Karim Tabet

To be or not to be. In this famous tirade, Shakespeare symbolizes life with its share of pain, injustice, and suffering, which we have endured for decades, but it also embodies death and suicide as a way out. If a fanatical splinter group has decided to take this path in the name of an obscurantist cause, the majority of Lebanese openly reject it. The Announced End of a Tyranny The signs are not deceiving. History teaches us this again and again. When a dictatorship such as that of the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards finds itself cornered, when danger looms, when the delusions and megalomania it long fed on for its survival crash against harsh reality, when the house of cards it painstakingly built for decades at any cost, in defiance of all moral and ethical consideration for a population it believes it holds under its yoke, collapses, when despair takes over and all indicators turn red, then blind fanaticism, furious hysteria, and kamikaze madness take over and prevail over reason.

What unfolded before us was not a three-act Greek tragedy, but a lived experience: raw, immediate, degrading, and unforgivable. In less than two weeks, we watched unfold on our screens, in turn, a ludicrous comedy, a surreal situation, and a human catastrophe. Three distinct episodes, yet all exposing, revealing, and condemning the daily evils that continue to gnaw at a drained and weakened Lebanon. The Dunces’ Fair “What could this man possibly have in common with the people, this portly, pretentious bourgeois upstart, frequenting swanky bars, and a man who actually works… And is it not the greatest misery of our time that it is such a man who speaks for the people, who speaks among the people, who speaks about the people?”

The brutal repression unleashed by the mullahs and the Pasdaran to neutralize the courageous revolution of Iranian citizens bears the hallmarks inherent to every dictatorship. More than 30,000 dead, 40,000 imprisoned whose fate remains unknown, an incalculable number of missing persons—and the figures will only rise as the macabre truth gradually comes to light. Very quickly, terror replaced the long-awaited hope for change. Order seems to reign once again, but at what price—and above all, for how long? In the absence of a united opposition, the medieval and corrupt dictatorial regime has free rein to set fire to and spill the blood of anything that moves. Methodically, viciously, savagely, without the slightest scruple. The only lifeline to which the majority of Iranians cling remains a possible American intervention, though no one knows in advance what its consequences might be, either internally or regionally.

Lebanon today stands at a decisive historical crossroads. It has a rare and golden opportunity to rid itself, once and for all, of its most dangerous foe: Hezbollah—the Iranian-backed military organization that has dominated the country’s internal political life for over forty years. Under the false pretext of safeguarding Lebanon’s security and defending it against Israel, Hezbollah has instead brought havoc, destruction, economic collapse, and misery. Its track record clearly demonstrates total incompetence and impotence: it has failed to defend even a single inch of Lebanese territory or to inflict any serious strategic damage on Israel. Yet, despite its flagrant defeat and discomfiture, the organization continues to refuse compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701.