflict. Their phobia of ending up involved in a [sectarian] strife is making them benefit from this corrupt political class," Jaber said, warning that anti-Hezbollah sentiment is "growing like a snowball."
Iran's 'occupation'
Such exasperation with Hezbollah was translated last week with the formation of a new front targeting Iran directly.
The National Council to Lift the Iranian Occupation of Lebanon was established by some 200 political figures, including former ministers and parliamentarians known for their opposition of Iran and Hezbollah, intellectuals and key civil society figures.
Ahmad Fatfat, head of the council and former minister, said their goal was to end Iran's "occupation," break free from Hezbollah's armed dominance and restore Lebanon's sovereignty.
"There is occupation by proxy... Even if Iran does not have boots on the ground, Hezbollah exists with 150,000 missiles and 100,000 fighters threatening the country from inside," Fatfat told UPI, recalling how Iran bragged about its control of four Arab capitals, including Beirut.
He said the problem is about Hezbollah's "illegal weapons" and practices that obstruct the parliament or Cabinet meetings to impose its conditions and "force the others to do what it wants."
He was mainly referring to the election of Hezbollah's powerful Christian ally, former Army commander Gen. Michel Aoun, as president in October 2016 after the post remained vacant for 29 months. Hezbollah also turned against former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, sending hundreds of its fighters clad in black to deploy in the streets of Beirut to force his ouster in 2011.
The party was also accused of being behind the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri, Saad's father and former prime minister, and 11 other politicians, journalists and security officials; accusations that Hezbollah denied.
Fatfat said adopting reforms and fighting corruption are necessary to get out of the current financial crisis.
"But how can you rebuild the state with the presence of illegal weapons that covered for all the corruption over the years?" he said, blaming Hezbollah for the country's collapse that started in 2011 when the militant group sent its fighters to Syria to fight along President Bashar al-Assad, tightened its grip on Lebanon and pushed away its traditional political and financial backers, the rich Arab Gulf countries.
Fatfat, who stressed that the new council includes Christian and Muslim members, including Shiites, believes that the Lebanese are more aware of the need to get rid of "Iran's occupation," as they did with the French mandate in 1943, Israeli occupation in 2000 and Syrian military presence in 2005.
"We can win with one factor: national unity," he said.
But targeting the heavily armed Hezbollah in a country with a multi-confessional system, could backfire.
"Hezbollah will well use such attempts to confirm that it is facing big conspiracies and thus reassemble the Shiites around it," Amin Kammourieh, a journalist and an independent political analyst, told UPI.
Kammourieh said that despite the growing discontent and daring voices criticizing Hezbollah, there is still no other alternative for the Shiites and no "steady force on the ground to face it."
Jaber warned that any movement against Hezbollah and Iran from the other communities will only make the Shiites "withdraw into their own cocoon" and defend the militant group.
"This will be a mistake," said Jaber, who is a Shiite. "If they feel that they are threatened by outside forces or from other [Lebanese] sects, it will be impossible to oppose them," and anti-Hezbollah Shiite opponents will lose.
The change will only come from the emergence of a third force from within the Shiite community, which is currently dominated by Hezbollah and its Amal Movement ally, he said.
Sudden reversal in Ukraine hysteria!!!??
Ukraine dismisses suggestions of imminent Russian invasion
An attack on Ukraine in the near future is unlikely, defense minister said
A BTR-82A armored personnel carrier lands from a large landing ship during an exercise in the amphibious landing on an unimproved shore held by army corps and naval infantry units of the Russian Black Sea Fleet at the Opuk range, in Crimea, Russia. © Sputnik / Konstantin Mihalchevskiy
Despite increased fears over a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, there is no indication that Moscow is planning to launch an offensive in the near future, the defense minister in Kiev said on Monday.
Speaking to Ukrainian TV channel ICTV, owned by billionaire businessman Victor Pinchuk, Aleksey Reznikov dismissed the possibility of an impending Russian offensive.
“As of today, the Russian Armed Forces have not formed a strike force that would suggest that they will go on an offensive tomorrow,” he told the news channel, also rejecting suggestions that Moscow will invade on February 20, the day the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics end, calling the chances “not high.”
“There are risky scenarios, and in terms of the future, some are possible,” Reznikov continued, explaining that the country’s General Staff have plans for a wide range of possible situations.
