Iran tries to capitalize on chaos in Lebanon

Queue to recharge gas bottles, on Monday at a Beirut gas station.NABIL MOUNZER / EFE

As global attention focuses on Afghanistan, Iran tries to capitalize on the political and economic chaos in which Lebanon is plunged to bolster its Hezbollah allies. At least one Iranian oil tanker has set sail for the Lebanese coast and two others are preparing to do so in order to alleviate the fuel crisis that has paralyzed the Mediterranean country, the leader of the Shiite militia-party Hasan Nasrallah announced on Friday. . In addition to promising to send more fuel tankers, against sanctions imposed by the United States, Nasralá has proposed that an Iranian company exploit gas fields in Lebanese waters bordering Israel, in a disputed area still pending delimitation.

After the Beirut government partially withdrew fuel import subsidies, gasoline has increased in price by 66%.

The escalation threatens to spread throughout the economy and affect basic services, such as health, which depend on electricity generators for their operation due to continuous blackouts.

Hezbollah has negotiated fuel shipments with Tehran, despite the US reimposed embargo on Iran's oil industry after President Donald Trump suspended the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.

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Among the legion of ethnic and religious-based parties that divided power in Lebanon after the end of the civil war (1975-1990), disagreements over the importation of Iranian gasoline and diesel have quickly emerged. His rivals and detractors see this as a dangerous image maneuver by Hezbollah that may lead to the imposition of international sanctions on a bankrupt nation.

"As long as the country needs it, we are going to continue with this process [of importing Iranian fuel]," Nasralá was quoted as saying by Reuters. The shipment of the oil tanker from Iran represents an open challenge to US diplomacy, which in return has offered to boost the importation of Egyptian gas to Lebanon through Jordan and Syria. Israel is silent for now, awaiting the passage of the first Iranian tanker through the Suez Canal on its way from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Levant.

The political blockade that has lasted since 2019 in Lebanon was exacerbated after the explosion that devastated the port of Beirut on August 4 last year, causing 218 deaths and damage estimated at up to 5 billion euros.

Since then, the country still lacks a government that applies the reforms demanded by the international community to finance its reconstruction.

Four prime ministers appointed by Parliament have tried in the last year.

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The appointment of Sunni Nayib Mikati, a billionaire who served as prime minister in 2005 and from 2011 to 2014, opened an escape route in July, but has not yet delivered results. All attempts to form an Executive have crashed in the last year against sectarian disputes between its 18 ethnic and religious communities. MIkati has been one of the first leaders to warn Hezbollah that the consequences of Iranian oil imports threaten to put the finishing touches to the Lebanese economy.

With hardly any basic medicines or food in pharmacies and supermarkets, and with the Lebanese pound devalued by 90% against the dollar, and inflation that has exceeded 200% over the last two years, Lebanon is sinking into chaos. Half of its 4.5 million inhabitants and almost all the refugees - one million Syrians and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians - have fallen below the threshold of extreme poverty.

In the measure of the hegemony of the black market and speculators, anarchy has become patent with the theft of tanker trucks, such as the one registered on the 15th. At least 28 people died when a gasoline transport vehicle exploded in the north of Lebanon, amid a fuel supply crisis that has paralyzed the country. Two hundred people were around the truck when the explosion occurred, after triggering a confrontation with firearms between those who wanted to refuel.

The Army and the police guard the gas stations and warehouses while the country of the Mediterranean Levant suffers blackouts that last up to 22 hours.

The generators tanks are empty and some of the main hospitals have had to restrict their activity to the most urgent cases due to lack of power.

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