What Iran's Terrorist Proxies Will Do with Biden's Concessions and Billions

by Khaled Abu Toameh

• Hezbollah and its patrons in Tehran have done nothing to help end the disastrous economic crisis in Lebanon, where nearly 80% of the people live below the poverty line. The World Bank has warned that the crisis ranks as one of the three most severe the world has seen since the mid-19th century.
• Hezbollah does not pose a threat just to Israel, but also to the Lebanese people, America's Arab allies, including Saudi Arabia, and to America itself, especially from Cuba and Venezuela. " Iran's outreach to Venezuela, Asia Times notes, " is partly driven by economic interests and partly a desire to gain a foothold in 'America's backyard,' as the government parlance asserts. That explains the increasing appetite of the Islamic revolutionary God corps for building up ties in Latin America and even entertaining the idea of a military presence in Venezuela's waters....
• "The problem for each of the states," according to Richard Hanania, president of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology at the University of Texas, this July "is lack of access to global capital." It is a problem that the promised billions from the Biden administration would immediately fix.
• Yet, instead of working to alleviate the suffering of the Lebanese people, Hezbollah is continuing to gin up for war with Israel, a move that will bring still more disaster on Lebanon.
• "What is happening in Lebanon today is an organized terrorist threat by Iran and its militias, especially the terrorist Hezbollah. Hezbollah wants to destroy Lebanon and turn it into a state similar to Iran. We appeal to all the Arabs to help Lebanon before it drowns in the sea of Iran." — Rami Naeem, Lebanese political analyst, Twitter, August 29, 2022.
• "Who cares about a country such as Lebanon that has no water, electricity, university, school, hospital, and banks? Lebanon has no Arab, Gulf or international relations. Forty years have passed since Lebanon was brought into the [Iranian-led] axis of conflicts, wars, misery, bankruptcy and the collapse of the state." — Dr. Charbel Azar, member of the Sovereign Front for Lebanon, Akhbar Al-Yawm, August 25, 2022.
• "The Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia] has seized over 700 million narcotic pills and hundreds of kilos of hashish smuggled from or via Lebanon since 2015." — Waleed Bukhari, Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon, Saudi Gazette, August 30, 2022.
• "The terrorist party that brought Lebanon to the brink of political, economic and social precipice seeks, with Iranian support, to export chaos and destruction." — Okaz, August 24, 2022.
• The Arabs fear that an influx of billions of dollars pouring into the mullahs' coffers will result in Hezbollah and the rest of Iran's terrorist proxies stepping up their aggression not only against Israel, but also against America's Arab allies and friends in the Middle East, not to mention the United States and Europe. The Arabs want the Biden administration to grasp that appeasement of Iran's mullahs will further embolden the terrorists and undermine America's strength in the Arab world.
• If and when the Biden administration signs a new nuclear deal with Iran, the mullahs' Lebanese terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, will undoubtedly benefit from the billions of dollars that the Iranian regime is expected to receive once the sanctions on their country are lifted. Hezbollah will use the money to obtain more weapons, tighten its grip on Lebanon and prepare for more war with Israel. It will also use the money to undermine the security and stability of America's allies in the Arab world.
• Hezbollah, which recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of its founding, is Iran's biggest and most dangerous terrorist proxy in the Middle East. The other proxies, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Houthi militia in Yemen, are not as powerful as Hezbollah, which has created a state-within-a-state in Lebanon.

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