Lebanon announces the expulsion of the Revolutionary Guards. How significant is it?

However, despite the statements – Lebanon is not doing much in practice to control its monopoly on violence, and the process of disarming Hezbollah has also progressed lazily so far.

● Proxy or not: the Iranians fire hundreds of missiles – and the Houthis sit on the fence
● When and how will the war end: the expert on Iran affairs who tries to estimate

Lebanon is a country not known for its strong central government, and for more than 20 years Hezbollah has unquestionably ruled southern Lebanon, in addition to its considerable influence in democratic Lebanese politics, as the most powerful non-state military body in the world. But in recent years, and especially since the beeper attack and the “Northern Arrows” operation that brought Hezbollah off balance and dealt a fatal blow to it, including the assassination of its legendary Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, its position in Lebanon has weakened significantly.

Also in the past year, and under heavy American pressure, the Lebanese army raided Hezbollah’s weapons stockpiles and even began to replace its outposts in southern Lebanon next to the points that control the border from which the IDF has not yet withdrawn. But there was no direct confrontation, and despite announcements about the concentration of weapons in the hands of the Lebanese state – very few actions were actually taken for this purpose.

Now, from Hezbollah Join the campaign Along with Iran, and the IDF launched a campaign against it deep inside Lebanese territory, there was even greater pressure on Lebanon to weaken Iran and its metastases in Lebanese politics. This is probably one of the reasons that led to the recent statement by Lebanese Prime Minister Salam that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards – the military force of the Iranian regime that operates throughout the Middle East and operates its “proxies” such as Hezbollah – have been outlawed.

“Lebanon is not a country”

However, Prof. Eyal Zisser, an orientalist from Tel Aviv University and an expert on Syria and Lebanon, says that he “tends to doubt all these reports, because they are cowards and just talking.” He says that “there were reports that they arrested people with weapons, they did not say that they were Hezbollah members, in Lebanon everyone has weapons at home. The Iranians have been doing what they want in Lebanon since forever, I have not seen the Lebanese government doing anything active.”

Even since the decision to ban Hezbollah from bearing arms and return the right to bear arms exclusively to the Lebanese state, “We don’t talk about Hezbollah at all. There was a speech by Naim Kassem (the Secretary General of Hezbollah after the assassination of Nasrallah, peace be upon him), after which the government did not talk about Hezbollah directly but only in a general way.”

Prof. Zisser uses harsh words and says that “it is the essence of Lebanon not to do anything and only trust others”. For him, “Lebanon is not a country, everyone takes care of their own interests. So why would anyone dare to be a hero? They prefer Israel to do the work for them.”

On the other hand, it seems that this is exactly what is happening. Israel recently announced the evacuation of huge parts of the southern suburb (the “Dahiya”) of Beirut, the main stronghold of Hezbollah, and videos have already surfaced online of traffic jams on the way out of Beirut. Regarding this, Zisser says: “We need to hit Hezbollah. What will they actually do? We will find out later.”