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Homage

Lionel Messi or the Re-enchantment of the World

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By Michel Hajji Georgiou
Published Sep 6, 2026 - 13:31
The Argentine player, who brought his international career to an end on August 31, 2026, was nothing less than a magician of the stadiums. His journey, made of wonders, falls and redemption, may tell us something about our undiminished need for enchantment in a world that nevertheless claims to have rid itself of it. Announced a few weeks after the 2026 World Cup final lost to Spain, Lionel Messi’s international retirement inevitably stirred an emotion for which it is difficult to find many equivalents in the recent history of football. One would probably have to go back to Maradona, or perhaps to Cruyff or Pelé, to recover that sense that, with the retirement of a player, something disappears that extends far beyond the sport itself, as though a certain way of inhabiting football, perhaps even of believing in it, were also coming to an end. Far from the glacis of reason Enough of the endless statistics and the unbearable, tedious and sterile quarrels over “who is the greatest of all time.” The author of these lines has never been a fanatic of the round ball, nor, for that matter, of vertical rankings or hierarchies of merit in general, and consequently appreciates the talent of each player with the same sense of wonder as an eleven-year-old child. Besides, this particularly contemporary obsession with numbers ruins all the pleasure of the spectacle. And with good reason: the approach that consists in adding up goals, assists, Ballons d’Or, Champions Leagues, Copa América titles, World Cups… can only be reductive. On another register, it is not entirely unrelated to German-American philosopher Eric Voegelin’s critique of the modern Gnostic temptation: that of a form of knowledge convinced that it can imprison reality within a system and abolish whatever resists it. Records are probably one indicator of Lionel Messi’s genius. Yet so many other great players who made stadiums and hearts tremble, without achieving half of what he did, nevertheless remain eternal in our memories. What made them truly singular lies elsewhere, far from the glacis of reason. Something else was at work around them. Something belonging to a certain profound sense of transcendence that understanding can never fully grasp. This has been true of Lionel Messi for more than twenty years, since the day when, under the gaze of the “icon” Diego Maradona, he made his first appearance, in June 2006, on the World Cup stage in the colors of the Albiceleste against Serbia and Montenegro. That ineffable element that constitutes Messi’s genius, as it does that of others, may indeed touch upon one of modernity’s strangest paradoxes: the persistence of magic in a world that has constructed itself precisely against it. The disenchanted world Max Weber used the expression “disenchantment of the world” to describe the slow process by which Western modernity gradually subjected existence to rationalization, calculation, predictability and causal explanation. The world was no longer supposed to be traversed by obscure powers, signs, supernatural interventions or invisible wills; it was, at least in principle, to become intelligible. Unfortunately, modern sport, and more broadly the modern world inherited from globalization, fits perfectly within this dynamic. Today’s football, and not football alone, is probably one of the most quantified objects imaginable. The slightest gesture is measured, and everything is carefully calculated and modeled. From mathematics to artificial intelligence, raw talent now depends more on science than on enchantment. What is human in its spontaneous, even wild, relationship with the invisible that springs from the heart is disappearing before our eyes, in favor of the squaring of the VAR circle. It is, in a sense, the murder of sport in the name of greater rigor and fairness… even though the euthanasia of this share of sublime spontaneity ultimately produces glaring injustices of its own. One need only revisit some of the controversial decisions of the 2026 World Cup to see it. Paradox of paradoxes, Lionel Messi was himself, at the outset, a child of this technical modernity, to which he certainly owes part of his exceptional career. His body, too small by expected standards, was corrected through hormone treatment. Identified very early, his talent was taken in hand by an institution that organized his training, nutrition, physical development and integration into an already globalized sporting machine. Nothing, in appearance, could have been further removed from the old heroic narrative. At first sight, the story seems closer to dystopias in the vein of Gattaca than to myths and messianic narratives. And yet the old narrative did indeed return, and with an almost embarrassing insistence. Since the beginning of his career, Lionel Messi has been placed under the microscope. But the more people labored to explain and demystify him, the less they succeeded in entirely dissipating the impression produced by some of his gestures. The man simply cannot be circumscribed and reduced to an accumulation of data. At an age when most great players retreat into the shadows, he continues to surprise. To astonish, even, by bringing to sport that element of the senseless which escapes the quasi-robotic hypersystematization of the world. It is probably there that one must seek this elsewhere that characterizes Messi. In the survival of magic at a time when even the spaces that once allowed the positive expression of a humanity made of flesh and blood are gradually being “disciplined” by the hypnotic attraction of a new puritanical Gnosis in the name of modernity. The Messiah made by the machine Although he emerged, in a sense, from the machinery of the Matrix , Lionel Messi constitutes in himself a challenge to this ready-to-wear model. A kind of alter ego of Neo from The Matrix , thrown into a simulation governed by parameters that claim to calculate everything. The Argentine’s destiny gradually took on, almost despite himself, the form of a messianic narrative. The pun on his name would be too easy had it not been ceaselessly revived by his own story: that of the fragile child whose body seemed intent on denying him the fulfillment to which his talent destined him. Then that of exile at a very young age to Barcelona, adoption by a foreign city, an almost unreal ascent, worldwide recognition, followed by this strange difficulty in being recognized by his own… For a long time, Argentina maintained a relationship of hainamoration with its prodigal child. His results, his talent, his brilliance mattered little… he still had to answer one merciless question: why wasn’t he Maradona? The comparison was admittedly inevitable, but it was also profoundly unfair. Everything separated the two men in their way of being in the world. Maradona carried Argentina with everything in it that was passionate, contradictory, excessive and theatrical. He spoke, provoked, fought, fell, returned, mingled football with his private life, his anger, his political commitments… all the way to his own destruction. His very body seemed to become one of the places where the contradictions