Will We Be Faced with a New Economic Order in 2022?
Mazen Al-Sudairi.
With the beginning of the second year after the pandemic, the poles of the global economy, along with developed countries, are facing new structural challenges that require reconsidering many of the old and traditional social and economic concepts.
I start with China, which is huge in everything, whether in population or natural resources. It is enough to mention that 38 percent of the world’s minerals are located within its territories, according to USGS data, and its oil production exceeds all OPEC countries, except for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
However, China’s consumption of oil is three times the volume of its production, and it is a big importer of semiconductors – which are equivalent to 30 percent of its total imports from neighboring countries.
Since it adopted communism in 1949, China has faced many challenges, such as the great famine between 1958 and 1962, due to imposed economic policies and some natural disasters. Therefore, the wise among them at that time realized the difficulty of implementing the Maoist ideas contained in the “Red Book.” The country recalled Chinese philosopher Confucius' famous saying: “Virtue lies in the middle.” Indeed, it lies in the middle class, the more stable its income and the higher its percentage in any society, the more stable the state will be.
With China adopting this approach, economic transformation began to take shape in the 1970s. Half a billion Chinese moved quietly from below the poverty line to the middle class. The Asian country soon developed into an industrial state, before shifting to technology and services, thanks to the huge spending on research and development, which represented 2.4 percent of its total economy in 2020 - the second largest value worldwide after the US spending on this sector.
China has even preceded the United States in some fields of digital development, such as digital currency and spending on the fifth generation technology, while supporting the East Asian renaissance in neighboring countries, such as Cambodia and Vietnam.
However, changes witnessed in China came in parallel with stricter internal controls, in terms of state interference in the simplest details, such as children’s playing hours and the work of technology companies, where the central authority is omnipresent, limiting individual freedom and the stardom of entrepreneurs.
It may seem that China is changing from within, but the world wants this change to keep pace with progress and innovation. It wants the Asian country to become a disciplined and effective partner in global growth.
The importance of China lies in the fact that it represents one-fifth of the global economy. When the United States confronted China with the trade war, the global industrial index fell below 50, which led to a global industrial depression in 2019.
The western capitalist world is not in a better condition a year after the pandemic, even with the arrival of vaccines. Many industries are still suffering, such as the aviation sector, which has incurred severe losses since the start of the pandemic, and its debts tripled over the last four years.
The energy industry has also been suffering from lack of investments and high prices. For example, Yara, the world’s largest producer of fertilizers, was forced to shut down some of its factories due to gas prices, despite food price inflation of 28 percent according to the United Nations index and an increasing demand for agricultural products.
All of the above are complex problems that created the inflation, which continues to plague the world (it reached 7 percent in the United States and 4.8 percent in the eurozone).
In fact, most of the classic monetary laws that emerged 90 years ago are no longer highly effective today. For example: The size of quantitative easing is not related to inflation, which was mainly caused by shortages in the supply of energy, basic commodities, and industrial inputs, rather than by an abundance of demand.
The labor market was also affected by the pandemic: the need for new skills and specializations arose, which reduced the weight of the workforce in society and made the decrease in the percentage of the unemployed less significant.
It should be noted that more than 3.3 million workers have recently left the labor market, most of whom were women, people over 50 years of age and with an educational level below university. The data confirmed that the pace of skills development exceeded the capabilities of the labor market in some age categories.
This comes in addition to the increasing wealth of society, which was pushed into early retirement.
According to the estimates of the US Federal Reserve, the net wealth of families over the age of 55 has grown by about 12 percent, and therefore the decrease in the unemployed is not necessarily an indicator of the production capacity and the increase in interest rates.
The development of thought and concepts is the basis of the renaissance and building of civilizations. If China wants to continue to amaze the world, it must recall the saying of the Father of Capitalism, Adam Smith: “In competition, individual ambition serves the common good.”
The West also has to review its old laws to achieve its frozen development goals. As Confucius said: “When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”
*Mazen Al-Sudairi is the head of Research at Al-Rajhi Capital.
A photo released by Iran's Nour News of a previous meeting between Khamenei and Sinwar
A compelling story is often enough to send a journalist in search of the man who carries it. The search becomes even more urgent when that man carries two. That was the case many years ago when I set out to find Anis Naccache.
As a young Lebanese activist, Naccache joined Fatah’s student battalion and later worked under the patronage of Khalil al-Wazir — better known as Abu Jihad — a member of Fatah’s Central Committee. My curiosity was piqued when I learned that Naccache had served as an aide to the famed Venezuelan militant Carlos the Jackal during the kidnapping of OPEC ministers in Vienna on December 21, 1975. The world had never witnessed an operation of that kind.
Carlos became an international celebrity, much to the annoyance of the man who had dispatched him on the mission — Wadie Haddad, the head of external operations for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. I suspected that speaking with Naccache might also open a path to Carlos himself. It did. But Vienna was only part of Naccache’s story.
When anti-Shah demonstrations erupted in Iran in 1978, Naccache obtained Abu Jihad’s permission to train Iranian opponents of the Shah in camps operated by Fatah in Lebanon. He would later go further. In an interview I conducted with him, he claimed that the idea of creating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was born during a meeting in a Beirut apartment attended by a handful of individuals. The idea was later conveyed to the leaders of the Iranian Revolution, who embraced it on the principle that regular armies could not be trusted.
After the revolution’s victory, Naccache traveled to Tehran.
