Fresh martyr posters for Lebanese Hezbollah terrorists hang from almost every lamppost and along the median strips of main arteries.By Michael Rubin, Middle East ForumSix months ago, Hezbollah was keeping a low profile. Hezbollah flags flew deep inside the serpentine alleyways of Dahiya, the southern suburb in which Hezbollah dominated, but along the main roads bordering the neighborhood and the arteries traversing it, overt signs of Hezbollah were rare.In neighborhood cafes, men hung out—many missing fingers or eyes after Israeli intelligence detonated the sabotaged beepers they carried.President Joseph Aoun’s rise represented another blow. Aoun, a former Lebanese Armed Forces commander, won his position only because Hezbollah had lost its de facto veto.Prime Minister Nawaf Salam was likewise a fresh face, arising not from a political party, but because of his stature as a diplomat and jurist.The fall of the Assad regime in Syria was a blow to not only Iran, which counted President Bashar al-Assad as its only reliable ally in the region, but also to Hezbollah, for whom Syria was the final brick in the land bridge that shuttled supplies from Iran across Iraq to Syria and then onward to Lebanon.With Hezbollah losing control of Lebanon’s main international airport in 2024, the group was feeling both a financial squeeze and logistical resupply difficulties.Today, Dahiya tells a different story. Not only Hezbollah flags, but also the Islamic Republic of Iran’s flags, line the streets; indeed, the only flag missing appears to be Lebanon’s own.While more buildings are now rubble—precise hits with no damage to neighboring structures—the mood is celebratory.Fresh martyr posters for Lebanese Hezbollah terrorists hang from almost every lamppost and along the median strips of main arteries.Hezbollah displays photos of both Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his son and successor Mojtaba, as well as the late Qods Force chief Qassem Soleimani.Hezbollah, meanwhile, has slowly increased its presence at the airport, setting up the framework to once again receive weaponry from Iran and Shi’ite militias in Iraq.With the solemn Shi’ite mourning commemoration ‘Ashura, the anniversary of Imam Hussein’s martyrdom at the 680 ad Battle of Karbala, approaching on June 25, the mood today in Dahiya is festive.Men, women, and children hand out candies, cakes, and lemonade at nearly every intersection.Several are draped with Hezbollah sashes; some children wore pictures of family members killed in the recent fighting.Nor is it just on the streets that Lebanese see President Donald Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran as a clear victory for the Islamic Republic.On March 24, 2026, Lebanon’s foreign minister declared Iran’s charge d’affaires, Ambassador Mohammad Reza Sheibani, persona non grata and ordered him to depart the country by March 29 because of his financing and support for Hezbollah.Sheibani refused. Nearly three months later, he remains in Lebanon, calling himself an envoy rather than ambassador. Just a few blocks from Dahiya, the Iranian embassy still functions.Just a month ago, direct talks between Israel and Lebanon progressed to their furthest point in more than four decades.Israel faced a terrorist threat from Hezbollah, while the Iranian-backed group threatened Lebanon’s sovereignty. With its leadership gone, Hezbollah appeared on the ropes.While martyr posters of late Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah are now ever-present in Dahiya, I spotted only a single poster of Naim Qassem, his uncharismatic and unremarkable successor.This does not signal the death of Hezbollah, but rather, the end of the pretense that it is a Lebanese movement.Few analysts doubt that when, in 1983, Hezbollah attacked the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks, it did so on the orders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.Still, over subsequent decades, U.S. intelligence analysts and think-tankers argued the group had become a legitimate Lebanese nationalist group.The group’s persistence after Israel’s 2000 withdrawal and its dispatch as mercenaries for Assad during the Syrian civil war should have disabused anyone of the notion that Hezbollah prioritized Lebanon first.Today, Lebanese officials describe Hezbollah as merely the local branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They may use Lebanese as fodder, but they are an occupying force on the outskirts of Beirut.Trump may spin his memorandum of understanding as a triumph and describe Iran’s agreement as a sign of its absolute surrender, but such spin has no resonance in Lebanon.When a fiercely anti-American terrorist group celebrates and believes it has received a life raft after what might have been an existential defeat, that is a sign that the deal the White House now embraces may not be the success that Trump and Vice President JD Vance describe.The post Hezbollah celebrates the Iran deal as a clear victory appeared first on World Israel News.