of his country were played out. Maradona was the very incarnation of what the world expected from football: a rebellious soul, sometimes pushing the game to the point of immorality, but within a kind of footballing gigantomachy. Maradona was epic. And, above all, he had placed his country at the summit of world football in 1986. Messi offered none of that. He was silent, at times almost absent from the story others were constructing around him, an absence long interpreted as a flaw. Almost erased, devoid of personality. That, moreover, was what the two giants Maradona and Pelé reproached him for: a lack of leadership, being too smooth. A kind of miracle test-tube baby of the stadiums. The boy from Rosario was also criticized for not singing the anthem loudly enough, for not being Argentine enough, for having been “manufactured” by Barcelona, and then, naturally, for failing to win with the national team what he won almost continuously with his club. The unfulfilled prophecy The dramatic loss to Germany in the 2014 World Cup final, followed by the Copa América finals of 2015 and 2016, had gradually transformed that suspicion into an accusation. When he missed his penalty against Chile in 2016 and subsequently announced that he was leaving the national team, he was nevertheless already one of the greatest players in football history. Yet his story remained strangely unfinished. The sense of incompletion had little to do with his honors. It concerned instead that quasi-archaic necessity continually imposed upon modern heroes: to bring their initiatory journey to completion. In Argentina’s colors, Messi shone, then fell heavily. But he did not rise again. He did not fulfill the prophecy. And, in the eyes of his people, this reinforced the sense of hainamoration: a fallen god remains a god, after all. But with the added burden of what his worshippers regard as an intolerable substratum of humanity and, therefore, something perfectly detestable: his flaws, his weaknesses. Argentines loved Maradona despite his spectacular downfall and his fallible humanity. But that was because he had “earned” the right to such a downfall, because it had somehow become acceptable after Mexico 1986. Messi, by contrast, did not yet have the right to fall, because he had not yet reached the summit. No, the prophecy had not been fulfilled. It was even becoming a caricature. So Messi returned. But he still had to wait for his redemption. It took the 2021 Copa América at the Maracanã for this relationship of suspicion, expectation and disappointment with his public and his people truly to begin changing. And above all it took the 2022 World Cup for the story to acquire that almost excessively perfect form that no one would have dared write without appearing to indulge in a screenwriter’s contrivance. Strangely, Maradona had died in 2020. It was as though a kind of oppressive national curse had been lifted. At the same time, the Argentine people needed a substitute father figure, and the pressure was thereby only redoubled. But perhaps mixed with a little tenderness this time? What happened in Qatar in 2022 is all the more interesting because Messi himself appeared slightly different. He protested more, answered provocations, lost his temper, spoke with a violence of which few had thought him capable, and even let slip that now famous “¿Qué mirás, bobo?” at the Dutch, to Argentina’s amusement. Buenos Aires finally discovered, belatedly, what it had always expected from him. A little Maradona in a great deal of Messi. But Messi did not become Maradona. And perhaps that was precisely where the true reconciliation occurred: Argentina stopped asking him to be. From 2022 onward, Messi no longer needed to embody another model of national genius. For his country too, he could finally become what he had already been everywhere else: Messi. Simply. The final act of the prophecy Granted, the triumph of 2022 could have constituted a perfect ending. But, as with Maradona, the final act of heroic prophecy is the fall. No one really expected anything extraordinary from Messi anymore in 2026. At 39, he was widely regarded as one of the “tired heroes.” The fall from the Capitol had come with the bitter episode of his departure from FC Barcelona and his misadventure at PSG. He was now playing only in the American league, in Miami’s colors… on the periphery of the footballing world, in the distant lands of soccer . And the new generation was already there, ready to send its ancestors off to Bicêtre. Yet this 2026 World Cup, which seemed destined to be nothing more than an epilogue, turned into one last sensational blaze of glory. Argentina reached the final once again, with Messi, at 39, restored as its “historic leader” and its recourse in decisive moments, achieving something not unlike what Roberto Baggio had done for Italy in 1994, at… 27: a perpetual deus ex machina . Baggio failed at the gates of triumph against Brazil after practically carrying Italy all the way to Pasadena. His penalty, sent over the crossbar, would leave behind one of the cruelest images in World Cup history: a man standing motionless, head bowed, hands on his hips, while Brazil celebrated its victory. The man who had “died standing.” The Italian imp never knew apotheosis. Yet this symbolic death, far from erasing his tournament, eventually became part of his legend. History was kinder to Messi, despite a campaign of hatred directed at him, mixed with accusations of cheating and favoritism, against a backdrop of controversial refereeing decisions and acts of unsporting conduct by his team, just as it had once been with Maradona. Kinder still, in fact. A final in a sixth World Cup on the verge of retirement, capped by an outstanding individual performance? That is precisely where the magic of the Messi phenomenon lies, and where it defies reason and its avalanche of statistics. Genius cannot be imprisoned within a sum of parameters and variables. Even optimal physical condition cannot by itself explain what the entire world witnessed. And what does it matter if his story reminds us that the hero, however mythical, cannot abolish the sinister influence of Saturn. The re-enchantment of the world For beyond the prophecy fulfilled, from ascent to fall, with its share of happiness and misfortune, the Argentine offered the world one final lap that belongs to art, if not to a form of Homeric poetry. With Lionel Messi’s withdrawal from the international stage, a little of the world’s magic disappears… until another providential hero returns to enchant the stadiums. For more than twenty years, Messi embodied the coexistence of two worlds we had thought incompatible: that of the extreme rationalization of modern sport and that, far older, of the hero, the sign, expectation and enchantment. When Messi leaves, something of this contradiction suddenly becomes visible. Other prodigies have already emerged, but perhaps, at the very moment when one of its last great representatives leaves the stage, we discover just how much we continue to need transcendence. The modern world has therefore probably not abolished enchantment. It has merely displaced it. For ninety minutes at a time, this man called Lionel Messi, who embodied it on football pitches, now leaves after having accomplished everything. And even more.
Analyze