One day, in a small gathering, participants discussed the danger posed by Shapour Bakhtiar, the Shah’s last prime minister, who was living in exile. Some feared that enemies of the revolution might rally around him to destabilize, or even overthrow the new regime.
Former Iranian Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar in Paris the day after an assassination attempt against him in 1980 (AFP)
According to Naccache, the idea of eliminating Bakhtiar was raised. He revealed that a revolutionary court had sentenced Bakhtiar to death and that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had approved the sentence without publicly announcing it, effectively transforming it into something akin to a fatwa authorizing his killing.
Bakhtiar was living in France under heavy protection. Tehran had not yet developed teams capable of conducting foreign operations. Naccache said he volunteered for the mission with a small group. He obtained Bakhtiar’s telephone number, called claiming to be a journalist seeking an interview, and was surprised to receive an appointment. He visited the residence, conducted the interview, and studied the premises and the vulnerabilities in its security arrangements.
On July 18, 1980, Naccache and his team returned to assassinate Bakhtiar. A reinforced door prevented them from reaching their target. The operation left two policemen and a French woman dead. Naccache was wounded and arrested.
Throughout the 1980s, Iran’s demand for his release overlapped with a series of kidnappings of French nationals in Lebanon by shadowy organizations seeking to exchange them for Naccache. After ten years in prison, France eventually struck a deal and released him.
When I asked who in Iran had known about the assassination plan, he replied: “I informed Mohsen Rafighdoost, who was responsible for the Guards’ administrative staff, and Mohsen Rezaei, a member of its command.”
The Lebanese-Palestinian-Iranian overlap would emerge elsewhere. Imad Mughniyeh — known as Hajj Radwan and accused of involvement in attacks against Israelis, Americans, and Arab targets — had for a time served in Yasser Arafat’s security detail before joining Hezbollah, the centerpiece of Iran’s project in Lebanon and the wider region. Naccache told me that he had personally trained Mughniyeh at the latter’s request.
Naccache spoke with fascination and confidence about the Iranian project, and I listened carefully. He said the region would undergo profound transformations and that revolutionary Iran believed its responsibility began with “liberating the Middle East from American occupation, whether direct or disguised.”
According to him, leaders of the Revolutionary Guards believed that “the American thread” was what guaranteed the stability and survival of many regimes in the region, and that cutting that thread would transform the Middle East’s map and balance of power.
When I asked whether General Qassem Soleimani belonged to this camp, Naccache replied that he was among its leading figures and was working systematically to undermine the American presence throughout the region.
“The revolution never concealed its desire to expel America from Iran and from the region,” he said. “The first message was the seizure of the Americans in their embassy in Tehran. The second was the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut. Hajj Imad helped deliver other messages.”
He also argued that the program of tunnels, missiles, and drones was designed to reduce the strategic value of America’s regional allies by demonstrating that their territory was vulnerable and that alliance with Washington could not guarantee their security.
“If Israel is an American aircraft carrier,” he asked, “what remains of its prestige when every inch of it can be reached by the missiles of the Axis of Resistance?”
Naccache also maintained that Hassan Nasrallah’s personality had earned him the trust of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and elevated him to the role of a partner in shaping Iran’s Arab policies, particularly in countries bordering Palestine.
“Nasrallah and Soleimani,” he underlined, “are closest to the Leader’s heart.”
Perhaps the most striking thing I heard from Naccache was his prediction that “the major blow” was coming. “Sooner or later,” he said, “missiles will rain down on Israel from every direction. Many who emigrated there will regret their decision, and those doubts will open the door to the end of this entity.”
What I heard from Naccache was more explicit than what I later heard in the offices of Islamic Jihad, Hamas, or Hezbollah leaders, though it pointed in the same direction.
Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, the secretary-general of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was equally convinced that the blow was coming. Khaled Mashaal was more cautious when discussing Iran’s role. Hassan Nasrallah, by contrast, never felt the need to conceal that Iran was Hezbollah’s principal source of weapons, funding, and strategic backing.
The historic handshake between Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn following the signing of the Oslo Accords, under the auspices of US President Bill Clinton, in Washington in September 1993 (Getty Images)
Revolutionary Iran and the Palestinian Obsession
From the outset, Khomeini’s Iran sought influence in several regional arenas. None preoccupied it more than the Palestinian arena. Yasser Arafat, however, had no intention of placing the Palestinian cause in the custody of Iran’s revolutionary regime. Nor was he prepared to hand Palestinian decision-making to any power on earth.
To preserve the independence of that decision, he forged alliances, fought battles, and moved from one capital to another, resisting those who sought to turn Palestine into a bargaining chip in negotiations with the great powers. His long struggle with Syrian President Hafez al-Assad belonged to that category. “Palestine is a cause for me,” Arafat used to say. “For Assad, it is a card to be played.”
Arafat quickly concluded that the Iranian Revolution lacked what he described to some aides as “realism, careful calculations, and restraints.” He felt that some of its leaders were guided by illusions, particularly in their underestimation of both the United States and the Soviet Union.
Nor was he prepared to place the Palestinian revolution under the guardianship of Khomeini’s revolution. He sensed that the new Iran would soon find itself in conflict not only with its neighbors but with more distant powers as well.
Arafat’s appearance in Tehran six days after the revolution’s victory was historic, but it did not lead him to pledge allegiance to Khomeini as others did. He kept his distance.
