The departure of ambassadors of Saudi Arabia and other littoral states of the Persian Gulf from Lebanon dates back to six months ago. On October 3, 2022, George Kordahi, Lebanese Minister of Information in a televised interview with Aljazeera TV channel had emphasized:” Houthis in Yemen were defending themselves against the aggressive measures of Saudi Arabia and UAE”.

Kordahi’s remarks received extensive reaction in Arab media, in a way that some analysts interpreted it as a righteous word and what should have been said. But the remarks were strongly criticized by Saudi Arabia and some of Arab states of the Persian Gulf, who played a role in a way or other, in the Saudi-led aggressive coalition.

Riyadh and its regional allies employed Kordahi’s remarks as a pretext to exert new pressures on Lebanon and to fan the crisis. Consequently, they recalled their ambassadors from the country and sever their diplomatic relations with Beirut. Following the rising diplomatic crisis with Lebanon, Faisal Bin Farhan, Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs had said:” the main problem rests with Hezbollah not with George Kordahi!  The stance shows the main aspects and causes of exerting political pressure on Lebanon by Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Persian Gulf that continued until recent weeks.

But now, without raising any irrelevant and new demands from Lebanon, Riyadh and its regional allies are looking for resumption of the activities of their diplomatic missions in Lebanon.

This is the status quo while within the past few months, the aforementioned countries had stipulated the settlement of diplomatic crisis and the return of their ambassadors to Lebanon to the implementation of twelve conditions that was handed over in a letter to Lebanese government by Kuwaiti Minister of Foreign Affairs representing Arab countries which was covering in a way, the demands of the Western countries as well as the U.S. Disarming Hezbollah and putting it aside from political considerations were the first two conditions.

But concerning the resumption of activities of Saudi ambassador as well as like-minded Arab countries with Riyadh in Beirut after six months of relentless propaganda against Lebanon, it is necessary to pay attention to a couple of issues:

First; the said political and diplomatic movements indicate a kind of Saudi, its regional allies and its Western partners’ realism vis-a-vis the Lebanese internal issues and developments.

The logic behind such movements indicate that as one of the interested parties in Lebanon that represented the Western powers with the collaboration and accompaniment of some internal currents and regional players within the recent years, Saudi Arabia made great efforts to exclude Hezbollah from political, military and economic fields in Lebanon, and now it has come to realize that Hezbollah is an important player which can not be ignored in the said fields or spared from the scene.

Hezbollah is not only recognized as one of the successful movements to fight against terrorism and security crises at the regional level, but also has gained considerable achievements in political, social, security and economic fields as well as securing the national interests inside Lebanon.

For example, within the recent months while Lebanon was suffering from fuel and energy crisis and consequently faced with various problems in other economic fields and even political chaos, Hezbollah in a strategic initiative with the collaboration of the Islamic Republic of Iran succeeded to import fuel and thus to make effective efforts to exit the country from the crisis already created in energy and power supply fileds.

Therefore, the change in political and diplomatic attitude of Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Persian Gulf, that has started with reopening and unconditional resumption of their embassy’s activities in Beirut is considered as a realistic behavior.

However, it is necessary to mention that the decision made by littoral states of the Persian Gulf to reopen their diplomatic missions in Beirut is not an irrelevant event in connection with Lebanese parliamentary election which will be held on May 15, 2022.

It must be stressed that the Lebanese nation as well as political fractions of the country should be watched up and vigilant to any probable external intervention in the course of the upcoming election. In case of negligence of people and political elites, election could be deviated from the route leading to the national interests of Lebanon and raise crisis – making consequences ahead of the country.

To conclude, it must be admitted that any effort to interfere and cause to fail political trend in Lebanon, although in short term may create crises and difficulties for the country, but in long term it will be doomed to fail. As the significant symbol of dynamism and stability of Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, Hezbollah is an un-separable part of the important Arab country, which can not and should not be ignored.

When today, after six months of maximum pressure campaign on political and economic fields, the Persian Gulf littoral Arab countries have revised their policies through returning their ambassadors to Beirut, is a realistic measure which could be welcomed only if and when it is in line with the national interests and to the benefits of Lebanese people.