Have We Become Stupider?

Or Are We Experiencing a Transformation in the Structure of Knowledge?
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By Mona Fayad - Published Sep 5, 2026 - 20:01
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The question “Has the world become stupider?” frequently returns in contemporary debates about digital media, search engines, and social networks. On the surface, it seems simple. Yet behind it lies a deeper issue concerning the very nature of knowledge: how it is produced, how it is transmitted, and how it is consumed. Perhaps “Have we become stupider?” is not the most accurate question. A better one might be: Is knowledge still being transmitted in a way that allows it to be understood and made productive? Do most readers still go back to the original texts? Or do they turn instead to summaries and to what is said about those texts through material circulating among readers? One key to understanding this phenomenon lies in the work of British psychologist Frederic Bartlett, who conducted a series of experiments in the 1930s on what he called “serial reproduction.” In these experiments, one person would be asked to hear a story and then retell it to someone else, who would in turn retell it to a third person, and so on. The results were striking: with each new transmission, the story was not conveyed as it had originally been told, but was reformulated. Some details were omitted, others were exaggerated, and still others were replaced by elements that better suited the recipient’s background, experience, and culture. By the time the chain had passed through enough people, the original story had become something entirely different. This simple model reveals a fundamental truth: memory is not a neutral container, but a mechanism of reconstruction. When knowledge passes through multiple intermediaries, it is not “preserved” but “reproduced.” Here we begin to see the resemblance to our contemporary world, and with it the fear that we may be becoming stupider. In the age of digital media, knowledge no longer travels through oral transmission, but through chains of mediation: an article is summarized, then quoted, then reposted as a short post, before being further reduced to a sentence or a headline. In this context, we might borrow a metaphor that appeared in a journalistic text: a library whose books are gradually replaced by summaries, then by summaries of summaries, until the reader is left facing layer upon layer of reduction. We might call this the “raccoon chain”: the raccoon does not read the original, but rummages through what remains of it. It is worth clarifying that the choice of the “raccoon” is not arbitrary. The metaphor symbolically condenses a cognitive condition that is becoming increasingly entrenched. This animal, which lives on the fringes of cities and rummages through garbage bins, does not produce its own food but feeds on the leftovers of what others have produced. Despite its practical intelligence and its ability to pry things apart, pick through them, and seize what is useful, it does not understand what lies before it. It treats things simply as material available for immediate use. This is what knowledge begins to look like in an age of serial reduction: texts are shortened, then shortened again, until all that remains are scraps of meaning, rearranged and circulated without any genuine connection to their source. At that point, we have not merely moved away from the original. We have entered a new phase in the production of information or knowledge, in which the cognitive actor is no longer a reader or a thinker, but a collector of fragments of meaning who redistributes them in forms designed for rapid consumption. “Raccoon culture,” then, is not merely a description of superficiality. It is an accurate description of the degradation of the knowledge chain itself: from creation to summary, from understanding to formal processing, from ideas to something resembling only their faded trace. Yet this phenomenon cannot be understood apart from the technological structure that governs it. Here Marshall McLuhan becomes relevant, with his famous formulation: “The medium is the message.” The problem lies not only in content, but also in the form through which that content is transmitted. Contemporary digital media do not simply convey information. They reshape it according to the logic of speed, condensation, and fragmentation. Long texts become unsuitable for consumption, while an idea becomes acceptable only if it can be compressed into a few shareable lines. This transformation produces a striking paradox: we live in a time when access to knowledge is no longer difficult. It is excessively easy. And with that excessive ease comes what might be called a “cognitive illusion”: reading a brief passage or a quick summary can be enough to make a person feel that they have grasped an idea. Yet this feeling of possession is not necessarily accompanied by deep understanding, or by the ability to reconstruct or critique that knowledge. This is where we encounter what might be called the “semi-educated”: people who possess the signs of knowledge but not its structure, its vocabulary but not its internal logic. The problem becomes even more complex when viewed through the lens of attention. Instead of remaining in a state of sustained concentration, as in traditional reading or prolonged reflection, the mind now exists under continuous informational bombardment: notifications, clips, headlines, and successive waves of content. This does not merely fragment attention. It reshapes it according to a logic of constant jumping between short units of meaning, rather than the gradual and cumulative construction of an idea. I am reminded here of a joke that we used to tell and that was widely circulated during the days of popular demonstrations. It vividly illustrates the process of reduction and reshaping of content. After the occupation of Palestine, many popular demonstrations took to the streets chanting, “Down with the Balfour Declaration!” The joke was that by the end of the demonstration, the slogan had become, in Arabic, “Let one fall from above,” a completely different phrase that retained something of the original slogan’s rhythm and sound. This image may help bring us closer to what happens in everyday language when knowledge is transformed into short messages that are collectively repeated. A demonstration begins with a precise political slogan. Through repetition, collective immersion, and sonic rhythm, it gradually turns into a completely different formula. The new version may preserve the rhythm and emotional charge of the original, while losing its meaning and original significance. What remains is no longer the meaning, but the emotional energy of the phrase. Here, in another form, we encounter what Bartlett observed: what matters is not merely what was said, but how it was retold and how it was reinterpreted within a changing social context. If we bring these strands together, we might say that what we are experiencing today is not so much a “collapse of intelligence” as a transformation in the conditions under which intelligence operates. The human mind has not changed radically, but the environment in which it functions has changed profoundly: from an environment that allowed slow accumulation to one that imposes the rapid and fragmented reproduction of knowledge. This transformation creates a permanent tension between two kinds of thinking: reflective thought, which requires time, and rapid thought, which demands an immediate response. Seen in this light, the question “Have we become stupider?” is partly misleading. It may be more accurate to say that we are increasingly exposed to conditions that make deep thinking less stable, or less possible, and knowledge more vulnerable to fragmentation and recycling. As for stupidity, if the term can be used, it may not be a quality of the mind at all, but rather a side effect and a characteristic of the cultural structure that has emerged. It is a technology that reshapes our relationship with the world. Thus, rather than seeing this as a decline in human capacities, we might understand it as a transformation in the “knowledge environment”: an environment in which it has become easy to know something, but harder to truly understand it in depth.
Opinion

