Indeed, Tony Badran—a research fellow specialising in Lebanon, Hezbollah and Syria at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank—said that “Hezbollah’s domination of the country is already complete.”

“Hariri’s resignation…has no bearing on that reality,” Badran told JNS.org. “In fact, Hariri cited this complete domination of the state in his resignation speech. The irony is that Hariri’s return to the premiership [in August 2014] had helped Hezbollah consolidate its control.”

In October 2016, Hezbollah set an unprecedented standard in consolidating its power with the election of Michael Aoun, the first Lebanese president that the terrorist organisation had the opportunity to directly appoint.

Saudi Arabia’s ‘protest’

During a visit to northern Israel in June 2017, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon (left) and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley (centre) look out over southern Lebanon. Credit: Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv/Flash90.

At the time, Aoun’s election represented a severe defeat for the Sunni power of Saudi Arabia, the chief rival of Shi’a Iran in the quest for regional influence.

Now, Hariri’s resignation comes amid domestic and international turbulence for Saudi Arabia. On the same day that Hariri stepped down, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched a campaign of mass arrests of Saudi royals, ministers and businessmen, in what experts believe is an attempt to consolidate power.

Meanwhile, a missile was fired from Yemen towards the Saudi capital of Riyadh last weekend. On Monday, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir described the missile as “an Iranian missile launched by Hezbollah” and a potential “act of war.”

Hariri’s criticism of Hezbollah came in a speech delivered from Saudi soil. The prime minister’s resignation can be regarded as “a Saudi-led protest against Hezbollah’s activity in Lebanon,” Prof. Joshua Teitelbaum, a senior research fellow at Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, told JNS.org.

Hezbollah’s ‘Iranian province’

FDD’s Badran noted that Israel’s leadership has long deemed Lebanon to be “an Iranian province run by Hezbollah,” and is making defence preparations in accordance with this understanding.

“[Israeli] Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman had recently stated that the Lebanese Armed Forces were under Hezbollah’s command, and this will be reflected in how Israel will act in the next conflict with Lebanon,” said Badran.

As Iran and Hezbollah seek to establish permanent military facilities in southern Syria to create a land bridge stretching from Tehran to Beirut along Israel’s northern border, Israeli defence officials are preparing for several worst-case scenarios. In September, the IDF completed its largest drill in two decades in Israel’s northern region, simulating cross-border Hezbollah attacks on Israeli towns.

During the 2006 Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah, the IDF acted alone in defense of the Israeli home front. But the next war with the terrorist organization could potentially involve a two-front battle in Lebanon and Syria, involving other Iranian terror proxies and potentially drawing in the Saudi-led Sunni bloc, which is increasingly aligned with Israel based on mutual antipathy towards Iran.