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Iran
Iran's Role in Lebanon
The Shia clergy in Iran have long had an interest in the Shia
population of Lebanon. Clergy for the Lebanese Shia communities
were trained in Iran before the Revolution, and intermarriage
between clerical families in both countries had been occurring
for several generations. Lebanon's most prominent Shia cleric,
Imam Musa as Sadr, who mysteriously disappeared in 1978 while
on a trip to Libya, was born in Iran into a clerical family with
relatives in Lebanon, a fact that facilitated his acceptance in
the latter country. Musa as Sadr was a political activist, like
so many clerics of his generation trained in Qom and An Najaf,
and he succeeded in politicizing the Lebanese Shias. Thus, it
was natural that the Shia community of Lebanon should become one
of the earliest to which Iranian advocates of exporting revolution
turned their attention. Their analysis of the political situation
in Lebanon in 1979 and 1980 convinced them that the country was
ripe for achieving an Islamic revolution and that conditions were
also favorable for eradicating Israel and recreating Palestine.
The main constraint on Iran's political involvement in Lebanon
was Amal, the political organization established by Musa as Sadr.
After Sadr's disappearance, Amal had fallen under the influence
of secularized Shias who preferred the political integration of
the Shia community within a pluralistic state and regarded the
Iranian vision of Islamic revolution as inappropriate for Lebanon.
The Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982, however, provided
Iran an opportunity to circumvent Amal's domination of the Shias.
Syria permitted a contingent of several hundred Pasdaran members
to enter Lebanon, ostensibly to help fight against Israel. The
Pasdaran established posts in the eastern Biqa Valley and from
there proselytized on behalf of Islamic revolution among poor
and uprooted Shia young people. The ideas of Islamic revolution
appealed to many of the Shias who were recruited by new political
groups such as Islamic Amal and the Hizballah, both of which opposed
the comparative moderation of Amal. The support of the Pasdaran
provided these groups with a direct link to Tehran, and this permitted
Iran to become one of the foreign powers exerting influence in
Lebanon. In 1987 an estimated 500 member of the Pasdaran were
in Lebanon.
Data as of December 1987
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