Portents of an Israeli-Turkish Clash in Syria

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By Youssef Mouawad - Published Sep 5, 2026 - 13:25
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In 2010, Israel violently intercepted the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship chartered by a humanitarian NGO to bring aid to the Gaza Strip, which was under Israeli blockade at the time. This was the last straw, and the incident brought the simmering hostility between Erdogan's government and the Jewish state out into the open. (AFP)
The war has not yet ceased in our south, and already it threatens to break out among our neighbors. In other words, we live on borrowed time, lurching from one conflict to the next. And for good reason! The bombing of a Syrian base very nearly escalated into an all-out clash between Ankara and Tel Aviv. That was on August 18, and Benjamin Netanyahu didn't mince his words: his country would not tolerate a Turkish military foothold that could spread into southern Syria. The warning was all the more forceful given that eight strikes had targeted the Abu al-Dhuhur air base, just 70 kilometers from the Turkish border. It's worth recalling, too, that since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Erdogan has become the chief mentor of the new Syria under Ahmed al-Sharaa, helping rebuild its armed forces and turning it into a strategic partner. This is no longer Hafez al-Assad's Syria Was it this renewed tension between Ankara and Tel Aviv that prompted a meeting between Syria's top diplomat, Assaad Chaibani, and Mossad chief Roman Gofman, in Jordan on August 23? Yet this quiet parley did not spark outrage across the Arab world the way Anwar al-Sadat's surprise visit to Israel did in 1977. A taboo was officially broken—and indeed, who would have imagined such talks taking place under the Baathist regime? Israel might have been expected to welcome this, but contrary to expectations, it halted neither its airstrikes nor its territorial incursions, as seen on August 27 in Quneitra. The fact is, things have changed. Under Hafez al-Assad, Syria was a regional power that, while not exactly formidable, was feared by its immediate neighbors, Arab or otherwise. No one wanted to pick a fight with it, which allowed it to pursue, within certain limits, an assertive foreign policy that often bordered on provocation. As a result, thanks to the autonomy it exercised and the room to maneuver it granted itself, Syria had become, at least geographically, a buffer zone between an "Erdoganist" Turkey flaunting its unabashed brand of Islam on one side, and Israel, a state Jewish to its core, on the other. But now, in a country worn down by Baathist mismanagement and ravaged by years of civil war, Turkey has begun staking its claims—and will inevitably find itself face to face with an Israel that occupies part of Syrian territory. What can we expect? Given the outsized egos of both Netanyahu and Erdogan, and assuming both leaders remain in power, we should brace for an epic showdown across Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian, or even other territories. This will be a fight of feints and dodges, of underhanded tactics as well as head-on attacks, close combat, and rising tensions right up to the breaking point. And this despite a September 2025 report from the Congressional Research Service concluding that direct confrontation between Turkey and Israel remains unlikely, precisely because both states are well aware of the cost such a war would entail. Still, in the realm of conflict studies, leaders and other elites don't always act rationally! All the more so since, in the eyes of Israeli observers, the slogan now popular in Anatolia—"Make Turkey great again"—hardly reassures the Zionist state. Washington will find it increasingly difficult to contain or keep apart two adversaries already gearing up for battle. Turkey, the new Iran? Yes, that's one hypothesis, but only in a face-off with Israel, since Syria has overnight become a zone where 'two security perimeters overlap' — the Turkish and the Israeli, the Muslim and the Jewish. And it can't be ruled out that Shiite militancy, that mobilizer of "proxies," might end up allying itself, even if only temporarily, with a 'Muslim Brotherhood version' of political Islam championed by Ankara! So we would have, against all odds, a Hezbollah backed by its former enemy, Ahmad al-Sharaa, an Islamist who emerged from Jabhat al-Nusra and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham! Against a common adversary, a reversal of alliances is always legitimate and opportune. But this would only be a tactical alliance, dictated by the exigencies of the moment, one that couldn't presume anything about the future. With Arab nationalism now out of the picture, Turkey won't settle for economically capturing the Syrian market of 25 million consumers: it will want to wield political influence in Damascus, and to that end will deploy its military and security apparatus. Since the shaky power of the Syrian president can't fulfill certain sovereign functions or oversee the various branches of the state, it will inevitably turn to the expertise of its northern neighbor. Does this mean Turkey will get sucked into the spiral of 'announced belligerence'? Everything points that way, and we can already see the early signs of a spiral reminiscent of the US involvement in Vietnam under Lyndon Johnson. Indeed, if the Syrian state intends to rebuild itself, it will first need an army capable of quelling the centrifugal tendencies of the Alawites, the Druze, and other factions calling for the country's breakup. And it's up to Ankara to provide that and to bolster the central authority based in Damascus. But Israel, which has gotten into bad habits in Syria and intends to keep its freedom of aerial action there, cannot tolerate an army built along NATO lines that could serve as a proxy for a neo-Ottoman venture. And Lebanon, from primary stage to secondary stage? A new stage is now set for a new script that will define new rules of the game! What will become of Hezbollah, caught in a trap? Well, in that scenario, it could benefit, even if only partly, from Damascus's logistical support — support it has sorely lacked since the fall of Bashar al-Assad. And perhaps, through a shift in the tectonic plates, Lebanon would move from being the initial stage to being merely a secondary stage of a regional conflict. But frankly, that would do us a lot of good!
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Aoun Stigmatizes Hezbollah's Actions in The Gulf

Aoun Stigmatizes Hezbollah's Actions in The Gulf

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LevantTime .
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It was to the rhythm of missile exchanges between Iran and Israel that the Arab and Islamic world celebrated, on Friday, the Eid al-Fitr, which marks the breaking of the Ramadan fast. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun spoke by phone on Friday on this occasion with his Emirati counterpart, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. During this conversation, the head of state "condemned the involvement of certain political parties in a sabotage plot that the Emirates announced they had thwarted today" (Friday), according to a statement from the Lebanese presidency, referring to accusations against Hezbollah. The pro-Iranian militia, for its part, on Friday rejected the "fallacious" accusations by the United Arab Emirates, which announced the arrest of at least five members of a terrorist network linked to Iran and Hezbollah, against a backdrop of war in the Middle East. This is the third time this week that the Shiite movement has denied any link with cells dismantled in Gulf countries. Hezbollah's network in the Emirates had "sought to infiltrate the national economy and carry out external operations threatening the country's financial stability" as part of "a predefined strategic plan, in coordination with external parties linked to Hezbollah and Iran," the official news agency Wam reported, citing Emirati security services. In this same context, Hezbollah twice this week denied any presence in Kuwait, after the arrest of 16 people accused of planning a "sabotage" operation. The Kuwaiti authorities also reported the dismantling of a cell of ten people affiliated with Hezbollah who were preparing, according to the emirate, "a terrorist plot targeting vital installations." During a telephone conversation with the Emir of Kuwait, President Aoun was also expected to condemn Hezbollah's actions in the emirate. For his part, the United States ambassador to Beirut, Michel Issa, welcomed President Joseph Aoun's proposal to initiate direct negotiations with Israel to end the war against Hezbollah. Mr. Issa nevertheless stated that Israel had not "decided to end its strikes". "Lebanon must decide whether it should meet the Israelis under these circumstances," he added. Furthermore, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot on Friday called on Iran for "major concessions". "The Iranian regime must commit to a radical change in posture allowing for the peaceful coexistence of Iran with its regional environment," he added. French diplomacy is particularly seeking to avoid an escalation of the conflict between Israel and Lebanon, dragged by Hezbollah into a war that does not concern it. Jean-Noël Barrot thus condemned "Hezbollah's inadmissible and irresponsible decision" to join "Iranian aggressions against Israel," while reaffirming Paris's readiness to facilitate "direct" talks between Tel Aviv and Beirut. Tel Aviv still does not rule out the possibility of a large-scale ground incursion that France is trying to avoid, while Hezbollah continues to target northern Israel. The Israeli military spokesman announced on Friday that Tel Aviv intends to increase pressure on Hezbollah and expand its ground military operations in southern Lebanon in the coming days. He specified that the Israeli army has targeted more than 2000 objectives of this group since it began attacking its territory, and will continue to do so. Since the start of the war launched by the Israel-United States axis against Iran on February 28, Israeli authorities have reiterated that their military operations will only end when the set objectives are achieved: annihilate Iran's capacity to produce nuclear and ballistic weapons, weaken, if not destroy, the Mullahs' regime and its proxies in the region. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump have both reaffirmed that they are getting closer to this. In response to these statements, the Revolutionary Guards in Iran announced on Friday that Tehran "has been continuing missile production since the beginning of the war," has no shortage of stocks, and that "there is no concern about this," according to Reuters. They also threatened to target Israeli and American officials. This threat, in particular, follows the continuous elimination of Iranian command cadres. The Pasdaran thus confirmed on Friday the death of their spokesman, Ali-Mohammad Naïni, while Israel announced the liquidation of a "key commander of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, Mehdi Rastami Shmastan, during a targeted strike on Wednesday". On another note, the United Kingdom authorized the United States to use British bases to strike Iranian sites targeting the Strait of Hormuz as part of "defensive operations," a decision that London should have taken "much more quickly" according to Donald Trump. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, for his part, accused Prime Minister Keir Starmer on X of putting "British lives at risk by authorizing the use of British bases to launch aggression against Iran".

