A masterclass in revisionist history

The nerve is breathtaking. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi took to X on Saturday to rebuke Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, suggesting that Israel - not Iran - is Lebanon's "true enemy." 

This, from the foreign minister of the very state that has spent four decades systematically dismantling Lebanon from within.

Araghchi's response to Aoun's blistering critique, in which the Lebanese president accused Tehran of using his country as a "bargaining chip" and told Iran bluntly: "This is not your country, it is ours », was as predictable as it was dishonest.

"Based on Mr. Aoun's words, one might think it is Iran that has occupied a fifth of Lebanon," Araghchi wrote. A clever rhetorical trick, and a grotesque one.

Here is what Araghchi conveniently omitted from his history lesson: Iran created Hezbollah in 1982. Iran funds it, arms it, trains it and directs it. For over forty years, this Iranian-manufactured militia has paralysed Lebanon's institutions, corrupted its political class, monopolised its weapons, dragged it into wars its people never voted for, and driven its economy to the brink of total collapse.

Lebanon did not choose this. It had it imposed upon it, by Tehran.

The Audacity of the Arsonist

Araghchi's suggestion that Iran has been a friend to Lebanon would be laughable if the consequences weren't so devastating. The Lebanese pound has lost over 90% of its value. Half the population lives in poverty. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced. Beirut — once the Paris of the Middle East, lies scarred and broken.

And the man responsible for the foreign policy of the regime that caused all of this has the audacity to tell Lebanon's president to "save Lebanon from your true enemy."

Joseph Aoun is right. One thousand times right. Lebanon belongs to the Lebanese, not to the theocrats in Tehran who have treated it as a forward operating base, a cash machine and a human shield for four decades.

A Regime That Reveals Itself

That Abbas Araghchi serves as Iran's top diplomat says everything about the Islamic Republic's worldview. This is a regime that lies as a matter of state policy, that weaponises language as skillfully as it weaponises militias, and that has never once taken responsibility for the catastrophic human cost of its regional ambitions.

Before posting nonsense on X, Araghchi would do well to read a history book. Lebanon's tragedy has one author. It is not Israel. It is not the United States. It is the Islamic Republic of Iran, the sanguinary theocracy he loyally serves.