Inspiration:

The Iranians, with their crashing rial economy, have been offering Beirut even more cash – from where, exactly, we don’t know – than the Americans, along with guns, agricultural and industrial assistance.

Fisk, Robert. “Lebanon is on a tightrope, balancing Saudi, Iranian and Western interests — its position is precarious.” The Independent, August 31, 2018.

I’d assign the delusional surrealism to the narcissism involved in most politics middle east but may also note that the transnational narcotics and other smuggling businesses may be doing well for Hezbollah and whatever else Iran has going “behind the curtains” and “under the table”. The main player in pressuring up illicit funds from all sources has to be Moscow — and Moscow loves frozen conflicts as well as unsettled and weak governments. It doesn’t seem to know how to create much good, but it sure knows how to gin up a lot of cash ready for the laundry.

Back to something like observable reality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_equipment_manufactured_in_Iran

Iran has the industry; the west has the addicts and coke heads — and there may be the cash for the arms. I do wonder how that might actually look in numbers.

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