Tehran Times’ Man of the Year 1400: Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah

For the Iranian calendar year 1400 (S.H.), the Tehran Times has selected the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, as “Man of the Year.” A report on this is here: “The Tehran Times Man of the Year article is worthy of Soviet-era Pravda,” Elder of Ziyon, March 20, 2022. The Tehran Times states:

The Tehran Times’s 1400 Man of the Year is Seyed Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of the Lebanese Hezbollah. This year’s choice may seem a little bit unusual considering the relatively calm situation of Lebanon over the last 12 months. But beneath this apparent serenity lies the important leadership style Nasrallah exhibited in steering the resistance movement and Lebanon in general through multi-faceted crises.

Over the last 12 months, a new government was successfully formed in Lebanon with the active participation of the resistance factions. Perhaps, government formation was the biggest political event in Lebanon in 1400. It broke a year-long deadlock that was about to end up in chaos and disorder in the Mediterranean country. But with the leadership of Nasrallah, Lebanese factions successfully managed to agree on another consensual government at a time when the country was facing dire maladies on every level.

The political “deadlock” In Lebanon came to an end last September, when those who had been hoping for reform of the political system, and an end to the musical chairs played by a permanent and corrupt elite, had to admit defeat. Instead of replacing that elite, Nasrallah arranged for Najib Mikati, a billionaire and the richest man in Lebanon, to become Prime Minister, a job he had held twice before. Mikati has been the subject of multiple corruption accusations, and been charged with illegitimate gains. So far he has avoided being convicted, but very few in Lebanon believe him to be an honest man. Nasrallah knew that the Sunni Prime Minister Mikati, just like the Maronite President Aoun, would not challenge him or Hezbollah. He was right.

Nasrallah quietly and constructively engaged in the political process to help find solutions to many challenges without allowing the foreigners to make decisions for the Lebanese.

“Quietly and constructively,” he “engaged in the political process to help find solutions” to many challenges? What can the Tehran Times mean? Was Nasrallah “quietly and constructively” engaged when Hezbollah did everything it could – including death threats made directly to Bitar in his office by a senior Hezbollah security official — to prevent Judge Tarek Bitar from continuing his investigation into the Beirut blast of Aug. 4, 2020, the largest non-nuclear blast in history, that killed 220 people, wounded 6,500, and caused $15 billion in damages? Isn’t it true that Nasrallah will make sure that Bitar’s report, if and when it is finally completed, will never see the light of day? He has already held mass rallies – the last one was in October – protesting against Bitar’s investigation; Nasrallah claimed that Bitar was not “objective”; he accused the judge of politically targeting officials and called for an “honest and transparent judge,” by which he meant someone to whom he could give orders. Nasrallah is worried that Hezbollah, which everyone knows was responsible for the Beirut port blast, will In fact be blamed and shamed by Bitar, and possibly have to pay damages to the blast’s victims. And that would never do.

Judge Bitar is giving the Lebanese hope in the domestic judiciary after many people have totally given up on justice and accountability locally,” Aya Majzoub, Human Rights Watch Lebanon researcher, told Al Jazeera. “He is single-handedly facing off with the entire political establishment that is implicated in the Beirut blast.” And that is why Man-of-the-Year Hassan Nasrallah has been trying so hard to get Bitar off the case.

 Did Nasrallah do all this “without allowing the foreigners to make decisions for the Lebanese”? Isn’t Iran, a foreign country, his puppet-master? Have’t “foreigners” – Iranians — given Hezbollah billions of dollars, and 200,000 rockets and missiles, to be launched someday at Israel, not when the terror group decides, but when Iran gives the word?

He positively contributed to solving [sic] hurdles getting in the way of government formation, and he is now laying the grounds for the victory of resistance factions and their allies in the upcoming elections slated for May. Just as what happened during government formation, the foreign countries would use the next election to undermine Hezbollah and its allies.

What Hasan Nasrallah is doing is to continue to support a kleptocratic elite, guilty of corruption and financial mismanagement that is subservient to him. This elite is exemplified by the Maronite President, Michel Aoun, whose corruption—he has a net worth of $80 million, somehow accumulated on a modest government salary– is tolerated as long as he follows Nasrallah’s orders. Under Nasrallah, Hezbollah has become a “state within a state,” or, as analyst Stephanie Williams suggests, a “state within a non-state,” because the Lebanese state is mired in political paralysis and economic collapse. The same corrupt elites are kept in power, in order to do Hezbollah’s bidding. When someone who is incorruptible comes along, like Tarek Bitar, Nasrallah throws up every obstacle to prevent him from doing his work and has even tried death threats to get him to stop his investigation. Bitar hasn’t been dissuaded.

But Nasrallah is aware and vigilant. He recently said, “Our battle in the next election is the battle of our allies, and just as we strive for the victory of our [Hezbollah] candidates, we will strive for the success of our allied candidates.”

His “allies” are those who, while not members of Hezbollah, nor even Shi’a, are corrupt members of the government; they are allowed to continue with their corrupt ways as long as they serve Nasrallah’s interests. They are not “allies,” as he calls them, but his puppets.

Israel has anxiously observed Hezbollah’s takeover of Lebanon.

“We are watching Hezbollah-stan. Lebanon is not a failed state, but a fake state,” said Israel Defense Forces (Res) Brig.-Gen Assaf Orion, former head of the Strategic Division in the IDF.  

“It’s an illusionary façade of a legitimate government,” said Orion, who is currently an International Fellow at the Washington Institute and Senior Research Fellow at the INSS.

Orion sees the new government as a puppet that allows Hezbollah to tighten its grip on the country.

“They’re running the show. They allow [a] legitimate veneer of Christians, Sunnis, and others to take part in this façade. And as long as the world buys it and keeps on paying, it will keep on going,” Orion told CBN News.

The Tehran Times’ Man of the Year, the most powerful man in Lebanon, has been responsible for Lebanon’s economic degringolade. Nasrallah keeps in power both the corrupt and the financially incompetent, because they do his bidding; it is he, therefore, who is most to blame for having brought the country to economic ruin, the likes of which have not been seen in the past 150 years. The Lebanese pound has lost 95% of its value since October 2019. The UN estimated last October that 78 percent of the Lebanese live below the poverty line – some three million people – with 36 percent of the population living in extreme poverty. Since that report six months ago, economic conditions have continued to worsen, and some think that 85 percent of the Lebanese now live in poverty. Lebanon was once the “Arab Riviera,” and Beirut the “Paris of the East.” Not anymore. 

The Tehran Times’ Man-of-the-Year Hassan Nasrallah needn’t worry, however. The Lebanese may be sunk in poverty, but his net worth is $250 million.