The Islamic Republic has long embraced a policy of plausible deniability. Iran attacks via proxy to avoid accountability. Rather than give direct operational orders, the supreme leader commands by omission rather than commission: He draws red lines that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran’s various intelligence services should not cross and gives them freedom to operate except where explicitly forbidden. What this means in practice is that there is never a smoking gun in signals intelligence and phone intercepts, an absence that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Iranian diplomats believe will allow the Islamic Republic to sidestep any cost for its actions.
That plausible deniability does not apply to Lebanon. Both Ali Muhtashimi, Iran’s ambassador to Syria from 1982 to 1985, and his successor, Muhammed Hasan Akhtari, affirmed Iran’s role in creating Hezbollah (and Hamas) in a wide-ranging 2008 Asharq al-Awsat interview. They explained how they crafted a strategy for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to train Hezbollah cadres inside Iran and then reinsert them into Lebanon. While the Revolutionary Guards succeeded in creating a formidable fighting force inside Lebanon, it came at the expense of Lebanese sovereignty. By prioritizing Iranian interests over Lebanon’s, Hezbollah was directly responsible for the destruction of southern Lebanon.
Israel’s castration of Hezbollah gave Lebanon new hope. So too did the election of Joseph Aoun, former commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces, to be Lebanon’s president. The technocratic troika of Aoun, Rodolph Haykal as the new commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces, and Karim Souaid as the governor of the Lebanese Central Bank gives Lebanon its best opportunity in half a century to right its economy and put the decades of civil war and militia-dominated politics behind it.
The problem Aoun and Souaid face, however, is the cost of reconstruction. The Lebanese are impatient, cynical, and conspiratorial. Multiple politicians have promised but failed to deliver. The new Lebanese leadership needs to show it can deliver, but it does not have the resources to do so easily given decades of neglect and the extent of damage to Lebanon’s infrastructure.
Here, Washington has yet to step up fully. The Trump administration does not want to throw good money after bad in Lebanon and remains scarred by decades of inept Lebanese leadership. President Donald Trump, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, and his deputy, Morgan Ortagus, need not necessarily provide U.S. money to Lebanon. In 2023, South Korea transferred $6 billion in unfrozen Iranian assets to Qatari banks as part of the Biden administration’s deal to ransom hostages held by Iran. Much of that money appears to remain in Qatari banks.
IRAN TERRORIST THREAT UNDERLINED BY SIGNIFICANT UK ARRESTS
Trump should demand the transfer of that money to the Lebanese Central Bank. Souaid, unlike his predecessor, is both squeaky clean and steadfast in his opposition to Hezbollah. Qatar and Iran may balk; but it is not Qatar’s money, and Iran by its own admission is responsible for Hezbollah. The White House and State Department should pressure Qatar to do the right thing and, if the Persian Gulf gas giant balks, then compel it to do so via targeted sanctions. A diplomatic dispute would likely not require such coercion, however. Weakness does not compel loyalty in the Middle East, and both Hezbollah and Iran are weak. At the same time, Qatar might calculate that a $6 billion down payment of Iranian money for Lebanon could open other investment deals for Doha in the new Lebanon.
Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are right that the United States should not be the world’s banker, but targeted investment matters. Allowing Lebanon to prove that it has closed the door permanently on corruption and Iranian influence is essential to consolidating the defeat of Iranian proxies and to broader stability in the region. What better way to do so than with Iran’s own money?
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.