Arab and Islamic States Step Up Pressure on Iran, Urging It to “Halt Its Attacks”

Arab and Islamic States Step Up Pressure on Iran, Urging It to “Halt Its Attacks”

By
Taline Becharraoui
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As fighting continues to rage in southern Lebanon and tensions escalate on the Iranian front, attention has turned to Riyadh on 19 March – where the Saudi capital hosted an extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers from Arab and Islamic countries. Gulf Arab states have been under Iranian missile fire since the launch of the Israeli-American offensive against Iran on 28 February. Under the pretext of targeting American interests in these countries, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have struck civilian infrastructure and urban centers, while continuing to threaten vital oil facilities. The tone of statements following the Riyadh meeting was notably firm – not only regarding missiles and drones attacks on the Gulf, but also in response to Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 20 per cent of the world’s oil passes, including much of the Gulf’s exports. Saudi foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud made clear his rejection of any pressure linked to the strait, stressing “the right of (Gulf) states to defend themselves against ongoing attacks.” In a unified stance, the ministers condemned what they described as “completely unjustified Iranian missile and drone attacks on residential areas”, reaffirming “the right of states to self-defense, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.” They also issued “a call on Iran to immediately halt its attacks and to respect international law and the principles of good neighborliness,” adding that “the future of relations with Iran depends on its respect for state sovereignty and the principle of non-interference in internal affairs.” Finally, another key point in the meeting’s communiqué was “the condemnation of any support for or provision of weapons to militias in Arab countries” – a stance that directly implicates Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen. What emerges from these statements is not only the uniformly firm tone adopted by Arab and Islamic states, but also the growing isolation of Iran’s strategy since the start of its war with the United States and Israel – a strategy widely seen as seeking to sow chaos across the region and now beginning to backfire. The ministers also expressed their “support for Lebanon’s security and stability, for the state’s monopoly on arms, and their condemnation of Israeli attacks on its territory” – amounting to a clear and firm stance against both parties to the conflict: Hezbollah and Israel. Lebanon was represented at the meeting by Foreign Minister Joe Raggi. In his statements, he called on Arab and Islamic countries to support President Joseph Aoun’s initiative for direct negotiations with Israel – a plan aimed at ending the war in Lebanon, which has already claimed nearly a thousand lives and displaced more than a million people. So far, neither Israel (backed by the United States) nor Hezbollah (and its Shiite allies in Lebanon) have shown any willingness to engage. While condemning Israeli attacks, the Lebanese minister did not shy away from criticizing Iran for drawing Lebanon into the conflict through Hezbollah – a stance that marks a significant departure from that of his predecessors. He also reiterated Lebanon’s condemnation of Tehran’s attacks on the Gulf. On the sidelines of the meeting, Syrian Foreign Minister Assaad Chibani reassured his Lebanese counterpart that his country has no intention of entering Lebanon or interfering in its internal affairs. According to recent media reports, the United States had allegedly asked Syria to get involved in the ongoing war in Lebanon to rein in Hezbollah – a longstanding adversary of the new Syrian regime – but Damascus reportedly refused. For the First Time, Long-Range Missiles While Arab and Islamic ministers gathered in Saudi Arabia, French diplomacy was active in Lebanon. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot was expected in Beirut on Thursday. France, it should be recalled, supports President Aoun’s initiative for direct negotiations with Israel and has proposed that they take place in Paris. On Wednesday, remarks by the French president’s envoy to Lebanon, Jean-Yves Le Drian, caused a stir: in a televised interview, he said that Hezbollah is directly responsible for the latest escalation in Lebanon following its rocket attacks at dawn on 2 March, acting on behalf of Iran rather than in the interests of the Lebanese people – and certainly not those of southern Lebanon. He also criticized repeated calls on the Lebanese government (notably from the United States) to disarm Hezbollah, pointing out that Israel had been unable to do so over years of conflict, and that Lebanon could not be expected to accomplish the task “in three days and under fire.” In this context, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot’s visit to Beirut is seen by observers as unlikely to make much of a difference, even as the situation on the ground appears to be igniting. Clearly, the time for diplomacy has not yet arrived. Indeed, despite a relative calm in recent hours in southern suburbs of Beirut and the capital, the southern Lebanon front is witnessing fierce fighting between Hezbollah fighters and the Israeli army, which announced it had killed around twenty militants over the past 24 hours. Hezbollah, meanwhile, has not reported its own casualties since the escalation began in March 2026. The latest development is the Shiite group’s use of long-range ballistic missiles, reportedly fired from the Baalbek region in northern Bekaa – another of its strongholds – marking the first time such weapons have been deployed not only in this conflict but also during the previous one in 2023–2024. These new capabilities fundamentally change the rules of the game, expanding the battlefield and likely forcing Israel to rethink its strategy, as it is clear that Hezbollah can no longer rely solely on rockets fired near the border. The timing of this development – coinciding with the assassination of prominent figures in Iran and an intensification of U.S. strikes on the country – could be explained by a desire to keep the Israeli army fully occupied on the Lebanese front, showing total disregard for lives and property inside Lebanon. Another sign of the escalation on this front, and of growing animosity among the militia’s supporters toward a Lebanese government that now considers it to be operating illegally, is a series of cyberattacks on various Lebanese ministry websites, including the Ministry of Information (which recently banned the word “resistance” from public media). The hacker group, calling itself the Fatimids – a reference to Shiite history – also targeted the site of MTV, a media outlet known for its anti-Hezbollah stance, earlier this week.

