Lebanon’s crisis has been precipitated in large part by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Israel and cannot be solved until these rogue actors stop their foreign meddling

Wherever Victoria Nuland goes, she brings trouble.

Nuland is the third most powerful person in the State Department.

In February 2014, she famously handed out cookies to demonstrators in the Maidan Square in Kyiv.

The demonstrators were mounting a coup against Ukraine’s democratically elected president Viktor Yanukovich, which set off a deadly seven-year war that has resulted in 14,000 deaths.

Nuland's biscuits again: Maidan midwife's plan for US policy on Russia is  dumb, delusional and dangerous — RT Op-ed
Nuland famously handing out cookies to demonstrators in the Maidan Square protests that led to the toppling of Ukraine’s democratically elected leader Viktor Yanukovich in February 2014. [Source: rt.com]

In mid-October, Nuland visited Beirut, Lebanon.

A few days before, protests had broken out over the government’s handling of an explosion in the Port of Beirut in August 2020 that caused 218 deaths, 7,000 injuries and $15 billion in U.S. property damage.

The protests were suppressed, and six demonstrators were killed and 32 wounded.

In a meeting with Lebanon’s foreign minister, Abdullah Bou Habib, Nuland pledged an additional $67 million to the Lebanese army (bringing total military aid to $187 million for 2021).

Lebanon's Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib meets US Under-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland in Beirut on 14 October 2021. [ANWAR AMRO/AFP via Getty Images]
U.S. Under-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, left, shakes hands with Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib in Beirut on October 14. [Source: middleeastmonitor.com]

Nuland also spoke in Beirut with members of the ultra-right-wing political party called the Lebanese Forces (LF) of which Samir Geagea is the leader.

A Christian Maronite, Gaegea is a notorious war criminal, responsible for the death of thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990).

Samir Geagea - Wikipedia
Samir Gaegea [Source: wikipedia.org]

Gaegea served eleven years in solitary confinement from 1994-2005 after being convicted for ordering four political assassinations, including of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Rashid Karami in 1987.

Today, Gaegea appears ready to kick off another civil war in his bid for power. Iranian TV suggested that he is an Israeli Mossad agent who was behind the massacre at the port explosion protests and has “sought to impose himself as the sole representative of the Christians and return to the sectarian stronghold by committing a deliberate and organized massacre like the one committed during the Lebanese civil war.”

Deep Roots of Lebanon’s Crisis

Lebanon has been in bad shape for a long time. The quality of life of its people has been eroded by government corruption, the decline of social services, and by an influx of Syrian refugees.

Last summer, the Lebanese Lira sank at one point to 24,000 to the dollar. A year earlier, the government defaulted on its debts.

Saree Makdisi compared Lebanon’s central bank in The Nation Magazine to a “shell company running a collapsing Ponzi scheme out of an abandoned warehouse in an insalubrious part of town. A hundred and 30 billion dollars’ worth of deposits had vanished into thin air.”

Depositors could access only 200 of their dollars a month, and then only in liras and at an official exchange rate nowhere near the rate at which liras actually change hands for dollars in the real world.

The plight of the Lebanese is so bad right now that war-ravaged Syria is supplying them with electricity along with sanction-stricken Iran.

A demonstrator carries a national flag along a blocked road, during a protest against the fall in Lebanese pound currency and mounting economic hardships, near the Central Bank building, in Beirut, Lebanon March 16, 2021. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo
A demonstrator carries a national flag along a blocked road during a protest against the fall in the Lebanese pound currency and mounting economic hardships near the Central Bank building in Beirut. [Source: reuters.com]

The United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia have helped sow divisions in the country by spreading anger at Hezbollah—the resistance group—and the Shia political Amal movement.

For many of Lebanon’s people, however, Hezbollah and the Amal represent their only salvation and hope; they provide them with free education and economic help.

 SUPPORTERS OF Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gather in a convoy of motorbikes marking ‘Resistance and Liberation Day’, near the Lebanese border with Israel, in May.  (credit: AZIZ TAHER/REUTERS)
Supporters of Hezbollah president Hassan Nasrallah gather in convoy. [Source: jpost.com]

Even many of the Christians speak well of them—as they know that Hezbollah and Amal parties are the ones who will help the needy and poor.

A picture containing outdoor, person, crowd

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Campaign banner showing Amal leader Nabih Berri and Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, 4 May 2018. [Source: blogs.lse.ac.uk]

Port Explosion and protests

Lebanon’s divisions threatened to boil over following the August 2020 port explosion, which was set off when a cargo of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate (equivalent to around 1.1 kilotons of TNT) had been stored in a warehouse without proper safety.

Israel TV: Hezbollah apparently wanted Beirut's ammonium nitrate for Israel  war | The Times of Israel
Explosion in Beirut’s port on August 4, 2020. [Source: timesofisrael.com]

Initially, blame for the explosion—considered the largest non-nuclear one in recent history—was placed on those responsible for managing the port and on the Lebanese government.

Then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alleged that Hezbollah had been running a missile factory at the port, and maintained secret arms depots in civilian areas in Beirut.

When Secretary-General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah invited reporters to tour a warehouse in the Beirut suburb of Jnah, they did not find any missile factory though various Lebanese news sites reported images and videos taken from that particular warehouse showing there was ammonium nitrate stored—but by the Lebanese government and not Hezbollah.