When Iranian revolutionaries seized American hostages in the US embassy in Tehran, Arafat explored the possibility of mediation. Tehran rejected the idea. It reacted similarly when he attempted to mediate after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War. Iran therefore began searching for other Palestinian allies. In time, it also contributed to weakening Arafat’s authority. Then came a development larger than Khomeini’s Iran could comfortably tolerate.
On September 13, 1993, the Oslo Accords were signed. Yasser Arafat shook hands with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn under the sponsorship of President Bill Clinton. Arafat had unleashed a second geopolitical earthquake, the first having been launched by Anwar Sadat.
His legitimacy remained intact. His image was inseparable from the first bullet fired by Fatah in the mid-1960s, an act widely credited with reviving the Palestinian cause. Iran felt threatened. It feared losing the bridge through which it hoped to reach the Sunni street and mobilize it against the “Great Satan,” not merely against Israel.
Tehran therefore intensified its investment in Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Arafat’s calculations diverged not only from Iran’s but also from those of the so-called camp of “steadfastness and confrontation.”
The hostility directed toward him became intense.
During an interview in Damascus, Ahmed Jibril, secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command, accused Arafat of treason. I asked whether he had ever sent someone to assassinate him.
“No,” Jibril replied, “but every morning I turn on the radio hoping to hear of the birth of a Palestinian Islambouli.”
He was referring to Khalid Islambouli, the man who assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
“I Have Lived Longer Than I Expected”
If Iran failed to draw Arafat beneath its mantle, it had greater success among Palestinian Islamists. Dr. Fathi Shiqaqi, the founder and secretary-general of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, opened the first window. The story began when Shiqaqi was a student at Zagazig University in Egypt. During the upheavals of 1978, fellow students asked him to prepare a ten-page paper on the events unfolding in Iran. The assignment captivated him.
He immersed himself in Islamic sources, Khomeini’s writings, and Muslim Brotherhood thought. He emerged convinced that the revolution in Iran was Islamic rather than sectarian.
Instead of a ten-page report, he produced a booklet titled Khomeini: The Islamic Solution and the Alternative. The booklet drew the attention of Egyptian authorities, who imprisoned him. He would later be jailed again and eventually leave Egypt secretly. He was arrested by Israeli authorities in Gaza in 1983 and again in 1986 before being deported from Palestine in August 1988.
The Israelis failed to appreciate that expelling Shiqaqi would strengthen his relationship with Iran and Hezbollah. Tehran welcomed him warmly. Khomeini received him in 1988 and pledged support for Islamic Jihad in both arms and funding. Thus Islamic Jihad became Iran’s first significant breakthrough into the Palestinian arena.
Ghassan Charbel, Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, during an interview with the late Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shalah in December 2002 (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Following the Arafat-Rabin handshake, Shiqaqi contacted Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, who would later succeed him as leader of the movement. At the time, Shallah was living in the United States and pursuing an academic career.
“The time has come,” Shiqaqi told him. Shallah later explained to me that the phrase signaled a decision “to go further in jihadist action.” The era of suicide bombings was approaching.
On January 22, 1995, Islamic Jihad carried out a devastating double suicide attack at Beit Lid near Tel Aviv, killing 20 Israeli soldiers. Rabin vowed to punish those responsible, even if they were beyond Israel’s borders. It was widely understood that he had ordered Shiqaqi’s assassination. Only days later I visited Shiqaqi in his modest apartment in Damascus. “I am still young,” he said immediately. “It is not yet time for my memoirs. We still have much work ahead of us.”
When I asked about Rabin’s threats, he dismissed them.
“I believe I have lived longer than I expected,” he replied. “The blood of martyrs produces more fighters and escalates the confrontation. We are not concerned by such threats. In the end, as Imam Ali said, destiny is the guardian of life’s appointed term.”
The phrase stayed with me. So did the feeling that our first interview might also be our last. Israel does not easily forgive those who target its soldiers. Mossad’s reach is long, and Rabin was not a man likely to leave such a challenge unanswered.
On October 26, 1995, Mossad found Shiqaqi in Malta and killed him as he returned from Libya.
Ramadan Shallah later told me that Israeli intelligence had penetrated Libyan security and discovered the alias Shiqaqi was using: Ibrahim al-Shawish, a secret known only to Shiqaqi and Shallah.
Hassan Nasrallah and Ali Khamenei (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader)
"If He Lives, He Will Become the Khomeini of the Arabs"
In Beirut, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah learned of Shiqaqi's assassination and immediately traveled to Damascus. He met Shallah and advised the movement to select a new secretary-general, just as Hezbollah had done after Israel assassinated its secretary-general Abbas al-Musawi, and to announce the successor's name in the statement mourning the previous leader.
According to Shallah, Nasrallah argued that doing so would help preserve the morale of the resistance camp. But, he added, Nasrallah did not interfere in the selection process itself, as that was an internal Islamic Jihad matter and the movement's allies trusted its choices.
Shallah also recalled that Shiqaqi greatly admired Nasrallah: "I was visiting Beirut at the end of 1989 when Dr. Fathi, may he rest in peace, returned from a Hezbollah event at which Nasrallah had spoken. At the time, Nasrallah was not yet secretary-general but a resistance official. Dr. Fathi spoke about him with tremendous admiration. I expressed surprise at the extent of his admiration, and in the presence of several brothers he said: 'If this man lives long enough, he will become the Khomeini of the Arabs.'"