Only the Shia Can Save the Shia

Only the Shia Can Save the Shia

By
Khairallah Khairallah
Published

Among the most priceless comments I have recently heard was one made by a mouthpiece of the so-called "Resistance" appearing on a Lebanese satellite channel, who claimed that "Hezbollah is defending its land" against Israel. It would be hard to find a more brazen distortion of reality — one perpetrated by a Sunni figure who has spent several years serving as a front for the party in exchange for regular remuneration. Not a single word uttered by this "Sunni Resistance" figure contains a grain of truth. He conflates the defense of a land — which is not Hezbollah's land — with the active consolidation of Israeli occupation. The truth is straightforward: the party reopened the southern Lebanon front, once again, on direct Iranian orders that have nothing whatsoever to do with the interests of Lebanon or its people. In Lebanon, the chapters of a farce are unfolding that will have to be brought to an end, sooner or later. It might have provoked laughter were it not for its transformation into a genuine human tragedy. Nothing captures the scale of that tragedy more starkly than the fact that the number of displaced persons — from villages in the South, the Bekaa, and the southern suburbs of Beirut — has exceeded one million in a country of approximately six million citizens. Two factors explain Hezbollah's decision to reopen the southern Lebanon front, under the pretext of avenging the assassination, by the United States and Israel, of Iranian "Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei. The first is the party's total subjugation to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps: it was an IRGC officer who gave the order to fire the six rockets that marked the beginning of the renewed war. The second concerns the very nature of Hezbollah and its ideology, which is built on the exploitation of Israeli occupation. There is no Hezbollah without occupation, and no Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory without Hezbollah. When Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in May 2000, the party insisted the withdrawal was incomplete — even as the United Nations Security Council confirmed that Israel had implemented Resolution 425, adopted by the Council in 1978, to the letter, withdrawing to the "Blue Line," the ceasefire line between Lebanon and Israel, which is, with negligible differences, the border between the two countries. The party invented the issue of the Shebaa Farms and the Seven Hills in order to justify retaining its weapons. It became unmistakably clear, in the year 2000, that the existence of occupation was the very reason for the party's existence, and that this arsenal constituted the backbone of an organization whose sole ambition is to turn Lebanon into an Iranian colony, nothing more. Amid everything unfolding on Lebanese soil today, Hezbollah appears willing to set the country ablaze and reduce it to ashes in order to seize control of it. This explains its pursuit of a war that is lost before it begins, a war that will bring nothing to Lebanon but ruin — as the country spins in a closed circle, revolving upon itself. If the party — and Iran behind it — has achieved anything over nearly forty-five years, that achievement, negative in nature, consists in transforming the character of Lebanon's Shia community, in its majority at least. There remains in the country a Shia elite that resists the Iranian expansionist project in every Lebanese region — the southern suburbs, the South, the Beqaa. A Shia elite that understands what Lebanon represents and what it means to belong to it, rather than being a "soldier in the army of the wali al-faqih ," as Hassan Nasrallah used to say. In a moment of truth, Nasrallah acknowledged on camera, with his own voice, that Hezbollah was a creation of the "Islamic Republic"… Who will break the closed circle in which Lebanon is trapped? The positions adopted by President of the Republic Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam are undoubtedly of great importance. But more urgently than ever, what is needed is an internal Shia uprising that shatters this circle rather than continuing to revolve within it. The impetus for such an uprising cannot come from outside the "Shia duopoly," which has proven itself to have been nothing more than a cover for Hezbollah's weapons — that is, for the use of those weapons to pressure the Lebanese state and spread terror among the other communities: Sunnis, Christians, and Druze. Who will lead this internal Lebanese uprising? Where is the role of Nabih Berri, president of the Amal movement and Speaker of Parliament, who employs a wooden rhetoric entirely in service of the Iranian position on Lebanon? In the end, the Revolutionary Guards carried out in Lebanon what they had carried out in Iran itself: a coup d'état. They placed their hands fully on Hezbollah in order to bind Lebanon's fate to that of the "Islamic Republic" and the culture of death it proclaims. Lebanon has no alternative but to return to the language of reason and logic, rather than brandishing the slogan of "battlefield resolution by force of arms." The consequences of such a slogan are well known: it will bring a Nakba upon Lebanon, and upon the Shia community in particular. It is the duty of the Shia to save the Shia, rather than remaining captive to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards… or lending an ear to this or that "Resistance" figure, whether Shia or Sunni. These are hypocrites, in the manner of the Revolutionary Guards, who appear determined to commit suicide. There is no reason for Lebanon's Shia to follow them into that suicide — especially given that the Shia of Lebanon have a point of reference, which is the Lebanese state, or at least which ought to be…

