янв 15, 2015

“The strategic moments” is the Iranian description of their constants in handling regional and international files, most notably “the resistance against Israel, based on the political morals that were established by Imam Ruhollah Khomeini,” Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Mohammad Fathali said.

Apart from this strategic option, the Lebanese political game seems “open.” “Lebanon is a country where no one can play in secret,” Fathali said.

He tackled Lebanon's presidential file with much reserve and know-how. The Iranians want the file to be Lebanese par excellence, on the one hand, and embrace the suggestion of Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in this regard, on the other.

This does not deny that Tehran hosted Jean-Francois Girault, head of the French Foreign Ministry's Middle East and North Africa Department, five times so far. Most recently at the beginning of this year, Girault visited Iran, where he focused on the Lebanese presidential issue.

In this context, Iran believes “the Lebanese political elite is able to elect a president. During his successive visits to Tehran, Iranian officials told the French envoy that it is the right of the Christian community in Lebanon to choose the president of the republic,” Fathali said.

Heading a delegation from the embassy in Beirut, Fathali visited As-Safir headquarters and met with its editor in-chief, Talal Salman, and a number of colleagues. He spoke of his diplomatic experience before he arrived in Beirut, particularly since he was dealing closely with the Syrian file by virtue of his position at Iran’s Foreign Ministry, and his experience at the embassy, where he became ambassador a few months after the bombing attempt in late 2013, and presented his credentials to President Michel Suleiman a few days before the end of his term.

Fathali stressed the importance of Lebanese-Iranian ties and renewed his emphasis on Iran's support for Lebanon's stability. He told As-Safir, “Iran’s enemies and friends do not change. It is an Iranian constant and the irrevocable commandment of Imam Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

If Israel is the sole enemy, Lebanon and its resistance are among the friends that Iran will not give up on, along with Syria, Iraq, the Islamic Jihad movement and Hamas, according to Fathali.

Iraq has another story that is not far from the Iranian initial objective. Khomeini endured the bombardment of Tehran with Scud missiles by Saddam Hussein’s regime, and did not divert from the main objective, i.e., the Zionist enemy. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has done the same. The arrival of the Islamic State (IS) to Tehran’s regional border has necessitated an untraditional Iranian resolution while maintaining the main objective.

The expansion of IS in Iraq coincided with the Israeli war on Gaza, which resulted in “once again, giving priority to the war against Israel.” This is how the Iranians explained their constants that are centered on the accurate and careful interpretation of regional facts.

It is true that the Iranian reservation is permanent, but the honest attitudes are inevitable, especially in crucial matters. Fathali told As-Safir that the approach of Khomeini, which Khamenei and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani are following, was reflected in several developments that the Iranian Foreign Ministry's diplomatic archive has witnessed.

Fathali shed light on Rouhani’s experience since he became secretary-general of the Supreme National Security Council, and recalled a statement Rouhani delivered a year ago, where he warned European leaders of continuing to ignore the threat of terrorism and violence, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Rouhani said that the danger of IS threatens Europe before any other place. During the first negotiations on Syria, the West was warned of the consequences of the ongoing support to extremist movements, “because they will backfire,” Fathali said.

As for Lebanon, some of its political elite listened to the Iranian expectations during the outbreak of the Syrian war, and later on, some Lebanese leaders admitted that they were mistaken when betting that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would not be able to resist after Ramadan 2011.

Some of these leaders did not listen to the Iranian opinion, saying that the attempt to use the card of Jabhat al-Nusra and IS in many Lebanese files, including the issue of the Lebanese soldiers captured by Jabhat al-Nusra and IS, will not work, and this opinion is based on 35 years of Iranian experience in monitoring and fighting these terrorist organizations.

In an indirect answer to an article published on Jan. 13 in As-Safir on the British ambassador in Beirut, Tom Fletcher, and its ambiguous content, Fathali noted that some are misleading the public in the media. He told As-Safir, “The roots of terrorism are well-known to everyone, and we have many documents in this field. If some people want to question them, it is because they are willing to acquit themselves in this field.”

Fathali added, “If you read the region’s history book, you will find on every page the bad and negative impact of these people’s actions, knowing that everyone knows where the leaders of IS and other terrorist organizations are taught.”

Apart from that, Fathali said, “for the time being, we should not give importance to these issues. Rather, we must focus the efforts on fighting against terrorism in the region.”