I asked Shallah which model Palestinian factions drew upon when they began carrying out suicide operations. He replied that they had been inspired by the model pioneered by the Lebanese resistance when Abu Zaynab carried out the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut.
Hamas and the Road to Tehran
Despite Iran’s successes with Islamic Jihad, its greatest achievement was drawing Hamas into its regional program, exploiting the movement’s need for weapons and funding. Tehran had long sought an opening. Israel inadvertently provided one.
In late 1992, after members of the Qassam Brigades kidnapped and killed an Israeli officer, Israel deported roughly 415 Palestinian activists from Gaza and the West Bank, most of them affiliated with Hamas. Among them were future leaders such as Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi and Ismail Haniyeh.
Lebanon refused to receive them, and the deportees remained for months in the border area of Marj al-Zohour, transforming their tent encampment into a center for meetings, prayers, lectures, and solidarity visits.
The Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah quickly seized the opportunity. They supplied food, medicine, and shelter. As relationships developed, they trained some of the deportees in explosives, secure communications, and combat tactics. Iran saw in Hamas a prize far larger than Islamic Jihad because of its much broader popular base. The relationship did not begin smoothly.
Some Hamas figures remained wary of Iran because of Sunni-Shiite sensitivities. Others hesitated to accept Iranian funding for fear that it would tie the movement to a political agenda rooted in Iran’s revolutionary worldview.
Over time, those reservations faded. Iranian support became institutionalized. When Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007 and expelled the Palestinian Authority, Tehran and Hezbollah recognized a major opportunity.
For Soleimani and Nasrallah, an autonomous Gaza offered the possibility of integrating Hamas into the concept of the “unity of fronts” and preparing it to participate in the long-awaited “major blow.”
The relationship would face serious tests, particularly after Hamas leaders left Syria rather than support Bashar al-Assad’s campaign against the uprising. Iranian and Syrian circles attacked Khaled Mashaal, accusing him of abandoning the resistance camp.
Iran reduced its support, though it never entirely severed assistance to the Qassam Brigades. Differences also emerged over Iran’s role in Yemen and allegations of Shiite proselytization there.
Yet Soleimani and Nasrallah remained committed to preserving the Palestinian component of the Axis of Resistance.
Gradually, relations recovered. Soleimani rewarded Hamas with an extensive program of financing, weapons transfers, local arms production inside Gaza, and advanced training. In 2012, Yahya Sinwar — released from an Israeli prison the previous year — was elected to Hamas’ political leadership in Gaza. Five years later he became head of the movement in the territory.
That same year, Ismail Haniyeh succeeded Khaled Mashaal as chairman of Hamas’ Political Bureau after Mashaal had held the post for twenty-one years.
The military wing gained increasing influence, particularly through Sinwar’s close relationship with the Qassam Brigades and their commander, Mohammed Deif.
An Iranian woman holds a poster featuring Ismail Haniyeh during his funeral procession in Tehran. The poster also depicts Qassem Soleimani, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Fathi Shiqaqi, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Imad Mughniyeh and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh (AFP).
Sinwar’s Flood
On October 7, 2023, Sinwar and Deif realized their ambition. They launched what they called “Al-Aqsa Flood.” The following day, Hezbollah found itself under pressure to respond to the message sent by the architects of the operation and joined what it termed the campaign to support Gaza.
The world was startled by Israel’s vulnerability in the opening hours, especially after it became clear that the attack had left more than a thousand Israelis dead and scores taken hostage. But after the initial shock, Israel’s war machine awakened and opened multiple fronts.
Benjamin Netanyahu viewed the operation as bearing unmistakable Iranian fingerprints. The retaliation was severe, from Hezbollah in Lebanon all the way to Iran’s Supreme Leader himself. Sinwar’s Flood altered the face of Gaza and Lebanon. It also contributed to the downfall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
For the first time, American strikes hit Iranian nuclear facilities. Israeli aircraft dominated the skies over Tehran, while Iranian missiles struck targets inside Israel.
The Iranian roar eventually erupted into war, one that unsettled the region, rattled the global economy, and whose consequences remain unresolved.
Lebanese-Born US Envoy Michel Issa Arrives with High Expectationshttps://english.aawsat.com/features/5280966-lebanese-born-us-envoy-michel-issa-arrives-high-expectations
During his Senate confirmation hearing, Issa outlined the contours of his policy, setting out several themes that later became central to his performance
Lebanese-Born US Envoy Michel Issa Arrives with High Expectations
During his Senate confirmation hearing, Issa outlined the contours of his policy, setting out several themes that later became central to his performance
When the new US ambassador to Lebanon arrived in Beirut, he did not need a learning period or special State Department training before taking up his first diplomatic post after a brief retirement from the world of business and automobiles.
Ambassador Michel Issa knows Beirut and the rest of Lebanon better than he knows the corridors of the State Department, with which he had no connection before President Donald Trump appointed him.
Issa was returning to the city where he was born, and to a country he had carried with him on a journey from Lebanon to France and then the United States.
Today, he is coming back as the representative of the world’s most powerful country at one of the most sensitive moments in Lebanese-US relations.
From the moment Issa was appointed US ambassador to Lebanon, it was clear his selection was no routine decision inside the US administration. Washington did not send a traditional career diplomat to Beirut, nor a former security official.
It chose a veteran businessman and banker with deep Lebanese roots and a direct relationship with Trump.
But more importantly, Issa’s appointment came as Lebanon was passing through a historic turning point.
