Date: 2024-12-21 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00021606
LEBANON
FAILED STATE
Lebanon's Hezbollah says Iranian fuel oil to arrive Thursday
FAILED STATE
Lebanon's Hezbollah says Iranian fuel oil to arrive Thursday
FLE PHOTO: Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah speaks through a screen during a religious ceremony marking Ashura, in this screengrab taken from Al-Manar TV footage, Lebanon August 19, 2021. AL-MANAR TV/Handout via REUTERS
Original article: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/lebanons-hezbollah-say-first-iranian-fuel-oil-arrive-thursday-2021-09-13/
Burgess COMMENTARY
It has been the popular narative during all of my adult life that European colonialism was 'all bad'. There is no question that some, indeed quite a lot of colonialism was bad. However the idea that old colonialism was bad and the new world order is good seems to fly in the face of the facts.
I have asome modest connections with Lebanon that go back to the 1960s. A close relative in my parent's generation was born in Lebanon. I got to know a lot of Lebanese who populated the business community in West Africa during the 1970s, 80s and 90s. I got to visit Beirut very briefly during a lull in its civil war in 1986 (??). The flight back to New York on MEA was interesting. The airport in Beirut had been closed for a long time, but was now open again with international flights. This was a Boeing 747, and we had about 10 peassengers on the flight with more than that number of flight attendants. It seemed crazy to be running such a flight except that the cargo hold was full and going to be full again on the return flight. In fact, I think they had helf of the economy section blocked off to hold cargo as well!
When I was employed in the corporate world, I typically worked to make the best use of accounting and financial information to enable the company to operate in the most efficient way. This was achieved by using data to understand as much as possible about the way the whole system came together to get the optimum results. I used to talk a lot about the 'behavior' of costs and the 'behavior' of prices because in most cases they did not behave in the same way. When it comes to 'management' at the country level, it is blatently apparent that the people who have global impact are completely failing to operate an improving world, but are doing exactly the opposite.
Those who study these things in academia are not being very helpful either ... nor the major powers nor the major international organizations ... nor anyone, it seems. It is not as if the world is devoid of positive possibilities, but the way decisions are being made is delivering awful results. What on earth do we have to do to make things better?
Peter Burgess
By Maha El Dahan and Laila Bassam; Editing by Kevin Liffey
September 13, 2021 (Accessed January 2022)
Summary
- Nasrallah thanks Syria and Iran for facilitating shipments
- Iran subject to U.S. sanctions intended to prevent oil sales
- Hezbollah says it is not aiming to trade or make profit
- Nasrallah also praises U.S.-backed effort to buy Egyptian gas
Nasrallah had announced last month that he had organised purchases of fuel from Iran, Hezbollah's main backer but subject to U.S. economic sanctions, to ease a crippling shortage.
Nasrallah thanked Syria for receiving the shipment and facilitating its transfer, and said it would reach Lebanon by Thursday.
'We were told that the arrival of the vessel here (in Lebanon) would harm the country and we don't want to harm the country so we went for another option,' Nasrallah said in a televised speech.
Daily life has been almost paralysed as fuel dries up because Lebanon lacks the dollars to pay for it.
The state-owned power company is generating only minimal electricity, leaving businesses and households almost entirely dependent on small, private generators that run on fuel oil.
A financial crisis has wiped 90% off the value of the Lebanese pound since 2019, pushed food prices up by more than 550%, and propelled three-quarters of the population into poverty. The World Bank has called it one of the deepest depressions of modern history.
Nasrallah on Monday said a second ship with fuel oil would arrive in the Syrian port of Baniyas in a few days, with a third and fourth, respectively carrying gasoline and fuel oil, also due.
'We could have got a whole fleet of vessels ... but we didn't because we don't want to aggravate anyone,' he said.
Hezbollah's opponents in Lebanon say the purchase risks bringing down sanctions on a country already on its last legs, especially as Washington has designated Hezbollah as a terrorist group.
The Donald Trump administration announced in 2018 that it aimed to reduce Iran's oil sales to zero after withdrawing from Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with six global powers.
For its part, the United States is backing an effort to address Lebanon's power shortages by bringing in Egyptian gas via Jordan and Syria.
Nasrallah also praised an official trip by Lebanese officials to Damascus this month to try to bring that about.
He said the first Iranian fuel oil shipment was priced in Lebanese pounds and would go to hospitals, orphanages and old people's homes.
'Our aim is not trade or profit,' he said. 'Our aim is to alleviate the suffering of the people.'
Reporting By Maha El Dahan and Laila Bassam; Editing by Kevin Liffey
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