BEIRUT—At a critical moment when Lebanon remains under sustained Israeli military pressure, a familiar class of political actors has rushed to exploit developments in Iran as a pretext to attack the Resistance at home.

This convergence of external aggression and internal incitement is neither accidental nor spontaneous. It reflects a recurring pattern in which local political and media figures align themselves with American and Israeli priorities whenever regional dynamics threaten to shift against Western and Israeli interests.

The unrest periodically ignited inside Iran has long been treated in Western discourse not as a complex social and political phenomenon, but as a strategic instrument. 

Selective images, amplified narratives, and outright fabrications are mobilized to portray Iran as collapsing from within. 

This portrayal is then exported outward, repurposed to argue that all forces aligned with Tehran—chief among them Lebanon’s Resistance—are living on borrowed time and should be politically, militarily, and socially dismantled. In Lebanon, this logic finds eager adopters.

While Israeli forces, backed unconditionally by the United States, continue to escalate operations against Lebanese territory, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister, Youssef Rajji, chose not to condemn these violations but to rationalize them. 

Echoing the rhetoric and objectives of his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Sa’ar, Rajji claimed that the “support front” opened in solidarity with Gaza had brought destruction upon Lebanon.

More dangerously, he suggested that any ceasefire is contingent not merely on halting hostilities but on disarming Hezbollah—implicitly granting Israel a perpetual license to wage war until that objective is met.

Such statements cannot be dismissed as diplomatic slips!

Since assuming office, Rajji—drawn from the Lebanese Forces camp—has effectively transformed the Foreign Ministry into a platform of political agitation. 

Cloaked in the language of diplomacy, his discourse functions as incitement, stripping the ministry of its sovereign role and repurposing it as an echo chamber for Israeli talking points. This is not foreign policy; it is ideological collaboration.

Inside the cabinet, this posture is reinforced by coordinated pressure from Lebanese Forces and Kataeb ministers to impose timelines for confining the Resistance’s weapons north of the Litani River.

The message is clear: if Israel cannot impose its will through force, it will be pursued internally through political coercion.

The silence of President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in the face of this escalation is therefore consequential. Whether driven by calculation or acquiescence, their inaction normalizes a discourse that openly invites further aggression.

MP Ali Ammar of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc accurately described Rajji’s remarks as a “resounding political, national, and moral collapse.” 

His warning points to a deeper danger: this is no longer a debate over defense strategy, but a call to expose an entire social and political constituency to siege, delegitimization, and potential violence.

This internal campaign coincides with Washington’s decision to designate the Islamic Group in Lebanon, along with Muslim Brotherhood organizations in Egypt and Jordan, as terrorist entities.

Framed as counterterrorism, the move is better understood as part of a broader effort to criminalize any political current intersecting with Palestinian resistance. The sweeping nature of the sanctions—criminalizing even indirect support—has alarmed observers across the political spectrum. 

Walid Jumblatt’s sardonic remark that “freedom itself may soon be classified as terrorism” captures the anxiety surrounding this trajectory.

Meanwhile, the failure of U.S. and Israeli bets on economic unrest inside Iran, combined with Israel’s inability to secure decisive victories in Gaza, Lebanon, or Syria, has revived talk of a major confrontation with Iran.

In this climate, manufactured unrest becomes a narrative weapon, and Lebanon a testing ground.

For Lebanon’s anti–Resistance tools, these moments are opportunities. By weaponizing events in Iran and laundering Israeli objectives through local institutions, they hope to succeed politically where military force has failed. 

History, however, suggests that societies anchored in Resistance rarely collapse under such pressure—no matter how orchestrated the unrest or how loud the incitement.