The country was trying to emerge from the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history, while the repercussions of the war on the southern front and the future relationship between the Lebanese state and Hezbollah dominated international and regional discussions.
More than one message
Many saw Issa’s selection as carrying multiple messages.
“On one hand, Washington wanted to send a figure who knows Lebanon from the inside and understands its complex makeup,” his friend, Lebanese lawmaker Fouad Makhzoumi, said.
“On the other hand, it wanted to rely on a man who has the personal confidence of the US president and can convey the White House’s direction directly to one of the most complicated arenas in the Middle East.”
Among the notable steps that accompanied Issa’s move into diplomacy was his decision to renounce Lebanese citizenship before taking up his duties as US ambassador, aimed at removing any potential legal or political ambiguity over dual allegiance.
From Bsous to Wall Street
Michel Issa was born in 1955 in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, but traces his roots to the town of Bsous in the Aley district, in the Mount Lebanon governorate.
He grew up in Lebanon during the years of relative stability that preceded the civil war, and received his school education in Beirut before his family left the country as part of the Lebanese emigration wave of the 1970s.
France was his first stop. There, he continued his studies in economics and finance, and his professional identity began to take shape. He earned a DEUG (Diplôme d'Études Universitaires Générales) in economics from Paris Nanterre University and also studied at the Graduate School of Banking Studies in Paris.
In the late 1970s, he moved to the United States, the country where he would build his career and achieve his biggest successes.
Finance and banking
For decades, Issa worked in finance and banking, moving between prominent international institutions.
He held executive posts at well-known banks and investment firms, gaining broad experience in debt management, corporate restructuring, investments, and financial markets.
In American finance, he built a reputation as a man able to handle complex files, manage risk, and find solutions to financial crises.
Over the years, his name became known in economic and investment circles, especially in New York, where he settled and built a wide network of professional relationships.
Entering Trump’s circle
Perhaps the most intriguing part of Issa’s biography is his relationship with Trump. He was not merely a political supporter of the US president.
US media reports have described him as close to Trump and as one of his golf partners. Their relationship goes back years before they both entered direct political work.
When Trump announced Issa’s nomination as US ambassador to Lebanon, he used striking words to describe him, praising his broad financial experience and his career in business and international trade.
In Beirut, as in Washington, that relationship is not viewed as a secondary detail.
“An ambassador who has a direct channel to the White House has a wider margin of movement than what is usually available to traditional diplomats,” Makhzoumi said. “For that reason, Issa’s appointment gained added importance in Beirut.”
He said Issa “does not represent only the State Department, but also carries the confidence of the US president himself.”
For Lebanon, that relationship gives the post a different weight. Every message Issa conveys or position he announces, is read as closer to the political mood of the White House than to a routine diplomatic view.
An ambassador under scrutiny
From his first weeks in Lebanon, Issa found himself drawn into files that went beyond traditional diplomacy. He took part in meetings on the future of US support for the Lebanese army, economic reform files, and international efforts to consolidate stability along the southern border.
During his Senate confirmation hearing, Issa outlined the contours of his policy, setting out several themes that later became central to his performance.
He spoke of the importance of supporting Lebanon’s “legitimate” institutions, strengthening economic reforms, and “empowering the state to extend its authority” across all its territory.
Those positions were welcomed by some Lebanese forces, while drawing reservations and criticism from others who saw them as an extension of the traditional US approach toward Lebanon.
But what made his presence different from many of his predecessors was his Lebanese background.
Issa speaks Arabic fluently, understands the details of Lebanese political life, and knows the fine distinctions among its forces, parties, and sects. These elements give him a greater ability to read the local scene.
At the same time, that background has made him a target of greater scrutiny. Every statement he makes is sometimes read from two angles, that of the US ambassador and that of the Lebanese who knows the details of the country where he serves.
A very private life
Away from politics and diplomacy, Issa appears different from the stereotypical image of many financiers. Sport plays an important role in his life.
Official information says he was an international athletics competitor in his youth, before his interest later shifted to other sports, most notably tennis and golf.
That sporting background also reveals an important side of his character. Discipline, competition, and the pursuit of results are qualities many link to his long career in finance.
Golf also played a role beyond personal hobby. It became one of the bridges that connected him to Trump, who is known for his passion for the sport.
At the family level, unlike many public figures, Issa is careful to keep his family life out of the spotlight. Available information about his wife and two sons is extremely limited, reflecting a clear desire to separate his private life from his public work.
Between Lebanese roots and US interests
In reality, Issa stands at the intersection of two parallel paths. The first is personal, beginning in the neighborhoods of Beirut and the town of Bsous more than half a century ago. The second is political and professional, leading him to the heart of the US administration.
Perhaps the uniqueness of his experience lies in combining these two paths. He understands the complexities of the Lebanese system, but is tasked with implementing policies set in Washington, not Beirut.
Makhzoumi said Issa is “clear, bold, and transparent.”
“He wants Lebanon, and we are betting on his Lebanese origins and on what he is trying to do, because it leads us toward a better Lebanon,” Makhzoumi said. “He is building good relations with everyone, and that is the reason for the ambassador’s strength.”
“Lebanon exists in areas where Israel is on one side, and Syria is on the other, and it has the Palestinian file. Here, there is also the distinctive Christian presence in the region,” he added.
“All of this creates a unique case. But if there is no one to convey the picture to the White House, as Ambassador Issa does, that will not happen.”
