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“They did everything to kill his father. And here they are again with his copy, younger and stronger.” Ali*, a now retired Hezbollah fighter, sums up with irony the feeling of part of the Shiite community in Lebanon, convinced that the disappearance of Ali Khamenei has only strengthened the Iranian camp. Concerned for his safety, he does not extend to the telephone. “I can’t say more,” he quickly said, before sending a few voice messages to clarify his thoughts.
In Lebanon, this mixture of defiance and fatalism crosses all socio-economic backgrounds among Hezbollah supporters. Sunday evening, when the news of Mojtaba Khamenei‘s appointment broke, Mohamed was sitting at a table in a posh café in the capital. The announcement of the appointment of the new supreme guide hardly seems to move him. This businessman from Bourj el-Brajné, in Dahiyeh, shrugs his shoulders: “Iranians choose what is best for them,” he says in a monotone. But his tone becomes more categorical when he mentions the assassination of Ali Khamenei. “Killing him was the Americans’ greatest mistake. He was very old and, anyway, he didn’t want to die in his bed,” he said. Before predicting: “His successor will be more radical.”