A Political and Military Memo

A Political and Military Memo

By
Khalil Helou
Published

For some time now, a significant portion of public opinion has been accusing the army – and/or its commander-in-chief – of failing in its duty, if not outright mutinying against the government that tasked it with dismantling Hezbollah’s military arsenal. The Lebanese Army has thus become a favorite target for certain journalists, bloggers, and social media activists, even as it is admired – and nearly deified – by their counterparts in the opposing camp. The absurdity – and the sheer inadmissibility – of the situation lies in the fact that today’s admirers were yesterday’s fiercest critics, blaming the army for every ill. They accused it of “collaboration” with American “imperialism” – a clichéd label casually affixed by just about anyone to whatever they happen to dislike – in reference to military cooperation between Lebanon and the United States, even though, without American assistance, our army would have been rendered inoperative, given the paltry defense budget. These neo-admirers of the military institution now join the ranks of its perennial devotees, who smother the troops in their embrace. Those who discredit the army under all circumstances – and they are many – claim it has never protected them, overlooking a century-long record of sacrifice, particularly since the 1960s. To be sure, they sometimes invoke valid arguments, pointing to the public conduct of certain service members, the televised appearances of some retirees, and other criticism. They focus on minutiae while deliberately overlooking the essential. All of this has turned the Lebanese army into a subject of media spectacle, which is harmful in every respect. Certainly, reform in security and defense is necessary, but such a task falls within the remit of the legislative authorities, who are competent in the matter. Our army should not meddle in politics. Yet, national deadlocks and the failures of the political authorities have placed it squarely at the center of public attention. Thus, since 1958 – and following the mini-civil war of that year – the military has been thrust onto the political stage, for which it was wholly unprepared. Few of its members ever truly adapt. Back to the army’s operational aspect, it receives – in addition to American military aid – further support from various European and Arab countries. Iran – so cherished by Hezbollah, its unconditional allies, and its seasonal supporters (elections oblige) – has never seriously offered assistance to our military institution, despite a doctrine that emphasizes defending the country against any aggression, including from Israel. Tehran has provided only superficial military aid to the army, reserving its substantial support for Hezbollah, notably next-generation of anti-tank missiles, drones, and other weaponry of all kinds, in addition to financial assistance. The military institution has not maintained an effective presence in southern Lebanon since 1975 – a vacuum that has led to the current situation. This absence was largely dictated by the Syrian occupation, particularly from 1990 onward. Since that year, the presidents installed at Baabda were under Damascus’s sway, which forbade them from asserting national sovereignty in the South. President Émile Lahoud, whose friendship with his Syrian counterpart, Hafez Assad, was close, carefully ensured through successive governments that the regular forces did not deploy southwards following Israel’s total withdrawal on 25 May 2000. The pretext was that the Shebaa Farms remained occupied, and that our army should not act as Israel’s border guard. In doing so, he facilitated Hezbollah’s deployment in the region, under the guise of liberating these farms – a move that cost us the devastating 2006 war and the now-famous words of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah: “If only I had known.” A year later, the Fatah al-Islam organization – an Al-Qaeda offshoot – occupied the Nahr El-Bared Palestinian camp north of Tripoli, plotting to establish an Islamic emirate in northern Lebanon loyal to Osama bin Laden. When the army confronted Fatah al-Islam – which had planted a bomb on a bus in Ain-Alak, in northern Metn, killing civilians, conducted bank heists, and killed 29 of our soldiers within a single hour, Hassan Nasrallah declared, verbatim: “The Palestinian camps are a red line.” At the time, however, the army defied this ultimatum and defeated the terrorist organization at the cost of 170 martyrs. Simultaneously, Hezbollah was besieging the Serail and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora through a sit-in that had dragged on for months – a clear attempt at a palace coup. Later, in 2008, the political deadlock propelled General Michel Sleiman to the presidency. He completed his term while being blamed for every ill by Hezbollah. Unlike his predecessor, Sleiman had refused to submit – and, most significantly, had developed a defense strategy aimed at restoring the state’s sovereignty, a deadly sin in the eyes of the militia, as it could have threatened its very existence. In 2016, after reaching an agreement with the sovereigntists, Hezbollah and its allies installed Michel Aoun at Baabda. From the very start of his mandate, Aoun ensured that the development of a defense strategy – one that his predecessor Michel Sleiman had put on the table – was blocked, claiming that strategies are fluid and that drafting one would be a futile exercise. He subsequently declared on several occasions that the army was incapable of defending the country. When, during the summer of 2017, the troops locked horns with the Islamic State (ISIS) in the Battle of Fajr al-Jurud – emerging victorious and preparing to launch the final assault against the group – total victory was aborted on President Aoun’s orders. ISIS fighters were evacuated by bus to Syria following an arrangement between Hezbollah and the Islamic State. A month later, in October 2017, Michel Aoun – a steadfast ally of Hezbollah, and almost certainly at its behest – told the press: “Lebanon’s economic situation does not allow for equipping the army, and there are reasons why weapons cannot be exclusively in its hands,” adding that “a solution in the Middle East will lead to a settlement of Hezbollah’s weapons issue.” At present, the government has taken commendable positions regarding the restoration of sovereignty. However, the troops are not executing them, as such a mission requires constant oversight by the executive – a factor that remains absent. The executive dithers or proposes obsolete initiatives. In conclusion, everyone wants the army’s mission to align with their own desires, using it as media fodder – positively or negatively – to boost their own notoriety. The true party to be held accountable remains the executive branch, encompassing both the Council of Ministers and the President, as well as Parliament – provided its Speaker, Nabih Berri, allows it, and respects the separation of powers. Montesquieu must be turning in his grave.

