The Phantom of the Embassy: How Lebanon's Resistance Outmaneuvered an Empire

Al Manar

21-04-2025

April 18, 1983, the walls of the US embassy erected as a hive for dozens of CIA agents and their collaborators operating on Lebanese soil on in accordance and association with the Israeli enemy are reduced to rubble, burying those inside. This would be the first of many messages sent by the burgeoning Lebanese Islamic Resistance Movement that would later become Hezbollah to the US empire and its allies.
These attacks, including a massive organized bombing against the US marine base in the Beirut International Airport eventually lead to a complete withdrawal of US presence in the then war-torn Lebanese state. A US presence that just like any other, sought nothing more than to exploit chaos in its own favor, to consolidate power and broker alliances for itself within the upper and lower echelons of the country.
It is tradition for US marines to celebrate the fallen of every campaign the US army has undergone. According to retired Marine Colonel Chuck Dallachie the Marine Corps celebrates everything.
Everything, that is, except for Beirut. 'Because it was a mistake,' said ­Dallachie, who served there in 1983. 'The Marine Corps does not celebrate mistakes.'
US President Ronald Reagan denounced the 'vicious terrorist bombing' as a 'cowardly act,' saying, 'This criminal act on a diplomatic establishment will not deter us from our goals of peace in the region', as if peace was ever a goal of any current or former US administration. But let's not look at the past, the present-day embassy we have in our own country today is proof enough that there is never only diplomacy hidden behind the doors of any US embassy.
We've discussed fairly in previous pieces how large and expansive the US embassy in Lebanon is, resembling nothing more than a military base. Instead, let's talk about the real reason the embassy of 1983 was a target of the most brilliant strategic minds in Hezbollah.
Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer who worked across West Asia, has been unequivocal about the true function of U.S. embassies. In his memoir See No Evil, Baer revealed that 'every American embassy is a nest of spies', with CIA operatives operating under diplomatic cover to recruit assets, gather intelligence, and influence local politics. He explained that the station chief—often the second-most powerful figure in an embassy—runs covert operations while diplomats provide a façade of legitimacy. Baer, who served in Lebanon during the civil war, noted that the 1983 embassy was no exception, functioning as a command center for monitoring Lebanese factions, arming proxies, and coordinating with Israel. His admissions confirm what resistance groups long understood: US embassies are not neutral diplomatic missions but forward bases for imperial subversion.
Robert Baer's own assignments in Lebanon laid bare the CIA's manipulative role in the country's turmoil. During his tenure in the 1980s, Baer was tasked with cultivating intelligence networks, bribing warlords, and tracking Palestinian and resistance movements—all under the guise of diplomatic work. In his memoir See No Evil, he admitted that the CIA's chief concern was not stability, but ensuring Lebanon remained a battleground where US and Israeli interests could dominate. His missions included arming right-wing militias, sabotaging Syrian influence, and gathering targeting data—activities that blurred the line between espionage and warfare. Baer's revelations underscore a critical truth: the 1983 embassy bombing did not target 'innocent diplomats,' but a nerve center of covert operations that had long been meddling in Lebanon's bloodshed.
In an article by Eugene Matos and Adrian Zienkiewicz for the Diplomat Magazine: 'Diplomacy and its legal protection, practices and communication cables, diplomatic bags, have partially, if in theory alone, institutionalized aspects of espionage'. They go on to mention several examples, including in the very beginning of the article, of international CIA agents being completely pardoned of any criminal charges for capital crimes such as murder, espionage, and for what the US calls 'enhanced interrogation', but for the layman it is simply called 'torture'.
The article goes on to discuss the multiple aspects of 'Diplomatic Espionage', giving details as to how embassies all over the world, especially US embassies, exploit the hospitalities of their host countries to monitor everything there is to monitor within the country. So, considering the 5000 US embassy staff members operating on Lebanese soil and the history so well put by Baer, should we really have any doubts as to what they're truly here for?
We must not forget that Baer's authority on this subject and its details is highlighted by his ultimately failed manhunt of our great leader and strategist Hajj Imad Moghniyeh, one of the singular minds of the resistance who was jointly responsible for all three bombing operations mentioned herein.
Robert Baer's hunt for Hajj Imad—monikered by his rivals as the elusive 'phantom operative'—exposed the CIA's obsession with dismantling Lebanon's resistance. In See No Evil, Baer recounts how Hajj Imad, a master of evasion, outmaneuvered the CIA at every turn, using disguises, encrypted communications, and a network of safe houses to vanish into Beirut's streets.
The agency, desperate for revenge after the 1983 attacks, tracked Moghniyeh for over a decade, even plotting kidnappings and assassinations, all of which failed. Baer admitted that Hajj Imad's ability to operate undetected proved the CIA's blindness to the resistance's discipline and tradecraft, a humiliating lesson in asymmetrical warfare.
Most importantly, his account confirms what the 1983 bombing first signaled: 'No amount of US espionage could crush a movement rooted in its people's will'.
To conclude, the mountains of evidence linking US embassies to global espionage may be worth looking at for a truthful look into the realities of US diplomacy, but it's enough to simply listen to how representatives, such as the David Star-Studded Deputy Morgan Ortagus, carry themselves these days, for they may have realized that their tried and tested diplomatic veneers now require too much effort to maintain.
Instead, they've seemed to relegate themselves to what Donald Trump thinks diplomacy is all about: Insulting respected community leaders, politicians, and generals through vain social media posts akin to teenagers.