The incitement that has been simmering just below the surface in Lebanon for months now erupted this week in the form of furious protesters who tried to break into branches of the country's central bank in a few different cities in response to the country's terrible shortages of medicine, fuel, and staple goods. The army, which miraculously is still functioning even though the soldiers' salaries have taken a hit, managed to repel the demonstrators.
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Lebanon is collapsing. The World Bank claims that in the past 150 years, no nation has undergone such a severe economic crisis. The US dollar, which in January 2020 was traded on Lebanon's black market at rate of 2,000 lira, is now worth 18,000 lira as of the start of June. Drivers waiting to buy gas, which is imported using foreign currency, fight and sometimes shoot each other in order to find a place in the endless lines.
Lebanon's finance minister is warning that the country will collapse completely if it doesn't have enough diesel fuel to run its power stations. In the past 20 months, tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs, and about half of the Lebanon's 6 million residents are being plunged into poverty.
There are many reasons for the serious economic crisis engulfing Lebanon, such as the rampant corruption among its controlling class and the leadership of its ethno-religious sectors (Sunni Muslim, Shiite Muslim, and Christian) – including, of course, the leaders of Hezbollah – who empties the state coffers. There is also the influx of refugees, including a million people who fled Syria, as well as blows to Lebanese exports and imports as a result of sanctions against Iran.
But what has made the crisis, which has been unfolding for nearly two years, worse is the political paralysis that has gripped the country since last summer. The Lebanese government resigned after the blast at the Beirut port, which killed over 200 people. Attempts to form a new, functioning government failed due to an ongoing dispute between Prime Minister-designate Said Hariri and President Michel Aoun and Aoun's son-in-law, Gebran Bassil, who heads the Christian bloc, over the makeup of the cabinet.
Supposedly, Hezbollah is not involved in the disagreement, but it also isn't helping find a way out of the impasse. Instead, it is playing both sides of the game, serving its own interests. On one hand, it is sending messages that it has no desire to see a civil war, which could break out at any moment if the nation's distress worsens, and has ordered its people to restrain themselves and not get dragged into popular provocations. But on the other hand, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah isn't lifting a finger to help solve the crisis and is not putting any pressure on Aoun and Bassil – his political allies – to find a compromise.
The reason for this might lie in the fact that Nasrallah has long been wishing to see Lebanon's political system, which rests on a division of roles between the countries Sunni, Shiite, and Christian sectors, collapse. This system has been in place since 1943, allocating the roles of president and prime minister to the Maronite Christians and Sunnis, respectively. The Hezbollah leader believes that the time has arrived for the country's Shiite sector, which has increased since 1943, to take its place at the helm of the nation, and use its position as "defender" of the Shiite population and its military strength to reshape Lebanon as he wants to see it.
Nasrallah doesn't want this to happen as a result of a civil war, which he fears, but he wouldn't object if the existing system fell apart due to the current chaos, allowing him to exert his influence to make Lebanon into another satellite of Iran, a sort of protégé state of the ayatollahs.
Therefore, he also objected stringently to the country acceding to a demand by the International Monetary Fund to instate extensive reforms as a condition for economic aid, because the IMF is an entity "controlled by the west." This is why he suggested this week that Iran, as a "friendly gesture," supply oil to Lebanon and accept local currency as payment. Nasrallah's opponents in Lebanon have so far managed to stave off the idea, despite the difficult situation, but Nasrallah still hasn't said his last on the matter.
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