The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, has just gotten a few things off his chest. He’s been having, you see, a bad time of it recently. His sole supporter is Iran, an economic basket case that has seen its currency lose 90% of its value in the last two years. 

That has meant less money is being transferred from Iran to Nasrallah’s coffers, and he, in turn, has had to cut the salaries of his flag-waving fighters goose-stepping along the streets of Beirut. 

He’s also facing a political challenge: the incorruptible Tarek Bitar insists on pursuing his investigation into the Beirut blast of August 4, 2020, and so far Hezbollah’s attempts to intimidate him so that he calls off his inquiry have failed. 

In Lebanon, Hezbollah is universally understood to be the party responsible for that explosion, by having carelessly stored 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrates in Hangar 12 at the Port of Beirut; Nasrallah continues nonetheless to deny that responsibility, and is desperate to keep Bitar from bringing the incontrovertible evidence before the Lebanese authorities, and before an enraged public as well. Despite Hezbollah’s threats, Tarek Bitar soldiers on.

Nasrallah has just been delivered another body-blow: his erstwhile Christian allies in the Free Patriotic Movement, President Michel Aoun and his son-in-law Gebran Bassil, have given unmistakable signs of abandoning that political alliance with Hezbollah they first forged in 2006; they have been appalled by Hezbollah’s attempts to derail Bitar’s investigation. 

Furthermore, Aoun and Bassil worry that if Israel were to attack Iran, Teheran might order Hezbollah to attack Israel, and thereby drag Lebanon into a war that the Lebanese do not want.