The U.S. and Israel treat negotiations as a weapon to destabilize and disarm the region, but Iran and Hezbollah have shown that real sovereignty requires connecting every front in a unified anti-colonial struggle.
The Iranian-U.S. memorandum of understanding (MoU) and the U.S. brokered âframeworkâ between the Zionist colony and Lebanon are following a predictable path for those who live in the West Asian region, or study it extensively with a pro-resistance lens. It seems that the U.S. and its âIsraeliâ proxy are wholly incapable of holding up their end of any bargain except the Faustian bargain which ties them together at the hip. This article seeks to go beyond the headlines and to analyze the questions of sovereignty and strategic depth as they relate to the Axis of Resistance, and how the narrative in the West poisons the well of negotiations for peace. The first order of business is to unpack the concept of sovereignty through an illustrative example: the rise of the Lebanese resistance, its relationship with Iran, and how real sovereignty can be achieved regionally. This will require a careful analysis of how ânegotiationsâ on behalf of the zionist colony and the United States are often a tool of war, rather than a point of departure for peaceful development.
When one opens the news in the U.S. or Western Europe, the first description they will get regarding Hezbollah is that they are an âIranian proxyâ or otherwise agents of Iran who act against the will of the Lebanese people which are represented by the Lebanese state. To begin our analysis, an understanding of the Lebanese state is necessary. This state is a colonial creation which is structurally sectarian, whereby certain government positions can only be held by people of certain religious backgrounds, and parliament contains quotas for each religious group. This state has been used by âIsraelâ and the West to have a perpetually unstable situation where the primary contradiction (imperialism and colonial borders) is obscured and the internecine struggles of Sunni vs Shiâa vs Maronite vs Druze are amplified. So, a sectarian state which was occupied by âIsraelâ from 1982-2000, attacked again in 2006, and again attacked with swathes of land in the south occupied since October 7th, 2023 cannot be considered a sovereign state if we consider sovereignty to include territorial continuity, control over the productive means, industrial strategy, and social relations governed by an agreed upon course of economic, social, and political development.
Now, enter resistance to this status quo to the equation, and a clearer understanding of the situation is possible.
Hezbollah started in the early 1980s in the south of Lebanon, which is where the majority of the Shiâa Muslims live. The backdrop of this resistance groupâs formation was the retreat and reshaping of many nationalist, communist, and socialist parties and organizations. After the Sabra and Shatila massacres by the Zionists and Lebanese Falangist Christian militias in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, the secular-nationalist PLO was forced to leave Beirut. In this same moment, the PFLP, the Lebanese Communist Party, and other socialist and communist organizations were forced underground as many of their members were actively recruiting in the camps, and thus died defending them. Hezbollah was also formed in the years of a renewed push back against imperialism which took the form of the Iranian Islamic revolution of 1979. Given that Iran is a Shiâa majority country, and the symbols and creed of their revolution resonated with their co-religionists across the region, it was only natural that relations would form between the revolutionary government and the various resistance organizations. Elsewhere, I have written more in depth about how this relationship formed between the Lebanese resistance and the Iranian state, but here suffice it to say that a number of conditions were met which make it clear that this is not a relationship where one side dominates the other. When the Pasdaran (IRGC) arrived in the Bekaa Valley, they were told to roll up their sleeves, work, and build relations with the workers and peasantry before establishing military training camps or even discussing expulsion of âIsraelâ from Lebanon. So, the relationship between the burgeoning Lebanese resistance and Iran was built on the farms and fields of southern Lebanon. This relationship is sustained because Iran does not decide for Hezbollah what they must do or what the Lebanese state must do, but rather their shared goals of anti-colonial resistance shape their relations. The relationship between Hezbollah and Iran is often mischaracterized because of the size difference; one, a patriotic anti-colonial resistance group confined to southern Lebanon, the other a state representing 90+ million people. This facile math miscalculates the nature of resistance against âIsraelâ. The religious, military, and ideological connection between the two is the real relationship worth discussing.
The shared goals of Iran and Hezbollah represent a roadmap for real sovereignty in the region, and this is evidenced by Iranâs insistence in negotiations with the United States that the wars be stopped on all fronts. By so doing, Iran has forced the U.S. to recognize the various resistance factions across the region as legitimate actors in the arena of geopolitics. Iran is protecting their strategic depth and the only parties and organizations fighting for real sovereignty regionally. This real sovereignty is premised on the expulsion of zionism and imperialism from the region. The Lebanese government, led by Joseph Aoun and Nawaf Salam is the same type of quisling state as the so-called âPalestinian Authority,â marred by the meddling of Gulf monarchies. Just as the Palestinian resistance refuses direct negotiations with the zionists, so does Hezbollah. Aoun and Salamâs comprador government willfully ignored zionist ceasefire violations and made a separate peace, which they are learning will not be honored.
This whole playbook of war with Iran, further destabilization of Lebanon, attempted destruction of the Palestinian resistance, and inflammation of the whole region has been out in the open for many years, but it was put clearly in a 2009 Brookings Institute document titled Which Way to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Towards Iran. In this document, the section regarding diplomatic options reads more as a manual for using diplomacy as a means of war.
â...if the United States and the international community offer the Iranian leadership a deal so good that they should not refuse it, but still do, they will convince much of the world that they are bound and determined to acquire nuclear weaponsâand probably for nefarious purposes. More to the point, the kinds of harsh sanctions that would hopefully be on the table as part of this strategy would come into force if Tehran rejected the offer.â
The hope is that Iran rejects the U.S. offers and that this is then used as a pretext to put more sanctions on Iran and make the population suffer. This report, from the Saban Center for Middle East Policy (zionist) also reflects the role of zionism within the U.S. foreign policy establishment, with many of the organizations and institutions pushing hardline positions on Iran and the entire West Asian region because of its importance to U.S./zionist militarized accumulation.
The whole premise of the U.S. brokered framework between Lebanon and âIsraelâ is disarmament of Hezbollah by the Lebanese Armed Forces, which in essence is a call for a civil war. Lebanese sovereignty will not come through disarmament of the only organization protecting its citizens from zionist aggression, and it will not come through signing pacts with the very forces bent on keeping Lebanon unstable. The reality is that the strategic depth of the Axis of Resistance, which has insisted on connecting the Iranian negotiations to the Lebanese, Palestinian, and Yemeni fronts, is the blueprint for regional sovereignty. The Iranians have insisted that any MoU worth its salt will require mutual reciprocity in implementing its accords, and for the Iranians, ending the U.S.-zionist aggression in Lebanon is an integral part of that agreement. Lebanon, Iran, Gaza, Yemen, and Iraq are the only fetters in the way of the âGreater âIsraelââ project which seeks to enslave and fragment the entire region; they are the lodestar of anti-imperialism today.
While negotiations take a long time, the strategic patience of Iran and its regional allies is the key to their success whereas Trumpâs legitimacy lies in his rapid âart of the dealâ and Netanyahuâs continued rule relies on a constant state of emergency and war. This contradiction is what is playing out right now, and requires our clarity in describing this dynamic.
Hanna Eid is a Palestinian American writer, researcher, and a Union electrical worker. His writing concerns mainly imperialism and anti-imperialism in West Asia and West Africa.
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