Save Lebanon

Save Lebanon

By
Michel Hajji Georgiou
Published

The conflict currently unfolding in Lebanon — and more broadly, across the Middle East — is doubly lethal. There are, of course, the victims first, the material damage, and their economic consequences for the world at large. But beyond that, a binary logic governs minds on both sides, and it appears far more destructive in the long run. In the usual rhetoric, wars are presented as the shortest path to resolving an intractable problem. Yet the results of the past century prove the opposite. Wars have generated a multitude of problems, whatever the justification for waging them. Military solutions are no longer sufficient to settle matters, and the political management of the post-war period — above all the American variety — has been catastrophic at best since Saigon. The current war between Iran and Hezbollah on one hand, and the United States and Israel on the other, far exceeds the Lebanese context. To address it solely through the Lebanese lens — the Hezbollah weapons issue — would be a mistake, despite the perfectly justified exasperation at the totalitarian situation created by the pro-Iranian party in Lebanon over four decades. But the enemy (Israel) of my enemy (Hezbollah) is not my friend. A drift in certain current positions assumes that one must choose, in this war, between one of the two camps, with the aim of settling internal scores. In its wake, the discourse at times takes a sectarian turn — and renews ties with the old demons of intercommunal vendettas, all the more so against the backdrop of the unprecedented crisis the country is traversing, with the displacement of populations provoked by Israel's boundless hubris in complete impunity. This is to forget that all Lebanese communities have made the same mistake — namely that of being, in the end, amalgamated into a project of hubris that has created in each of them, in turn, an unbearable feeling of defeat and dejection. The Shia question did not arise yesterday. It was driven by a desire for social recognition after decades of marginalization from state-building. Finding no echo, the Shia abandoned their modernist project and turned toward identity-based forms of organization with a strong social character. And this organization shattered traditional structures without the state being strong enough to replace them. If Hezbollah does not represent the entire Shia community, it nonetheless represents a part of it — by conviction or structural necessity. And the other part of the community cannot, in all likelihood, remain neutral or indifferent — despite its lack of enthusiasm for the party — in the face of a bloody and systematic aggression that strikes their kin and their property. Especially when no political alternative exists to allow them to escape the catastrophe into which they have been dragged, willing or not. The bond between the Shia and Hezbollah goes beyond the simple black-and-white context, owing on one hand to blood ties, and on the other to the specificities of mimetic rivalry between Lebanese communities within the public space. Hezbollah, and before it Amal, long played on the Shia trauma of exclusion inherited from the injustices of the past. Moreover, the party has worked systematically to marginalize, exclude, or crush all Shia Lebanese sovereigntist opponents of the Khomeinist doctrine of wilayat al-faqih , in all its expressions — from Imam Mohammad Mehdi Shamseddine to the liberal intellectual Lokman Slim, including the Lebanese sovereigntist left. Hezbollah has thus deliberately, for decades, established an intentional confusion between the two levels of belonging — national and communal — which was, moreover, the model of all parties during the war, obsessed by a single thing: the conquest of power. The difference is that the Hezb did so exclusively as a satrapy of the new Persia, which has drawn from it its political and material dividends. Yet between Hezbollah and Iran on one side, and Israel on the other, there is a third camp: Lebanon, Lebanese legitimacy. And whatever its fragility, it is the only one worthy of allegiance. If the Lebanese state has been rickety since 1973 on account of wars and tutelages, and is now struggling to get back on its feet as best it can, it nonetheless remains the only guarantee for the country — for all Lebanese, whatever their community. The entire complexity of the Lebanese state lies in the fact that it is called upon to govern not only individuals but also communities, human groupings, regions, and cultures. A simple state can only be reductive, and a reductive state is, by definition, a totalitarian state which, being unable to exist in harmony with a complex society, will attempt to reshape it according to its will, to simplify it. This is the pitfall into which each communal faction fell when they sought to mold Lebanon in their own image, excluding and marginalizing the country's other components. The Lebanese state remains the only guarantee, yes. Provided that its communities — and with them their respective leaders, who continue to behave like clan chiefs out of feudal times, cloaked in a divine historical mission to restore the greatness and security of their horde — finally pledge a definitive allegiance to the state and to the idea of Greater Lebanon within its internationally recognized borders — without conditions and without compromises to anyone. And provided that the state, too, proves that it assumes without wavering its responsibility to preserve Lebanon, in accordance with the Constitution. Lebanon cannot emerge victorious from a war over which it controls none of the elements, and Hezbollah's jihad is absurd — as is, for that matter, the idea that Israel will be able to totally annihilate an eschatological militia that feeds on death and martyrs. The Land of the Cedar is, after all, nothing more than an abscess-terrain for a crisis that has lasted since 1969, if not since 1948, and that bears upon its unity, its sovereignty, its peace — as well as the sine qua non condition for enshrining these: benevolent neutrality toward the region's conflicts, within the framework of respect for the common good of its Arab neighborhood, international law, and the fundamental rights of the human being. At some point, the cannon must fall silent, and there must be a return to reality. And even if it seems difficult to believe that the Hezb will renounce its suicidal and epic — indeed gigantomachic — bravado, those Lebanese leaders who still retain some hold on events must stop contemplating the disaster and propose, within the framework of a vast transcommunal council of notables, a political initiative capable of allowing the Shia community to escape the insidious binary trap in which Iran has been locking them for decades — Israel or me, the Sunnis or me, etc. Hezbollah's tyranny has lasted far too long, but — the experience of the past notwithstanding — it is certainly not another tyrannical enterprise — one that comes from outside, no less — that will put an end to it, but rather an inclusive peace project founded on the constitutive elements of a state and the fundamental values of the Republic. Otherwise, beware the return of the repressed! All the more so since Lebanon's components and the international community have allowed things to unfold, by action or omission, by interest or by the will not to take the bull by the horns... to "avoid a civil war." This project, which existed between 2000 and 2005 to restore the unity-sovereignty axis in the face of Assad, does not exist at present. Nothing has been done to create it, with all political factions obsessed by their narrow short-term political gains. The only plausible roadmap for escaping the murderous madness should be as follows: cessation of hostilities, disarmament of Hezbollah and restoration of state authority over the entirety of its territory through the intensive deployment of the army at the border, in conjunction with Israel's withdrawal from the occupied territories, followed by peace negotiations under UN auspices, and a status of benevolent neutrality for Lebanon. The alternative is Lebanon's disappearance, with, once again, the "peace of others" over its corpse — and ours. We have only one. Let us not contribute to its destruction, but to its salvation. René Maheu observed in 1975 that Lebanon had succeeded in producing a "style of civilization" founded on dialogue and living together; a society which, despite its inequalities, remained "the least inhuman in the world," as Georges Naccache put it. A world in deliquescence, ravaged now by the very same identity anxieties that presided over its destruction, would sorely need that Lebanon.

Israel is Working to Isolate the South of The Litani

Israel is Working to Isolate the South of The Litani

By
LevantTime .
Published

As the days pass, the resurgence of military operations escalates crescendo, making the total war that the United States and Israel have been waging against the Iranian mullahs' regime since February 28 increasingly serious. And this escalation is evident on more than one level. After the elimination on March 17 of the head of Iran's National Security Council, Ali Larijani (the true strongman of the regime after the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei) and Gholamreza Soleiman, commander of the Basij (the formidable machine for repressing the population), it was the turn of Intelligence Minister, Ismail Khatib, to be eliminated during an Israeli raid. His death was confirmed on Wednesday, March 18, by official authorities. In terms of military operations strictly speaking, American aviation has, over the past twenty-four hours, begun intensive bombing, using anti-bunker bombs, of Iranian positions and underground missile and drone depots on the coastline along the Persian Gulf. More than 200 ballistic missiles are reported to have been destroyed during one of these strikes. This pounding is clearly aimed at paving the way for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, or at least significantly reducing the Pasdaran's ability to disrupt the free movement of oil tankers through this strategic maritime route. In this regard, a significant Marine unit, equipped with a sophisticated strike force, is expected shortly in the region to reinforce the operational capabilities of the US army, particularly in the Strait of Hormuz area. At the same time, Israeli aviation bombed the world's largest (Iranian) gas field. In retaliation, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced its intention to bomb oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. It didn't take much to cause a new rise in the price of a barrel of oil, which reached the $109 mark late Wednesday afternoon. In this context, the foreign ministers of the Gulf States and Muslim countries were due to hold an extraordinary conference on Wednesday evening to examine the serious consequences of Iranian aggressions against several Gulf countries. The south of the Litani isolated from the rest of the country On the "Lebanese front," the Israeli army announced early Wednesday afternoon its intention to bomb and destroy bridges and crossing points along the Litani River. This operation amounts to isolating the south of the Litani from the rest of the country, which means, in military terms, the establishment of a buffer zone between the Israeli-Lebanese border and the southern region of the country located north of the river. According to some reports, this Israeli deployment in Lebanese territory could extend as far north as Zahrani. This would allow the Hebrew state to impose its conditions in any negotiation concerning the withdrawal of its troops. In the capital, Tuesday night to Wednesday was particularly tense. Israeli aviation repeatedly bombed various sectors, notably the neighborhoods of Zokak el-Blat and Bachoura, where a seven-story building completely collapsed due to the aerial attack. In Zokak el-Blat, the Israeli aerial strike caused the death of Mohammed Cherri, political programs director for Hezbollah's television channel, Al-Manar. Late Wednesday, a heavy atmosphere prevailed in the capital amid apprehension about the extent of the IDF's deployment in the southern part of the country.

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