“Ambassador Issa can speak directly with those who make decisions in the United States, and this gives us a point of strength. We can build on it to obtain a better understanding in the US of the Lebanese position.”
When Hafez al-Assad Opened Lebanon’s Gate to Tehranhttps://english.aawsat.com/features/5280719-when-hafez-al-assad-opened-lebanon%E2%80%99s-gate-tehran
When Hafez al-Assad Opened Lebanon’s Gate to Tehran
Hafez al-Assad made it easier for Khamenei to consolidate control over Lebanon through Hezbollah. (AFP)
One week after the Iranian Revolution declared victory on February 11, 1979, two photographs emerged from Tehran that, in retrospect, help explain many of the storms that would later sweep the Middle East, from Iran’s expanding regional influence to what the author calls “Sinwar’s Flood."
In the first image, two men sit side by side on a carpet. It is impossible to tell the story of the modern Middle East without dwelling on both of them. One is Ayatollah Khomeini, the architect of the Iranian Revolution. The other is Yasser Arafat, the founder of the modern Palestinian national movement.
Standing near Arafat are the Lebanese cleric Hani Fahs, the Iranian cleric Sadegh Khalkhali, and Ahmad Khomeini, the revolutionary leader’s son. Near Khomeini stand Mahmoud Abbas — today president of the Palestinian Authority — and Hani al-Hassan, a senior Fatah leader who would become the first Palestinian ambassador to revolutionary Iran.
In the second photograph, Arafat is shown addressing a crowd after the Palestinian flag was raised over the building that had housed the Israeli embassy in Tehran.
Arafat and Khomeini, with Mahmoud Abbas standing next to his right.
The symbolism of those scenes was profound. During his long years in exile in Najaf, Khomeini had understood that Palestine was the magic word that opened Arab and Muslim hearts. He may have believed that embracing the Palestinian cause would provide a passport for a Shiite revolution seeking entry into the vast Sunni world. It was natural that Tehran would celebrate Arafat, whose legitimacy was unrivaled after he had become the global symbol of the Palestinian struggle. It was equally natural that Arafat would welcome Iran’s dramatic shift from a state aligned with Israel to one proclaiming full support for the Palestinian revolution.
As always, Arafat lavished praise on his hosts. Yet experience had taught him not to surrender his cards to anyone. He had spent years dealing with powerful leaders who sought to use the Palestinian cause either to legitimize their own regimes or to project influence far beyond their borders.
Palestine was not Arafat’s only asset. He operated on Israel’s border through southern Lebanon, a frontier that had effectively become a Palestinian-Israeli border before eventually evolving into an Iranian-Israeli one. Although Lebanon at the time lay under the domination of Hafez al-Assad and the Syrian army — and despite Assad’s deep hostility toward Arafat — the Palestinian leader still controlled the decision of war and peace in southern Lebanon. That authority would later pass to Hassan Nasrallah, the late secretary-general of Hezbollah.
Arafat quickly grasped the sensitivities surrounding relations with Iran. Here was a Shiite revolution emerging in a predominantly Sunni world. The new regime’s commitment to “exporting the revolution” alarmed governments near and far. When the Iran-Iraq War erupted, Arafat attempted to play the role of mediator. He recalibrated his calculations, preserving room for strong relations with the Gulf Arab states, whose financial support remained indispensable to the Palestinian movement.
Any reading of 1979 must also account for another major development. That year Egypt completed its departure from the military front of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The process culminated in the signing of the Camp David Accords by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin under the sponsorship of US President Jimmy Carter. The agreement completed the geopolitical earthquake Sadat had triggered in 1977 when he traveled to Jerusalem and offered peace to Israel.
Egypt’s departure left a vacuum in the Arab world. That vacuum made it easier for Khomeini’s revolution to advance across the region.
Beginning in 1990, Iran would receive three major unintended gifts. The first came from Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait and redirected global attention toward the “Iraqi threat.” The second came from Osama bin Laden, whose attacks of September 11, 2001, focused the world on al-Qaeda terrorism. The third arrived when the United States toppled Iraq’s Baathist regime in 2003, allowing Iranian influence to flow into Iraq’s institutions and political structure.
What many overlooked was that Iran had already received two crucial gifts during the 1980s from Syrian President Hafez al-Assad.
The first came after Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Assad agreed to allow hundreds of members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to enter Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley and train Lebanese Shiite Islamist groups seeking to organize resistance against Israeli occupation. From those groups, Hezbollah would eventually emerge.
The second gift arrived in the mid-1980s, when Assad decided to subordinate the Lebanese National Resistance Front — known by its Arabic acronym, Jammoul — to the Islamic resistance led by Hezbollah.
Elias Atallah, one of Jammoul’s coordinators, later recounted to Asharq Al-Awsat a dramatic meeting that preceded a series of assassinations targeting Communist Party leaders.
According to Atallah, Syrian intelligence chief in Lebanon Major General Ghazi Kanaan summoned him and Lebanese Communist Party Secretary-General George Hawi to an urgent meeting at a hotel in the Beqaa Valley.
Speaking on behalf of “Mr. President,” Kanaan bluntly informed them that Jammoul must coordinate its operations in advance with Syrian intelligence. He demanded more than that. Jammoul, he said, should coordinate with Hezbollah, or even merge with it.
The two men refused. Relations between the Communist Party and Hezbollah were already extremely tense. Kanaan abruptly ended the meeting with a warning: “You will pay a heavy price.”
