Orient Le Jour: Assassination of Hassan Nasrallah: what now? [“Assassinat de Hassan Nasrallah, et maintenant”]

Thank you very much, Mr. Anthony Samrani, for your brief and excellent analysis of three possible scenarios of the assassination of Mr. Hassan Nasrallah. Following the YouTube video in French, you can find Bambi’s efforts for an English translation for you, thanks to her friend Google Translate.

As you can guess, it is Bambi’s hope that the third scenario, the optimistic one, will finally take place in Lebanon. Until then, she sends her heart to her birth country and to all those traumatized by the HARSH Israeli shelling, including her own family.

As for Mr. Nasrallah, she has had many former posts related to him. Some where direct virtual chats with him. The latest one took place on June 19, 2024 when he had threatened Cyprus. In this older post, Bambi urged him, along with Mr. Netanyahu, to stop the machine of war.

Obviously, Mr. Nasrallah cannot reply to the imaginary chats with Bambi anymore. For those who love, adore, or just respect the latter, especially to his family, friends, community, and all the peers of the different political parties, even the opponents, she extends her condolences.

Although she did not agree with him on many topics (e.g., the 2006 war, the overpower of his group, which is stronger than the Lebanese state, the Beirut port explosion, the Syrian war, the current war, and above all his continuous loyalty to its Iranian creator/donor (i.e., ideology/war mindset, funds, and weapons), she will say the following now: she has the utmost respect for something that differentiates him from some of his financially corrupt Palestinian friends: Mr. Nasrallah was an authentically principled man. He did not live in palaces outside of his country. He lived according to his principles. He died according to the latter. He was on the battle ground and maybe, as some say, he lived under earth for many long years. He lost his son in the past and yesterday, if Bambi understood well, he lost his daughter. Her name is Zaynab. May their souls rest in peace… and especially the souls of the MANY innocent people who died in this unwanted and senseless armed conflict.

“The death of Hassan Nasrallah is an earthquake for Lebanon and the region. The most adored and most hated character in the land of Cedar, he was both the voice and the face of the axis of the Resistance and as such will be extremely difficult to replace. After its elimination in an Israeli strike on Friday, we can imagine three types of scenarios, depending on the calculations of the Islamic Republic, and to a lesser extent, today of Israel.

First scenario: that of escalation: Iran and Hezbollah believe that Israel has gone too far and feel forced to try to rebalance the balance of power somewhat. This would require Hezbollah to use, if it is still capable of doing so, its high-precision missiles and for allies within the Resistance axis to come to its aid in a conflict which would, very quickly, become total and probably regional, with however an immense risk, that this war ends up endangering the survival of the Iranian regime.

Second scenario, the one where Hezbollah and its Iranian godfather accept their defeat and consider that the balance of power is far too unfavourable for them today. In this case, Hezbollah would take on a new dimension on the Lebanese scene. Less regional, more Lebanese, but probably more paranoid, less inclined to compromise and more determined than ever to reimpose a balance of power with the other parties.

Third scenario, the optimistic scenario, which however seems extremely fragile, the one where the different Lebanese communities learn lessons from history. After the assassination of Bachir Gémayel, Rafic Hariri and Hassan Nasrallah, will the communities finally overcome their differences with the aim of building a state worthy of the name?“