Iran International
Lebanon is one of Iran's key launchpads for regional influence via its longtime armed ally Hezbollah, but Beirut dealt a deep cut this week when its foreign minister curtly declined an invitation to visit Tehran.
The government has bristled over Iran's defiant stance on a bid to disarm Hezbollah, badly mauled in a war with Israel in 2024, by year's end.
Youssef Raji declined Abbas Araghchi's invitation to visit Iran in a written reply on Wednesday. Without dwelling on the specifics, Raji said the circumstances were not right but that talks could occur in a "neutral third country."
Asserting the state's right to have a monopoly over arms on its territory, Raji cited what he called Lebanon's insistence on its sovereignty and independence.
Araghchi responded a day later, also on X, in remarks that clearly reflected Tehran’s irritation. Raji’s decision “not to welcome Iran's reciprocation of his warm hospitality,” he wrote, “is bemusing.”
He added that "foreign ministers of nations with brotherly and full diplomatic relations need no ‘neutral’ venue to meet," adding he would gladly accept his Lebanese counterpart’s invitation to go to Beirut.
Official Iran–Lebanon relations have been tense over Hezbollah and disarmament.
Contradictory Iranian statements have intensified the strain: Araghchi emphasized non-interference in Lebanon’s internal affairs in August, but four days later Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, declared Hezbollah “more essential than water and bread” for the Lebanese and reiterated Tehran’s support.
Core issue
Disarmament of Hezbollah lies at the center of current Tehran-Beirut relations. Last week, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam announced that the army must dismantle Hezbollah’s military infrastructure south of the Litani River by 2026.
The plan, approved by the Lebanese government, calls for disarming all militias. Hezbollah has refused. For Beirut, disarmament is seen as a way to ease Israeli pressure and rebuild the economy without the permanent shadow of war.
Tensions were evident during Supreme National Security Council Chief Ali Larijani’s visit to Lebanon last August, shortly after the ceasefire with Israel.
A Lebanese media report which was promptly withdrawn but never denied by Beirut said that former army chief turned President Joseph Aoun sharply criticized Larijani’s comments about supporting Lebanese Shia, prompting Larijani to leave angrily.
A second meeting request by Larijani was denied, the report added, and the Lebanese foreign minister refused to meet him, stating he would not have agreed even if time allowed.
'Deep humiliation'
Araghchi invited Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Youssef Raji to Tehran immediately after Israel and Lebanon appointed envoys for talks earlier this month.
Beirut delayed its response until after the Israeli and Lebanese representatives met on Lebanese soil.
Tehran is concerned these meetings could pave the way for normalization with Israel—or even Lebanese accession to the Abraham Accords.
Sara Kermanian, an international relations expert, described the decision as “deeply humiliating for Iran.”
She said Lebanon sees its relationship with Iran as a double-edged sword. The government wants to avoid negotiations that could jeopardize Western financial aid from the United States and the International Monetary Fund in return for agreeing to Hezbollah’s disarmament, while at the same time, it needs Iran’s consent to prevent the standoff from bubbling into civil war.
“Hence their proposal for talks in a neutral country.”
Political analyst Jaber Rajabi said the rejection “may reflect the fact that Lebanon is hearing the footsteps of the Islamic Republic’s collapse—or at least the end of its era of regional influence,” he added.
Strategic calculus in Tehran
Nearly all major media outlets, including the state media, have refrained from analysis, pointing to the possibility that the Supreme National Security Council instructed outlets to downplay the incident.
Most outlets appeared to misrepresent the news, using headlines such as “Lebanese Foreign Minister Issues Official Apology to Araghchi” or emphasized Raji’s call for “a new phase of relations with Iran.”
Some outlets such as the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) and the state-run Shafagh News Agency, however, republished a translation of an article by veteran Palestinian journalist Abdel Bari Atwan sharply criticizing Raji.
“Such a response could only come from the foreign minister of a country that is at war with another. Is Lebanon really at war with Iran that they must meet in a neutral country?” Atwan wrote.
The reformist daily Shargh was the only Iranian outlet to publish an analytical report, titled “Beirut’s Cautious Letter to Tehran without directly commenting on Raji's response to the Iranian foreign minister.
Shargh highlighted that Raji’s insistence that “the monopoly of arms must remain with the state and national army” signals to regional and Western actors that Lebanon’s new government is pursuing stronger state sovereignty and measured distance from non-state armed groups.
Raji’s approach, Shargh wrote, is an attempt to preserve Lebanon’s room for maneuver to maintain more distant ties with Iran while avoiding overt tension.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.