“But as of today, there is no such threat,” he said.
Reznikov’s comments come as tensions between Russia and Ukraine remain at an all-time high. In recent months, Western media outlets and politicians have accused Moscow of concentrating 100,000 troops on the border with Ukraine, allegedly with a view to launching an offensive in the near future.
Earlier on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused the US-led NATO bloc of escalating tensions in Ukraine, suggesting that rumors about invasion and planned attacks are “information hysteria.”
On Saturday, in an interview with British newspaper The Times, the commander of Ukraine’s United Forces operation in Donbass Alexander Pavlyuk suggested that Russia would invade on February 20, theorizing that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not want to overshadow Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Olympic Games being hosted in Beijing.
Backlash against American hegemony
US working to 'divide' Europe – France's Zemmour
Eric Zemmour also insisted there is a need for friendly relations with Moscow
By Layla Guest
France should work towards improving its ties with Russia by removing sanctions and pivoting away from American influence, a candidate in the country’s presidential race has declared, as tensions flare across eastern Europe.
Speaking as part of an interview with the France 5 television channel on Sunday, Eric Zemmour proposed that if he were elected to the top job, “there would be no more sanctions against Russia.” He also suggested that the state could show “friendly signals” by lifting punitive measures.
The presidential candidate, known for his far-right and nationalist views, added that Paris should be “friends with Russia” and should stop “being a tool of the United States.” According to him, Washington tries to pit European countries against Moscow.
"According to him"? Is there anything more obvious on earth?
“The US is trying to divide Russia from France and Germany, and every time they get closer to each other, the Americans find a way to divide them,” he said.
Zemmour’s remarks come shortly after France’s current leader, Emmanuel Macron, marked the start of his country’s presidency of the EU by calling for the building of a new rules-based “European order,” free of threats, coercion, and spheres of influence.
“Both for us and for Russia, for the sake of the security of our continent which is indivisible, we need this dialogue,” Macron said last week, adding that it should be “frank and demanding … in the face of destabilization, interference and manipulation.”
Tensions have been growing between Moscow and Western countries in recent weeks, with a handful of leaders and media outlets alleging that Russia’s armed forces are amassing at its shared border with Ukraine ahead of staging an invasion, which the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.
Speaking last Thursday at a press conference, US President Joe Biden threatened to impose unprecedented embargoes on Moscow should its troops launch an offensive. “This is not all just a cakewalk for Russia. Militarily, they have overwhelming superiority relative to Ukraine, but they’ll pay a severe price,” he said.
The journalist and essayist, who is a new face in France’s right-wing political scene, was fined $11,400 (€10,000) earlier this month for inciting hatred against migrants in remarks he made on TV in September 2020.
While speaking about unaccompanied minors entering the country, the journalist said: “They’ve got no reason being here; they are thieves, they are killers, they are rapists, that’s all they do, they should be sent back.”
Macron vs the 'Atlanticists': Is French leader ready to fight for Europe?
The EU’s dependence on a Washington in decline is looking increasingly precarious
By Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany at Koç University in Istanbul working on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory. He tweets at @tarikcyrilamar.
French President Emmanuel Macron inspects the troops. © Aurelien Meunier / Getty Images
The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, has started off his country’s presidency of the EU with a bold provocation. Speaking to the European Parliament in Strasbourg he has put his head above the growing anti-Moscow rhetoric and called for a dialogue about a continent-wide, “indivisible” security strategy that includes Russia, rather than existing to oppose it.
In reality, this is no surprise: as Macron pointed out, he has proposed a similar approach “for years” already. It is also an idea that is so obviously reasonable that it is almost boring. Why would the EU not engage in such an exchange with its militarily most powerful neighbor, on which it also depends for much of its energy? In fact, a historian looking back on this moment might well rub her eyes one day, wondering how something so simple wasn’t in place already.
What really makes Macron’s act of pointing out the obvious interesting is the almost comically hyperactive response it has triggered. The French president, the Financial Times hastened to alarm us in military jargon, “broke ranks.” Brussels bureaucrats have scrambled to distance themselves, accusing Macron of going it alone without forewarnings. An especially courageous, if anonymous, EU official – potentially from the Baltics or Poland – has called his whole idea “crazy.”
