No one can question the positions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates towards Arab States, and their steady position towards the strategic threats resulting from the abducting of power in certain Arab States by extremist terrorist organizations. Evidence is clear, and near past experiences confirm the seriousness of the leadership of both countries in addressing the growing influence of terrorist organizations and infiltrators in each Arab country. The position of the Saudi Arabian leadership, which was supported by the UAE, about stopping assistance to the Lebanese army, is not aimed at Lebanon as a State or as a people, it rather aims at ridding Lebanon from the clutches of Hezbollah, which showed very clearly that it is not serving the interests of the Lebanese people, but is rather serving the interests of Iran, to achieve its sectarian ugly agenda, without the slightest consideration to the interests of the Lebanese people and the rest of the Arab peoples that the party leaders claim they are serving!!
What was issued by the Saudi leadership last Friday, on the cessation of aid to the Lebanese army and security force, was not a decision taken at the spur of the moment nor the expression of momentary emotion. The Saudi authorities were fed up with the behavior and positions of the Lebanese Government, which have been against the Kingdom in its crisis with Iran. Therefore, it is not logical that the Kingdom pursues its assistance to the Lebanese army while the Lebanese decision is controlled by “Iran’s proxies” in Hezbollah.
No one can deny the positions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its historical support to the Lebanese State. Riyadh has been giving generous support to Lebanon for years and decades, during all the difficult circumstances Lebanon has been through. And this help was only an expression of the support that aims at preserving the security and internal stability of the Lebanese State.
In the recent period, Hezbollah has been able to abduct and confiscate the Lebanese will and to speak in the name of Teheran in Arab and regional forums. In fact, the position of Lebanon towards the Iranian attacks on the headquarters of the Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran was striking, as the Lebanese delegation expressed reservations on the condemning of these attacks by the Arab League. This pushed the Saudi authorities to do a full review of their relations with Lebanon, in a way that is commensurate with the developments of the situation and the interests of the Kingdom, as it is inconceivable that Riyadh spends about $ 4 billion on Lebanese security institutions while Lebanon abandons support to Saudi Arabia in these circumstances.
Last January, during the meeting of the Arab ministers of foreign affairs in Cairo, the Lebanese Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Gebran Bassil, said that his country abstained from voting the statement of the Arab League supporting Saudi Arabia in facing Iran’s continued attacks, claiming to distance Lebanon from the Saudi Arabian-Iranian crisis! In addition, when Bassil, who is an ally to Hezbollah, announced on the media only, Lebanon’s solidarity with Saudi Arabia against the attacks its embassy and consulate were subject to in Teheran and Mashhad, he did not justify it in the context of the distinguished brotherly relations between the two countries, but said that it is due to commitment to international agreements and to rejection of the desecration of any embassy or diplomatic mission,” Not only did he ignore the peculiarity of the Lebanese-Saudi relations in such a matter, but tried to find a justification for what happened on the Iranian side when he hinted that “something like this, (the attacks on the Saudi embassy and consulate) if it got out of the will of the concerned authorities and if they have taken the necessary steps, then each State concerned has the right to skip this matter or not for major sovereignty considerations related to them and to their own national interests” ,which means that he did not see any crisis in the first place, and that the subject is not worth the Saudi anger!!.
Lebanese Foreign Affairs Minister said that “the Saudi Iranian clash –and the large conflict in the region, have involved us in other issues. Lebanon has taken its governmental decision to get away from these problems, and to adopt the policy of distancing itself from these crises”. Lebanon has every right to do so, but the Kingdom also has every right to withdraw support and assistance to a State where some circles have abducted its sovereign decision away from the interests of its people, and in this case also, there is no crisis and the matter is not worth the anger, in the same way as the official representative of Lebanon considered that the attack on the sovereignty of Saudi Arabia is not a crisis and not worth the anger!!.
Certainly Lebanese Foreign Affairs Minister is aware that isolating Lebanon from the Arab consensus in the current complex circumstances in the region is not in the interest of the Lebanese people, who need the Arab strategic nurturer in the face of the dangers of foreign intervention on the part of sectarian regional powers such as Iran, or the dangers of wars that are taking place in the regional neighborhood in Syria and elsewhere. The Hezbollah followers in the Lebanese government are aware that dismantling the relationship between Lebanon and its regional backers represents an essential step so as Iran and its followers control Lebanon’s future and destiny completely, away from its Arab identity.
The unjustified position of “distancing oneself” in January is not the first in which the Lebanese government abandons support to Saudi Arabia to fulfil the will of Hassan Nasrallah. The same position was adopted towards the “Firmness Storm” to support the constitutional legitimacy in Yemen, and then Lebanon refused the Islamic alliance against terrorism, and ignored the interests of the Lebanese State, which got about SAR 28 billion in aid from Riyadh since 2000, as well as the interests of the Lebanese people, of whom about half a million citizens live in Saudi Arabia, and whose huge remittances contribute strongly to support the Lebanese economy.
Some say that Saudi Arabia and the GCC have late discovered that Lebanon is part of the Iranian influence, and this is not accurate. Indeed, facts are evident years ago, and the influence of Hezbollah in Lebanese politics is very clear to everyone, but enough is enough, as they say, and there is no more room for silence on this tampering with the interests of the Arab countries and their peoples on the part of Iran and its proxies in these countries.
The Saudi decision, backed by the UAE is not directed against the people of Lebanon. The official Saudi statement is clear and obvious, and it stresses that the decision is against the kidnappers of the will of Lebanon and its people, and that the Kingdom will continue to support all the brotherly Lebanese people and will not abandon them, which reflects the philosophy of the Saudi position and objectives that have nothing to do with punishing the Lebanese people, as some claim, but are aimed, in fact, at putting the Lebanese people at the position of the referee and the judge about the behavior of some entities in the government, who snatch popular will and direct the Lebanese decision against the Lebanese people and their interests, a position which was also confirmed by a statement of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the United Arab Emirates, which strongly highlighted the real problem experienced by the Lebanese State, which consists in that, “the Lebanese official decision is abducted against the interests of Lebanon and its Arab environment, which is clear given the dominance of the so-called Hezbollah and its confiscating of the official decision of the Lebanese, resulting in a mixed Lebanese position against the collective Arab interests. “
