By Nohad Topalian | 2024-08-23

BEIRUT -- Of all the proxy militias the Iranian regime supports, Lebanese Hizbullah far outranks the rest -- including Hamas, Kataib Hizbullah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and even Yemen's Houthis -- in terms of direct financial and military support.

Hizbullah pulls in $1.2 billion annually thanks to funding from the Iranian regime and drug trafficking revenues, Forbes reported in January 2022.

In contrast, the Iranian regime funds Kataib Hizbullah with $50 million annually and PIJ with $35 million annually.

The Houthis bring in $2 billion in annual revenues, but those come from extorting local businesses and companies and illegally trading in oil, Forbes reported.

Hizbullah is "Iran's claw and its executive tool in Lebanon, and in the Arab and Western worlds," said Hassan Qutb, director of the Lebanese Center for Research and Consulting.

The Islamic Republic "supports Hizbullah with huge financial and military resources that far exceed what it grants the Houthis and Hamas," even though they are all working to advance the same goal of supporting Iran's expansionist agenda, he said.

Lebanese resentment

The Iranian regime's "support for Hizbullah made the salaries of its fighters higher than that of fighters of other proxies," he told Pishtaz.

Hizbullah also pays its fighters in US dollars at a time when most Lebanese get paid in Lebanese pound, which has lost more than 90% of its value in nearly two years, analysts say.

Anger towards Hizbullah has spread in recent months, even in the party's strongholds, where many have protested electricity cuts and fuel shortages, as well as the currency crash that has plunged more than half the country's 6 million people into poverty.

Tehran's show of favoritism towards Hizbullah stems from Lebanon's location and demographics, Qutb said.

Hizbullah is using Lebanon and its borders with Israel "in service of the Iranian strategy in Lebanon" and beyond, he said.

As for Kataib Hizbullah, the Iranian regime is responsible for directing its internal and external policies to ensure it has a route from Tehran to Beirut -- via Iraq -- to support Hizbullah and threaten the security of the region, he added.

The Iranian regime's favorite

Hizbullah is the Iranian regime's "favorite among its proxies in the region because it sees it as its most successful investment, and a tool for generating money from the drug trade," said political writer Tony Boulos.

The party's "success in dominating Lebanon and exploiting its legitimate institutions to legitimize its terrorism, and its dominance of the Lebanese banking system" are also attractive to the Iranian regime, he told Pishtaz.

"This has made Hizbullah a main pillar of the stability of the Iranian regime, which hands over its dirty work to it ... including terrorist acts around the world," while still maintaining plausible deniability, he said.