A campaign of assassinations followed, targeting prominent communist figures. Kanaan scarcely concealed his satisfaction. At one funeral, he reportedly approached party members and remarked: “Is this better?”
An undated photo of Nasrallah during his youth. (Iran supreme leader’s office)
The Syrian intervention dealt a devastating blow to the leftist resistance. Islamic resistance became the sole banner of armed struggle against Israel. Hezbollah reaped the benefits. In 2000, Israeli forces withdrew from southern Lebanon under fire and without extracting political concessions from Beirut. Iran now stood on Israel’s northern frontier through Hezbollah.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein, the road linking Tehran to Beirut through Baghdad and Damascus opened fully. What some called the “Axis of Resistance” and others the “Shiite Crescent” had taken shape.
At the beginning of the 1980s, many believed Saddam Hussein’s war had trapped the embers of Khomeini’s revolution within Iran’s borders. Then, in June 1982, an unexpected window opened.
Israel invaded Lebanon, besieged Beirut, and forced the Palestine Liberation Organization to leave the country. The image of Beirut bidding farewell to Yasser Arafat as he departed into another exile marked the end of an era.
Amid the invasion, George Hawi, Elias Atallah, Mohsen Ibrahim — the secretary-general of the Organization of Communist Action in Lebanon — and several comrades launched the Lebanese National Resistance Front against Israeli occupation. Their operations forced Israeli troops to withdraw quickly from Beirut.
At the same time, three Shiite Islamist groups inspired by Iran’s revolution entered discussions aimed at creating a unified resistance movement. The talks produced what became known as the “Document of the Nine,” which was taken to Tehran and received Khomeini’s blessing. He instructed the Revolutionary Guards to support the unity of these groups, which would eventually dissolve into Hezbollah.
Hezbollah’s current secretary-general, Naim Qassem, later recounted the organization’s founding in his book Hezbollah: The Method, the Experience, the Future. He identified the movement’s three pillars as Islam as a way of life, resistance to Israel as the highest priority, and allegiance to Wilayat al-Faqih as the ultimate reference point.
Hafez al-Assad often told visitors that the Iranian Revolution compensated for the strategic loss of Egypt. Those familiar with his thinking, however, suggest additional motives.
He was deeply hostile to Saddam Hussein. He also believed that Gulf Arab concerns about revolutionary Iran would make Syria indispensable to the Gulf states, bringing political and financial advantages. Allowing Hezbollah to grow in Lebanon fit neatly into that calculation.
Hezbollah was born under the mantle of the Wilayat al-Faqih and on the front line with Israel. It soon found itself on a front line with the United States as well.
In October 1983, a suicide bomber drove a truck packed with explosives into the US Marine barracks in Beirut, sending a convoy of coffins back to Ronald Reagan’s America.
Syria later played a crucial role in exempting Hezbollah from the disarmament provisions imposed on Lebanese militias after the Taif Agreement. Iran spared no effort in supporting the movement, enabling it to build a steadily expanding military and political force. Together, Tehran and Damascus also helped consolidate the Lebanese Shiite political order, bringing Hezbollah into partnership with the Amal Movement, led by Nabih Berri, who has served as speaker of parliament since 1992.
Old conflicts between Amal and Hezbollah gradually faded. Berri became a nearly permanent necessity for Hezbollah, helping shield it from political isolation, though never fundamentally altering its deeper ideological program.
The first decade of the twenty-first century produced scenes whose consequences extended far beyond their immediate settings. On April 9, 2003, an American armored vehicle pulled down Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad’s Firdos Square. The man whose statues inspired fear simply by their presence was denied the final showdown he had imagined. The army that had fought Iran for eight years evaporated before the American military machine.
From left to right: Qasem Soleimani, Hassan Nasrallah and Ali Khamenei. (Iran supreme leader’s office)
Saddam was not far from Firdos Square when his statue fell. He chose resistance, badly misjudging both American power and the depth of Iraqi opposition to his rule.
Another defining image followed.
On December 13, 2003, Saddam was captured by US forces near Tikrit. Soldiers pulled him from a small underground hideout on a farm in al-Dawr. Television screens around the world carried the image of an American soldier inspecting the former Iraqi president’s mouth. He offered no resistance. Stories that he always carried a final bullet to avoid the humiliation of capture proved false.
Yet Saddam, obsessed with his place in history, succeeded in shaping part of his legacy. He denied the legitimacy of the court trying him and repeatedly insisted that he remained Iraq’s lawful president. Judge Raouf Rashid Abdel Rahman, who presided over the tribunal that sentenced Saddam to death, later told the author that “he was a difficult man, but he never asked for anything for himself.”
Saddam remained composed when the noose was placed around his neck.
The new Iraqi authorities made a grave mistake by scheduling the execution for December 30, 2006, the first day of Eid al-Adha. Another error followed. According to former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Saddam’s body was brought to his residence in Baghdad’s Green Zone after the execution, where Maliki briefly viewed it and reproached the dead man.
The images of Saddam’s capture, trial, and execution — combined with other factors — helped inflame Sunni-Shiite tensions inside Iraq and beyond. For many Iraqis, regardless of Saddam’s crimes, the execution appeared less like justice than revenge carried out on behalf of the United States, Iran, and Iraq’s pro-Iranian opposition.
Qassem Soleimani would soon devote himself to destabilizing the American military presence in Iraq, aided by Bashar al-Assad and Hassan Nasrallah.
