An Israeli strike has eliminated yet another senior operative of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Lebanese soil. This time, the target was Hussein Mahmoud Marshad al-Jawhari, an alleged Quds Force commander accused by Israel of orchestrating Iran-directed operations against it from Syria and Lebanon. His killing, along with others in near-daily Israeli drone strikes, is not an isolated incident, it is a symptom of a far deeper and more dangerous malaise eating away at Lebanon’s sovereignty.
Lebanon today stands at a crossroads. It can either continue to tolerate the presence of Iranian military operatives who are systematically dragging the country into regional confrontation, or it can finally assert its independence by severing relations with Tehran and expelling the IRGC and its Quds Force proxies who are trying to resurrect Hezbollah’s military machine.
The facts are stark. Despite a ceasefire that came into effect in November 2024 after more than a year of cross-border hostilities linked to Israel’s devastating war in Gaza, Israeli strikes have continued almost daily. According to the United Nations, more than 300 people have been killed in Lebanon since the ceasefire, including at least 127 civilians. Nearly 1,600 Israeli strikes were recorded between January and late November. Israel justifies these attacks by pointing to Hezbollah’s continued military presence and Iran’s shadowy hand directing operations from Lebanese territory.
Whether one accepts Israel’s justification or not, one reality cannot be denied, Lebanon is paying the price for hosting a foreign revolutionary army that answers not to Beirut, but to Tehran. The IRGC’s Quds Force is not a diplomatic mission, nor a benign ally, it is an expeditionary arm of Iran’s theocratic regime, tasked with exporting revolution, destabilizing neighbors, and building armed proxies that operate outside state control. Hezbollah is its most successful creation. For decades, Hezbollah has functioned as a state within a state, undermining Lebanon’s institutions, dragging the country into wars it did not choose, and suffocating any prospect of genuine sovereignty.
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Now, as reports emerge that Hezbollah’s first phase of disarmament may be “close to complete,” Iran is clearly working overtime to reverse that process. The presence of senior IRGC operatives, directing activities from Hermel in Northern Lebanon to Bint Jbeil in the South, is not about defending the country, it is about preserving Iran’s forward operating base on Israel’s northern border. Every Israeli drone strike that kills an IRGC or Hezbollah operative inside Lebanon is a violation of Lebanese sovereignty. But so too is the presence of those operatives in the first place. Sovereignty cannot be selectively defended. A country that allows a foreign military force to operate freely within its borders has already surrendered a key element of its independence.
Lebanon’s government cannot continue to wring its hands, issue ritual condemnations, and hope the storm will pass. The storm will not pass as long as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are embedded in Lebanese territory. Each strike risks escalation, miscalculation, and a return to full-scale war, a catastrophe Lebanon can ill afford after years of economic collapse, political paralysis, and social despair.
Severing relations with Iran would not be an act of hostility, it would be an act of self-preservation. Expelling IRGC and Quds Force operatives would send an unmistakable message that Lebanon will no longer serve as a chessboard for Tehran’s regional ambitions. It would also strengthen Beirut’s hand internationally, unlocking greater diplomatic and economic support from countries that have long urged Lebanon to reassert control over its own territory.
Critics will argue that this is unrealistic, that Hezbollah is too powerful, that Iran’s grip is too tight. The same was once said of Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria. For years, his hold on power was described as immovable, a permanent fixture of the regional order, sustained by fear, repression, and foreign backing. Today, Assad is no longer in Damascus but holed up in Moscow, a political exile whose fate underscores a hard truth of Middle Eastern politics, proxy systems and strongman regimes often look most durable just before they collapse. What appears entrenched is frequently brittle, and permanence is often an illusion sustained by intimidation and inertia.
But history shows that proxy empires are not invincible. They rely on intimidation, fatalism, and the false belief that resistance is futile. The Lebanese people have already paid an unbearable price for this illusion, from the destruction of the Hezbollah-Israeli war of 2006 to the Beirut port explosion, to the grinding poverty that has hollowed out the middle class. Others will claim that expelling the IRGC would invite retaliation. Yet retaliation is already happening. Israel’s drones are already flying. Lebanese civilians are already dying. Doing nothing is not a neutral position, it is an active choice to allow Lebanon to be slowly bled dry by forces that do not have its interests at heart.
This is also a moment of opportunity. Regional dynamics are shifting. There is growing international impatience with Iran’s destabilizing behaviour, from Gaza to Syria to Yemen and Iraq. There is renewed pressure to disarm militias and restore state authority in Lebanon. If Beirut acts decisively now, it can align itself with this momentum rather than being crushed beneath it. Lebanon deserves to be a nation, not a launchpad. It deserves diplomacy, trade, tourism, and recovery, not perpetual war by proxy. Expelling the IRGC and cutting ties with Tehran will not solve all of Lebanon’s problems overnight. But it would be a clear, courageous first step toward reclaiming the country’s future.
The choice is simple, even if the path is hard. Continue to host Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and remain trapped in an endless cycle of violence, or stand up, assert sovereignty, and give Lebanon a fighting chance at peace.
Struan Stevenson is the Coordinator of the Campaign for Iran Change (CiC). He was a member of the European Parliament representing Scotland (1999-2014), president of the Parliament's Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009-14) and chairman of the Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (2004-14). He is an author and international lecturer on the Middle East.
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