Supporters of Hezbollah carry an oxygen tank at the site of Beirut's southern suburb of Janah which Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was a weapons depot belonging to the movement on September 29, 2020. (Photo by ANWAR AMRO / AFP)
Supporters of Hezbollah carry an oxygen tank at the site of Beirut’s southern suburb of Jnah which Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was a weapons depot belonging to the movement on September 29, 2020. [Source: timesofisrael.com]

The current judge on the case, Tarek Bitar, and several Lebanese MP’s have placed blame with the last sitting prime-minister, Hassan Diab, who was informed about a dangerous situation four days before the accident by the port authorities.

However, governments before him, like that led by Premier Saad Hariri (son of the murdered Rafic Harriri) knew all too well about the deadly cargo in the port of Beirut and even received complaints and letters, but never did anything about it.

Saad Hariri says he doesn't want to be nominated for Lebanese premier -  Arabianbusiness
Saad Hariri [Source: arabianbusiness.com]

The protests that surrounded Nuland’s visit were led by Hezbollah and the Amal Party and were directed against Judge Bitar.

Hezbollah spokesmen claimed that Christian snipers from the Lebanese Forces (LF) faction were the ones to fire at the crowd to drag Lebanon into strife—a claim denied by the LF.

Protest in Beirut against the judge investigating last year's blast at the city's port (14 October 2021)
Pro-Hezbollah protestors congregating in Beirut demanding removal of Judge Bitar from explosion probe. [Source: bbc.com].

Press TV in Iran claimed that an employee of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was one of the “snipers” who allegedly killed the protestors in a black-flag incident—though this has not been substantiated.

Images from deadly protests in Beirut. [Source: metro.co.uk]

Pouring Gasoline on the Fire?

Nuland’s recent visit brings fear among the Lebanese that the U.S. is about to pour fire on an already volatile situation.

Besides her exploits in Ukraine of 2014, Nuland has been a key figure advocating for regime change in Russia (an article she published in Foreign Affairs last year was called “Pinning Down Putin,”) and served as a principal foreign policy advisor to Dick Cheney during the Iraq War.

Additionally, she was U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from 2005-2008 when it was pushing for expansion along Russia’s border and leading the fight in Afghanistan.

Vice President Dick Cheney swears in Toria Nuland as U.S. Ambassador to the  North Atlantic Treaty
Nuland being sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to NATO in July 2005 by her boss Dick Cheney. [Source: georgewbush-whitehoiuse.archives.gov]

The Lebanese have experienced hardship for many years and do not want another civil war.

Like in Syria, the countries’ sectarian divisions have been provoked largely by the West and Israel—the Zionist state and not Jewish people—which has long sought to elevate the Maronite Christians and weaken and divide Lebanon.

The campaign to demonize Hezbollah is part of a hybrid war between Israel and Iran that is one major source of the country’s current predicament.


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10 COMMENTS

  1. Very knowledgeable explosives experts have stated that a fertilizer explosion couldn’t have created the crater in the Port of Lebanon and only an Israeli mini-nuke could have done this. Why isn’t this even mentioned in this report?

  2. PS to my previous message: it is a waste of time to criticize Victoria Nuland. The woman is paid to do the job she’s doing, It is NOT her choice, her decision. She’s merely following instructions. Basically her mission is to create business for America. When back in 2014, during the Ukrainian crisis, she established loan guarantees to Ukraine, including a $1 billion loan guarantee, she was only helping the American War industry.

    When Justin Trudeau was asked why he approved the sale of Canadian tanks and bombers to Saudi Arabia knowing these machines were going to be used to kill innocent Yemenis, he said “I’m the Prime Minister of Canada. Canadian citizens are my priority. The choice was between causing thousands of unemployed Canadians the Saudis killing anyway, but with rival machinery or keeping my citizens in good employment’.’

    • I feel that you may have modified what Trudeau actually said. Here is what I think he said:

      “So I am asking the prime minister, what does he think about Canada potentially being complicit in international human rights violations?” Trudeau was asked. “How can we say Canada’s foreign policy is progressive and feminist when we continue to sell arms to Saudi Arabia?”

      Trudeau responded by arguing that his government had little choice but to respect the contract signed by the previous government. “Permits are only approved if the exports are consistent with our foreign and defence policies, including human rights,” said Trudeau. “Our approach fully meets our national obligations and Canadian laws.”

  3. Stop calling them “Maronite Christians”. Christians promote peace, not war, racial strife, divisions, and murder. Also, there is no such thing as a “Judeo-Christian tradition”. It was the Jews who manipulated the weak Pontius Pilate into crucifying the Son of God, it is the Jews who most hate Christianity, and it is the Jews who foment the endless wars among their neighbors in the Mideast in mad pursuit of a “Greater Israel”. In AD 70, God revoked their status of chosen people, replacing their man-made tradition with the Christian church. The Christian church, facing continual opposition from the Jews, spreads the good news to the world of eternal life in the presence of God, by the grace of God and the propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus the Christ, only begotten incarnate Son of God, and not by blood descent from Abraham.

  4. Lebanon’s crisis has been precipitated by the passivity of humanity, who accept Militarism, Armed Forces, the Arms Trade, Embassies staffed with ‘Military’ attachés, spies, etc. Politicians and diplomats in U.S., Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Israel are only doing their job. Anybody in their place would do exactly the same. Nothing will change before we achieve the Universal Abolition of Militarism.. We don’t train men and women to kill in order for them to enjoy action films. The training is for them to take science-fiction films to the real world.

    Politicians are not as stupid or ignorant as many people think. They are intelligent and educated. They know very well what they are doing. Weapons and Armed Forces are playing war games. Whoever believes they are for creating Peace, is a romantic dreamer.

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