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Nasrallah Did Nothing for the People of Iran
While Iranians suffer, they see billions of dollars being sent to Hezbollah, Hamas and other proxy terrorist organizations outside their borders. In her compelling op-ed “Lebanon and Iran After Hassan Nasrallah” (Sept. 30), Emily Harding articulates a grave and common error even scholarly Westerners make when speaking of Iran and its violent regime of the past 45 years. In examining the possible retaliation on the part of Hezbollah, she states, “Nasrallah didn’t die on Iranian soil, but he was an honorary Iranian in many ways.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
Nasrallah and his Hezbollah minions existed as a tool (and pawn) of the Iranian regime. They never represented the wishes and concerns of the Iranian people themselves. This is an important distinction.
One recent report found that a third of the 88.5 million people of Iran live in poverty. An economics professor from Al-Zahra University, Hassan Raghfar, states that the figure is closer to 50%. The Iranian people have witnessed little or no assistance from their government during this time of increasing poverty, decaying nationwide infrastructure, droughts and floods. But they have witnessed billions of dollars being sent to Hezbollah, Hamas and other proxy terrorist organizations outside their borders. Nasrallah was no “honorary Iranian” to the struggling Iranian people. He was, surely, an honorary tool of the Iranian regime.
Martin J. Brown
Ms. Harding writes that Hezbollah’s “ideology will also endure.” True. She writes, “Iran more than anyone else will decide which direction this conflict goes next.” Also true. But then, in her last sentence, she states that Hezbollah needs to make a decision “to turn to peace, politics and a door cracked open to prosperity.” In light of the truth of the above two statements, how can that happen? Until someone cuts off the head of the snake that is Iran, there will be no peace in the Middle East.
Daniel Kelley
*A demonstrator carries a poster of Hassan Nasrallah in Tehran, Oct. 2.Photo: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images
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