Iran’s regime is playing the same game of ‘jam tomorrow’ promises in the four Arab nations across the region which it claims to control. In Lebanon, where the national power grid has effectively collapsed, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahia last week vowed that Iran would be building two power stations. The regime in Tehran is also promising to fund reconstruction in Syria, Iraq and Yemen; some observers might suggest this is only fair after it helped fund and help carry out much of the destruction, along with mass displacement and refugee crises, in all three countries.

As Lebanese activist Mustapha Hamoui noted on Twitter, ‘One important part of the “Iran providing electricity to Lebanon” conversation is to realize that this would be a significant, long-term financial and political burden on the Iranian regime. Iran can hardly keep the lights on for its own people. The Iranians, being the rational players that they are, will want to maximize their strategic benefits while minimizing their burden. This is why the “promise” of an Iranian power plant is much more useful to the regime than an actual power plant.’

Hamoui added, ‘So I predict that we will be bombarded with the promise of an Iranian power plant from now til the elections [in March 2022], and then everyone will forget about it…’