Thursday, 26 August 2021 (YJC)_Iran’s fuel shipment to Lebanon opens a new horizon in relations between the two countries and sets the stage for the defeat of US hegemony in the region, says a report.
Lebanon's al-Mayadeen television network in a report pointed to the US’ long record of using the “leverage of pressure” against those countries standing up to its policies to force them to submit to its demands, but noted that new alliances in the region, including between Iran and Lebanon, are breaking the hegemony of the US and its allies.
The report pointed to the US policy to wrest dominance over the entire world, and the West Asia region in particular, including Lebanon.
It, however, said that Iran’s fuel shipments to Lebanon have “marked the defeat of the American political hegemony in the region,” which according to Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah, is the beginning of the collapse of the US sanctions wall.
According to the report, fuel shipments from Iran to Lebanon had certain messages, including the timing of the deliveries.
As the US ambassador to Lebanon had said that it was possible to send fuel to Lebanon by renting ships, everyone thought that other routes were blocked, but fuel was sent to Lebanon in a short time at the suggestion of Hezbollah to buy fuel from Iran, the report said.
The ineffectiveness of the US “maximum pressure policy” is another consequence of the fuel shipment, the report went on to say, arguing the maximum pressure campaign launched by the Donald Trump administration failed to subdue Iran, and although the Joe Biden administration is expected to continue the same campaign, there is no place left for his administration to escalate the pressure, and the ground is being laid to definitively neutralize the effect of sanctions.
In addition to the strengthening of cooperation between the two countries, in which Iran will neutralize the US sanctions on the sale of oil derivatives, while energy-hungry Lebanon will be supplied with fuel, the shipments introduce a new policy on sanctions, in which the countries hit by sanctions, including Venezuela, Syria and Lebanon, come and work together to reduce the effects of the embargoes, it said.
The project to send Iranian fuel to Lebanon marks the beginning of the breaking of the US sanctions and distancing from the West, and it provides a good opportunity for the sanctioned countries to end the US hegemony, the report concluded.
On Thursday, the Hezbollah chief said that the first vessel carrying Iranian fuel would set sail for Lebanon within hours, warning Israel and the United States that the resistance group would regard the ships carrying Iranian fuel as part of the “Lebanese soil.”
The ship would be carrying diesel since it is a top priority for the Lebanese people’s livelihoods, Nasrallah said, promising that it would be followed by other ships carrying more fuel.
Nasrallah had already voiced willingness on a number of occasions to import Iran’s oil to counter Lebanon’s dire fuel shortage, in case the government fails to deal with the crisis.
Fuel shortages have hit factories and businesses across Lebanon, threatening to halt manufacturing, deliveries and transport in the Arab country, which is already struggling with its worst economic crisis.
The fuel emergency has been exacerbated by the collapse of the Lebanese pound. Lebanon's currency has lost more than 90% of its value in less than two years.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned that millions of people in Lebanon could face a critical shortage of water or be cut off completely in the coming days in the wake of the severe fuel crisis in the cash-strapped Arab nation.
“Vital facilities such as hospitals and health centers have been without access to safe water due to electricity shortages, putting lives at risk,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said in a statement on Saturday.
Lebanon has been mired since late 2019 in a deep economic and financial crisis, exacerbated by a political deadlock.
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