In his last public speech, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, a misnomer to start with ‘cause it gives the feel of a U.N. like organization, was nervous. His face did not reveal the full extent of his anxiety nor did his voice divulge his true anger. To blur the issues, his office was arranged such as only the Lebanese flag stood behind him. He raised his finger twice or thrice and made fun of it as to decrease the tension with his viewers. His, was an address to almost 2 million Lebanese who descended onto the streets from all major cities and towns of Lebanon demanding the end to a corrupt, inept, and untrustworthy political class. Starting with a government made up of sectarian appointees and cronies, who as one of their members stated, had the audacity to ask people to pay taxes even if such taxes were squandered!

However, the government-sanctioned corruption and the ‘Ebola of bribes’ which has ravaged all echelons of Lebanon’s body politic is but one part of the Iceberg against which the Lebanese Titanic has collided. Saying that should not take our sights away from the apparent component of the Iceberg. That part is the one that appears to the naked eye, that stares its victims in the face, and rubs their noses in the dirt. That part is comprised of the political class which includes the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, several former ministers and high-ranking civil servants, and their entourage of shadowy and questionable business partners. These partners constitute the effective channel through which the politicos conduct their organized theft of the public coffers. Such theft comes in the form of rigged public contracts, lease or sale of State assets, procurement of fuel and other energy supplies, and the usual racketeering from the mobile cellular services, the Casino’s gaming and gambling revenues, proceeds from the tobacco monopoly and tens of other government sources. Attacking this political class is legitimate, justifiable and a civic duty to all those citizens who have been deprived of their savings and more so, of their hope for a normalized State after 15 years of civil war and another 15 of turmoil. Discrediting this political class is the easiest part of this revolt.

The other part of the Iceberg, its core base, is much more tenuous and harder to dislodge. That component is made up of Hezbollah, an Iranian-trained, backed, and financed militia that takes its order from the Mullahs in Tehran and its marching orders from Qassim Sulaimani, not the Lebanese people. A fall of the current Lebanese government would be a deadly blow to Hezbollah as it would lose the screen through which it operates. The decoy of the official State and institutions is a much-needed cover for this US-labeled terror group accused of narco-trafficking and money-laundering on a global scale. This group cannot deal with the international institutions that Lebanon needs urgently such as the U.N., IMF, World Bank and the EU, as well as, with regional powers such as Egypt, and the GCC countries. The so-called ‘protector’ of Lebanon has finally become its tormentor.

Hezbollah is at an impasse and not the youth in the streets of Beirut, Sidon, Tripoli, Tyre and other cities and towns. It could support the current government and lose its reputational credit with a crippled economy and a discredited government, or it could find a half-way solution. The half-way solution would be to get rid of the political class -in its entirety- and bring on a new team of decent, proficient, and national figures with no ties to the sectarian parties of Lebanon. This would get the country back on its feet, and the issue of Iranian influence in Lebanon onto the back burner till a compromise between the US administration and Iran is reached in the coming years. In the meantime, the patient namely, Lebanon would be out of the ICU and onto a slow but hopeful recovery. When the economy is nursed back into normalcy,