Lebanon Shifts Course: President Aoun Seeks to Reclaim Shiite Loyalty Amid Hezbollah’s Decline

IranAir flight takes off from the runway (Wikimedia Commons)

Lebanese president Joseph Aoun remarked on February 18 that “there is no siege on the Shiite sect as some are promoting” regarding the Lebanese government’s announcement of their decision the day prior to suspend flights to and from Iran indefinitely. The decision followed an American warning that Israel could shoot down planes flying between Lebanon and Iran.

After months of all-out war with Israel, Hezbollah is a shell of its former self. Israel killed many of the group’s commanders in the most recent bout of fighting, including its leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli airstrikes largely demolished the Hezbollah-controlled Shiite Muslim majority regions of the country, displacing over a million people from their homes, mainly from the Shiite sect. The World Bank estimates that the damages Israeli strikes inflicted on buildings in Lebanon’s Shiite areas cost over $3 billion.

Before Hezbollah’s decimation wrought by its war with Israel, the group offered a sort of welfare state to Lebanon’s Shiites, making services like the Islamic Health Unit, the Education Unit, and the Social Unit available to the often economically disadvantaged sect. Most of the funding for such programs has historically come directly from Iran.

As the Hezbollah-Israel war comes to a close, and the displaced Shiites are returning home to villages reduced to rubble, it is looking unlikely that they will receive the necessary funds to rebuild from their traditional financier. On February 13, the Lebanese government refused to allow an Iranian plane to land because of suspicions that Tehran was using passenger jets to smuggle money into the country. The Lebanese government seems adamant about preventing such a cash flow, even routinely searching Iraqi planes for hidden Iranian funds.

Tensions in Lebanon remain high. Beirut’s international airports will be closed on Sunday for a grand funeral Hezbollah is hosting for killed leader Hassan Nasrallah that is to involve 79 countries. As Lebanon’s Shiites teeter on a fault between their old battered patron and their new official government, President Aoun’s comments serve as a tether to pull them in a new direction. In his statement, Aoun called Lebanon’s Shiites “a main component of the Lebanese body.” If Aoun’s fledgling government is to succeed, he needs to reel the Shiites in from Iran and Hezbollah.