Naïm Qassem, successor to Hassan Nasrallah at the head of Lebanese Hezbollah, never misses an opportunity to swear loyalty to the Islamic Republic of Iran. He refuses to disarm his movement and increases his warlike outbursts while Donald Trump threatens to intervene militarily in Iran. In Lebanon, the government has been trying for more than a year to control the arsenal of the Shiite movement.

Published on: 07/02/2026 - 11:11

Contrary to the Islamic Republic of Iran, the godmother of Hezbollah, who agreed to negotiate with the American "great satan" to reduce tensions between Tehran and Washington, Naïm Qassem, the leader of the Lebanese Shiite movement, has increased verbal threats and warlike outbursts in recent weeks.

Believing that Donald Trump's threat against Tehran is "also directed" against his movement, he linked the fate of the "party of God" to that of the Iranian supreme leader. “We cannot remain silent in the face of threats from Trump or anyone else against Imam Khamenei, and we are concerned by all the measures necessary to confront them,” he declared in one of his speeches.

“We consider that (the threat) is also directed against us and we reserve full latitude to act as we deem appropriate,” the Shiite leader also warned during a speech broadcast on the party channel, Al-Manar. “As for how we will act, these are details that the battle will determine, in ways proportionate to the circumstances of the moment, but we are not neutral,” he said.

By not ruling out the possibility of getting involved in a possible regional conflict alongside the Islamic Republic, in the event of American strikes against Iran, Naïm Qassem ignores the criticism expressed by a large part of the local political class and above all stands up to the desire of the Lebanese executive to reclaim the monopoly on legitimate violence.

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Lebanese President Joseph Aoun declared that he was working to “avoid the country being dragged into a new war, because the Lebanese people are no longer able to withstand further conflicts, and because international circumstances have created new realities which require a realistic and rational approach to protect Lebanon and its citizens”. A call for realism launched in response to the warlike remarks of the leader of Hezbollah.

In accordance with the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah which came into force in November 2024, the Lebanese army completed, in early January, the first part of the pro-Iranian party's disarmament plan, which concerned the south of the Litani River. But Hezbollah refuses to hand over its arsenal to the north of this area as long as the Israeli army continues to bomb Lebanon and maintains a presence in the South.

“A forced transition”

At 71 years old, the former number 2 of Hezbollah, who succeeded Hassan Nasrallah – the former secretary general revered by his supporters and killed by the Israeli army in September 2024 – was not destined to lead the movement. Even less in such an unfavorable context for the “party of God”. Before being weakened militarily by Israel and politically by the fall of its ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the growing isolation of Iran, the Shiite movement had become one of the main actors in the "Axis of Resistance" set up by Tehran against Israel.

“Naïm Kassem is a leader in spite of himself, being the successor of the successor of Hassan Nasrallah, since both the former secretary general and his cousin Hachem Safieddine were liquidated by the Israelis,” recalls Karim Émile Bitar, teacher at Sciences Po Paris and former dean of Saint-Joseph University in Beirut. “He found himself at the head of this movement in an extremely difficult context, as part of a forced transition.”

A member of the Lebanese Shiite clergy from southern Lebanon and former chemistry professor, Naïm Kassem is one of the founders of Hezbollah, created in 1982 in reaction to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. From 1991, he became its deputy secretary general, a symbolic position which gave him a certain media exposure to the point of becoming one of the best-known faces of the party behind Hassan Nasrallah.

Also read: Can Lebanese Hezbollah be forced to lay down its arms?

“When he was number two, his role was essentially that of a religious and doctrinal executive rather than a charismatic leader, posing rather as a modest religious leader and a theological-political spokesperson quite available for the Arab and international media, in which he addressed the positions of Hezbollah, Shiite identity and relations with Iran,” explains Karim Émile Bitar.

“Unlike Hassan Nasrallah who drew, in the eyes of his supporters, his authority from a certain charismatic capital and a military legitimacy resulting from the fight against Israel, Naïm Qassem never played a major role in the military-security apparatus of Hezbollah,” he continues. "Belonging to a generation of Shiite ulemas trained in Iraq and author of several doctrinal works, he rather embodies, if not a great orator capable of mobilizing crowds, a certain ideological continuity."

“Absolute loyalty to Iran”

In this context, Naïm Qassem sees his own influence inside the country contested. Even within his own party, while Donald Trump, in person, keeps repeating that “Hezbollah in Lebanon is a problem”.

On Wednesday, after meeting the Lebanese president, the head of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc declared that "the fairest positions are those that bring people together, and the most relevant reactions are those marked by realism and positivity."

Comments reported by the daily L'Orient-Le Jour which contrast with the threatening tone of Naïm Qassem and which sound like a response to the head of state's call for reason.

However, for observers, it is difficult to imagine Naïm Kassem renouncing the arsenal accumulated for decades by the Lebanese Shiite movement, or cutting ties with Tehran, "while, as some in Lebanon think, the role of Iran [in the functioning of Hezbollah, Editor's note] is today much more important than it was when Hassan Nasrallah was at the head of the movement", indicates Karim Émile Bitar.

"Naïm Kassem is characterized by his absolute loyalty to Iran, having ensured consistency between the party's political discourse and the doctrine of 'wilayat al-faqih' [which affirms the primacy of religion over politics, which means that the party obeys the supreme guide of the Islamic Republic, Editor's note]", he recalls. “In one of his works, he theorized this link, this organic alliance between Hezbollah and the guide of the Iranian revolution.”

“And for him, who was trying to conceptualize and legitimize the theological and moral necessity of armed resistance,” he concludes, “abandoning the military arsenal, abandoning resistance, in his expression, would be equivalent to a loss of dignity for the entire Shiite community.”

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