Then another dramatic event emerged from Beirut.
On February 14, 2005, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in a massive explosion that tore through Beirut and scattered his body across the scene. The murder shook Lebanon like an earthquake. Huge crowds poured into the streets demanding the withdrawal of Syrian troops, which had been stationed in Lebanon since 1976.
Later that month, the author met Bashar al-Assad in Damascus and repeatedly asked whether Syrian security services had been involved.
Assad categorically denied any connection.
“Not from near or far,” he insisted.
Yet questions multiplied. Had he spoken with such certainty because he knew who was responsible?
The international investigation wandered through years of political interference, misinformation, and false witnesses. Eventually, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon indicted members of Hezbollah.
British soldiers are seen in Iraq’s Basra on April 7, 2003. (AFP)
The case generated enduring questions. Was Hariri killed on the fault line between Sunnis and Shiites? Was he eliminated because of regional rivalries? Was he seen as an obstacle to a broader strategic project? Was he punished for trying to restore Lebanon as a normal state rather than leave it a missile platform in the conflict with Israel?
Hariri’s assassination transformed both Lebanon and Syria.
Bashar al-Assad was forced to swallow the bitter pill of withdrawing Syrian troops from Lebanon, a country his father had dominated for decades. Hafez al-Assad had bent much of Lebanon’s political class to his will and established the rules of the Syrian era. Governments bore the fingerprints of Syrian intelligence officers. Parliament was summoned and complied.
That era exiled General Michel Aoun and imprisoned Samir Geagea.
One major figure remained: Rafik Hariri. He had accepted operating under the Syrian umbrella but never abandoned his dream of rebuilding a functioning Lebanese state. His growing domestic, Arab, and international stature worried the narrow circle around Assad, and later worried Hezbollah as well.
Syria lost its Lebanese foothold, a platform that had amplified its influence and enriched many of its officers.
What followed was a Syria trapped within its own borders, relying on coercion and burdened by economic failure, while Lebanon became polarized between the March 14 movement and the March 8 alliance led by Hezbollah.
Many believe these developments helped set the stage for the July 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, a conflict in which Qasem Soleimani played an active role behind the scenes.
After the war, Bashar al-Assad openly emphasized the importance of Syria’s strategic depth for Hezbollah. He even acknowledged that Syrian soldiers in civilian clothing had transported missiles to the movement and sometimes all the way to southern Lebanon.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 ended the war, deploying the Lebanese Army alongside UNIFIL forces in southern Lebanon. The conflict partially altered the political landscape created after Hariri’s assassination and gave Hezbollah another justification for retaining its arsenal.
Many Lebanese politicians fundamentally misunderstood Hezbollah and its weapons. They assumed that Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon should have been enough for the movement to disarm, just as other militias had done after Taif. They overlooked the regional dimension of Hezbollah’s arsenal and its connection to Iran’s broader project.
In May 2008, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s government challenged Hezbollah’s private telecommunications network, declaring it illegal. The response was swift. Hezbollah turned its weapons inward and effectively seized control of Beirut, sending a clear message: the arsenal was here to stay.
The episode inflicted a deep wound on relations between Hezbollah’s community and many other Lebanese groups.
When the first spark of the Arab Spring erupted in Tunisia on December 17, 2010, Bashar al-Assad felt little concern. He believed Syria was different. More likely, his confidence reflected faith in a vast security apparatus whose brutality would deter dissent.
On March 15, 2011, Assad’s security services dealt with the children of Daraa according to that same doctrine of repression. Protests spread and became a nationwide uprising.
Assad showed little genuine interest in compromise. His generals viewed the revolt through the lens of minority insecurity and foreign conspiracy. The regime escalated from repression to barrel bombs and chemical weapons.
As opposition forces approached Assad’s presidential palace, two men rushed to his rescue: Qassem Soleimani and Hassan Nasrallah.
Iran had no intention of allowing Syria — the central link in its regional axis — to be torn away.
Rafik al-Hariri’s assassination was a turning point that allowed Iran to impose control over Lebanon. (AFP)
Soleimani persuaded Russian President Vladimir Putin to commit Russian air power to Assad’s defense. Hezbollah deployed fighters into Syria in 2013, while militias organized by Soleimani poured into the battlefield.
The regime survived. The cost was enormous.
The intervention deepened Sunni-Shiite wounds that remain visible today, not least in the rhetoric that dominates Syrian social media.
Years later in Paris, after defecting from Bashar al-Assad’s regime, former Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam remarked that Hafez al-Assad could never have imagined Iranian influence in Lebanon growing to such an extent, or that his son would one day depend on pro-Iranian militias, including Hezbollah, to save his rule.
By then, Hezbollah was widely described as a regional force too large to fit within Lebanon’s political equation.
The author recalls a conversation with former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh before the end of the decade. In his characteristic style, Saleh asked: “Why is Hezbollah taking young Houthis to Damascus, sending them on to Lebanon without passport stamps, and training them in camps in the Bekaa Valley?”
The question hinted at a wider regional project already taking shape.
When Hezbollah launched its support front for “Sinwar’s Flood,” and later its support front for Iran itself, many Lebanese were reminded that their country had been living under the echo of Iranian power since the 1980s.
By the second decade of the twenty-first century, talk circulated within the so-called Resistance Axis of a coming “major blow” - a strike that many believed Yahya Sinwar dreamt of delivering through a rain of rockets and drones launched from multiple fronts across the region.
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