The Decline and Fall of the Iranian Empire

The killing of Hassan Nasrallah and the entire Hizballah high command, followed almost immediately by the killing of Nasrallah’s designated successor Hassan Khalil Yassin, could mean the end of Hizballah as a force to be reckoned with in Lebanon. Nasrallah’s death also strikes a serious blow to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s decades-long effort to gain hegemony over the entire Middle East.

Back in 2015, Iran’s Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, explained that once Israel is destroyed, “the West’s hegemony and threats will be discredited” and “the hegemony of Iran will be promoted.” Iran had been working for years to promote that hegemony through a series of allies, clients, and proxies across the Middle East, Hizballah being the chief among them.

In fact, the assembly of the “Shi’ite crescent” began in Lebanon. As The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran explains, Hizballah (“Party of Allah”) rose to prominence during the Lebanese civil war of the early 1980s. Hizballah was an Iranian proxy from its inception, as the U.S. Supreme Court recognized when it ruled that Iran was liable for payments to the families of the victims of Hizballah’s 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, in which 241 Americans were killed. Indeed, Hizballah began at a meeting in Tehran between the Ayatollah Khomeini and a delegation of Lebanese Shi’ites, including Hassan Nasrallah.

At this meeting, Khomeini gave his approval to the creation of Hizballah as a competitor to the dominant Lebanese Shi’ite group, the Amal Movement, whose leader, Musa Sadr, opposed the idea of clerical rule that was the guiding principle of the Islamic Republic. Khomeini gave Shiekholislam Seyyed Ali Khamenei, who would later succeed him as Iran’s Supreme Leader, the task of supervising the establishment of Hizballah. According to Nasrallah, Iran “offered Lebanon everything in its power: money, training, and advice.” […]

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