Josep Borrell, the EU's top diplomat, has been in an almost indecent rush to make sure Washington knows that Macron was not speaking for him. NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken have both called for “unity” between the US and the EU with a fervor reminiscent of a Soviet party congress. And, as if on cue, a small brigade of Western publicists has stampeded all over social media to decry the French enfant terrible’s rude breach of etiquette as a “really unfortunate” assault on “Western,” again, “unity.”
This is all very strange, even rather absurd. Because it makes no sense at all as a reaction to what Macron has actually said, as you can easily find out for yourself by listening to a recording.
In fact, the panicked response can only be understood as really about something else. We’ll get to that. But first, let’s take a closer look at the French president’s real statements.
The dialogue between the EU and Russia, according to Macron should be “frank” – that is, in easily decipherable code, clear about differences as well as possible points of agreement. Security challenges should be anticipated instead of only reacted-to. Western Europe needs not only “strategic rethinking” but also “strategic rearmament,” the president said, while explicitly calling for a decisive stance against “manipulation” and “interference.” Given recent accusations flying between the West and Russia, this was a clear barb against Moscow. No less than the most stalwart US hawks or Green “value” moralists from Germany, Macron insisted on “principles” and “rules,” on inviolable borders and the “rejection of spheres of influence.” And so on. The examples could be multiplied, but you get the gist: “Appeasement” of Russia, this was clearly not. On the contrary, it was really quite a tough speech.
Moreover, France has been clear that no one is to be cut out of the loop. Defining Western Europe’s positions should proceed in stages, so the idea goes, first with a general and comprehensive consultation within the EU to define common positions, then – nota bene – coordinating with NATO, and only finally taking whatever has survived that process to the table to talk to Russia.
There you have it. A speech that was, actually, quite hawkish on Russia and a policy proposal that paid due respect to both all other EU members and to NATO, which of course is dominated by Washington. So what is it really that is so irritating about Macron’s initiative to so many in the West?
In short, it isn’t really about the EU’s relationship with Russia at all. In reality, he’s run into trouble (if probably deliberately) because he has implicitly but clearly challenged the bloc’s relationship to the USA.
His insistence that Western Europe must not only have reliable security but be able to provide it on its own is certain to have rubbed 'Atlanticists,’ those still stubbornly believing in voluntary dependence on the USA, the wrong way. In theory, Macron’s long-standing demand for “strategic autonomy” is not that contentious. But in practice it is one of those policies that is not supposed to have real consequences.
A Europe “independent in a violent world… of the whim of others,” in the French president’s words, does not exist, of course. Macron’s pretending it does and, in effect, calling for this fiction to become reality is an affront to the astonishingly large number of European politicians, think-tankers, and publicists who still invest an increasingly blind faith in a declining, unstable, and increasingly unpredictable America as their guardian.
It is this desperate faith – which clearly comes with much repressed doubt – that Macron implicitly questions when spelling out what strategic autonomy would mean if the EU actually meant it: “a proper defense industry” of its own, a definition of a “doctrine of its own security,” and as a result a “Europe that is independent and has the power decide its own future for itself and not to depend on the choices of the other major powers.”
Again, make no mistake: none of the above contradicts cooperation, even close cooperation with the USA. All it means is that the EU should transform its current security model as a dependent client of America (a dysfunctional leftover from the Cold War that ended more than thirty years ago) into a new one as an independent partner.
And that is the crux. Because what the silly brouhaha about Macron’s eminently sensible approach really reveals has nothing to do with him or even with France or Russia. The core of “Atlanticism” is not a belief in the need for cooperation with Washington, even if many priests and practitioners of that belief may say so.
Atlanticism’s real core is a belief in the need to be vitally dependent on the US. And that position – unlike one based on cooperation between equals – is indefensible: It makes no sense that a bloc of the EU’s capacities should continue risking its security by relying on Washington instead of itself.
Macron’s pointing to the only reasonable way forward, namely genuine Western European independence from America. And since it cannot be named honestly without admitting the rot at the core of “Atlanticism,” namely voluntary dependence on a clearly undependable power, the French president will be attacked dishonestly: by pretending he is against Western “unity,” as if we were witnessing the persecution of a heretic in the medieval church. When the witch burning starts, one thing is certain: arguments have run out.
I love this...
Bulgaria insists it’s a loyal NATO ally, but won’t send troops to Ukraine
The government in Sofia is calling for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis, strengthening its own military
Bulgaria is a “loyal ally in NATO” and the alliance’s unity is the best response to the current crisis over Ukraine, Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said on Wednesday, amid conflicting reports on Sofia’s participation in the US military buildup in Eastern Europe.
Petkov’s government voted on Wednesday to follow the “Bulgarian strategy” of reducing tensions between NATO and Russia, including “absolutely all options for resolving this dispute by diplomatic means,” according to the state news agency BTA.
The strategy will be based on rebuilding the Bulgarian military, Petkov said. Defense Minister Stefan Yanev explained that the “top priority” will be investing in building a battalion combat team, a unit of around 1,000 soldiers.
Yanev would not comment on reports by Bulgarian National Radio that Sofia would not accept the deployment of 1,000 US soldiers on its soil, but would be fine with French troops instead. This was reported early on Wednesday by BNR correspondent in Brussels, Angelina Piskova, who quoted a “well-informed diplomatic source.”
The minister said such a thing has not been discussed on the political level, according to BNR.
Local media reported that Yanev also told lawmakers that Bulgarian soldiers won’t fight in Ukraine without parliamentary approval, which he “does not see coming.”
Earlier on Wednesday, CNN reported that Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania were in discussions with the US to accept 1,000 American troops each, as part of Washington’s effort to “reassure” NATO members in Eastern Europe and “deter” the alleged Russian invasion of Ukraine. The US intelligence has heralded such an invasion since late October, though Moscow dismissed it as “fake news.”
Speaking before the parliamentary defense committee on Tuesday, Yanev said that neither Russia nor anyone else is preparing to invade Bulgaria, and urged the lawmakers to “reduce tensions, stop reading the foreign press, and stop speculating.”
Croatian PM apologises to Ukrainians for 'nonsense'
The slap-down comes amid disagreements over NATO’s response to a potential Russian incursion into Ukraine
By Layla Guest
A series of explosive claims from Croatia’s president that Zagreb would pull its soldiers out of NATO deployments in Eastern Europe in the event of a full-blown conflict with Russia are nothing but hot air, the country’s prime minister has blasted.
Taking to Twitter on Wednesday, Andrey Plenkovic poured scorn on the remarks made earlier this week by Zoran Milanovic and attempted to diffuse the situation.
“Given the fact none of our troops are in Ukraine, and the contingent stationed in Poland has already returned, I do not know what kind of military personnel the president is thinking about withdrawing,” he hit back.
Plenkovic went on, adding that his statements are not in line with the views of the government. “I apologize to Ukrainians for such nonsense,” he said.
Plenkovic’s remarks follow shortly after Milanovic insisted in a televised address that Croatian troops in NATO contingents stationed in the region would play no part if tensions snowballed into fighting in the former Soviet republic.
“Not only will we not send the military, but if there is an escalation, we will recall every last Croatian military man,” he vowed, also taking aim at US President Joe Biden.
“This has nothing to do with Ukraine or Russia, it has to do with the dynamics of American domestic politics, [US President] Joe Biden and his administration, which I supported.”
Milanovic’s remarks earned him a place on a Kiev-based ‘Peacemaker’ database for alleged “anti-Ukrainian activity,” as well as spreading “Kremlin propaganda” and justifying “Russian aggression.”
His statements also came under fire from Zagreb’s ambassador to Kiev, Anica Jamic, who said that the president “showed a disdainful and ungrateful attitude for the help that Ukraine and Ukrainians gave to Croatia during its struggle for independence, as well as in fighting the devastating fires last year.”
Milanovic’s comments come amid high tensions between Moscow and Kiev, with a number of Western leaders sounding the alarm in recent weeks over a purported buildup of Russian forces along the border with Ukraine. On Monday, the US-led military bloc announced that its members will order more fleets and fighter planes into Eastern Europe as Russia “continues its military build-up” amid the growing row.
Moscow has repeatedly rejected having any plan for a military offensive, and has called such accusations “groundless and wrong.” Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov previously said that the movement of the country’s armed forces on its own territory is an internal matter and of no concern to anyone else.
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