Iran and Hezbollah - Together as One?

   Should we examine Hezbollah separately from Iran, its sponsor state, or should we treat the organization as a strategically integral part of the Shiite state? In order to resolve this dilemma, it is essential to bear in mind Hezbollah’s establishment in the 1980's as both a social services organization and resistance movement.

   From the social standpoint, Iran saw in Hezbollah an opportunity to export the values of its Islamic revolution of 1979 to Lebanon. The Shiite community, which resides predominantly in southern Lebanon, was easy to influence during and following the chaotic civil war. The war left the Shiite community neglected, lacking in social services and impoverished, and the Iranian regime provided spiritual and material inspiration to the nascent Shiite groups. In 1983 the newly formed Hezbollah (“Party of God”) introduced an extensive network of social services funded by Iran, including health services, water distribution, electricity, and even garbage removal. The Lebanese government was unable to provide these services and Hezbollah used these services to build a support base in the Shiite community.

   Today, Hezbollah’s social institutions serve the Shiite community and Lebanese citizens from all religions. Unlike its initial reliance on Iranian funding, Hezbollah has developed diverse global chains of charities, mostly in the U.S. and the U.K., to support their social services in Lebanon.

   Hassan Nasrallah and Naim Qassem often refer to the “resistance society” in their public speeches. Resistance, they say, is a mission and a responsibility for every Shi’a believer in his or her everyday life. According to this outlook, resistance is part militant action, but is also political and social: it is a choice in everyday life.

   From the resistance/militaristic standpoint, Hezbollah was originally made up of recruits from the secular Shiite Amal resistance movement and other revolutionary Shiite groups that were active during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1989). These recruits were gathered by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to create a more radical religious, Shiite, pro-Iranian militia that would safeguard Iran’s interests in the region. Hezbollah adheres to Iran's ideology of the velayat-e faqih (rule by the Islamic jurist) and Tehran had provided approximately $100-$200 million to the organization annually from the organization’s founding until recent economic sanctions.

   Many Western terrorism experts, from Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy to Daniel Byman of Georgetown University agree that for Iran, Hezbollah acting as its proxy army enables to strike Israel and other targets without risking direct confrontation. The organization is also Iran’s proxy in increasing its influence in the Levant.

   Politicians from Israel and the U.S. also jump on this wagon, because it is politically expedient to link these two threats. After all, Hezbollah was created by Iran, and is expected to follow its orders and function without free will. In this approach, the counter-strategy should be focused on the major threat – Iran. Conventional wisdom states that if you cut the head of the monster, the body will cease its activities; a clear-cut solution.

   However, there is another view of Hezbollah, as a creation that has taken on a life, identity and autonomy of its own, albeit with Iran's continued funding and support. The basis of this view, as argued by Lina Khatib of Stanford University, is Hezbollah’s political evolution into a democratically elected party. As a result of the Lebanonization process undergone by the organization over recent years, Hezbollah has eliminated some of its original Iranian influences and Nasrallah has had to repeatedly, publicly state his loyalty to Lebanese leadership.

   Hezbollah of 2012 is not the Hezbollah of the 1980’s. It has a strong political facet in Lebanon and has been in the governing coalition since June 2011. They have been participating in Lebanese national dialogue the last few months to bridge disagreements between political factions to try and stabilize Lebanon. As a pure resistance movement, Hezbollah would not have taken part in such national reconciliation.

   Hezbollah has also strengthened its network of social institutions within Lebanon and established branches all over the world. It has also improved its well-established group of charitable organizations for raising funds, with deep awareness that Iranian funding will not be dependable for long.

   The organization makes its own decisions, but needs to show loyalty to the concept of velayat-e faqih. That is the nature of a religious movement. Middle East politics is what makes everything so complicated. Hezbollah wants to pay respect, but wants to prove its power and strength. For instance, it is convenient for both Hezbollah and Israel, to neglect to mention that much of Hezbollah's weapons arsenal comes from Hezbollah’s wide-ranging arm smuggling network in Africa and not from Syria or Iran. Why? Israel does not want to distract the world's awareness from the Iranian problem, and Hezbollah obviously wants the world to overlook its activities in this part of the world, so this weird collaboration works for both sides.

   I believe that contrary to Nasrallah’s statements, and with the current situation in Lebanon and Syria, Hezbollah is first and foremost dedicated to maintaining its position in Lebanon rather than backing Iran. Nonetheless, Hezbollah might attack Israel following an Israeli strike on Iran, but this would not differ from the response of any ally in any military conflict. With no Israeli attack on Iran, Lebanon remains the important part of the equation.        

   The questions we should ask ourselves are as follows, and I open it to discussion with my readers:

- Is the threat posed by Hezbollah sufficiently small to justify attaching it to Iran’s greater threat?

- Has the concrete attachment that Israeli and American security agencies and politicians have created through the years failed us in the war against Hezbollah?

- If so – do we need a shift in strategy to better deal with these two different threats?

For further reading see: Lina Khatib, “Hezbollah's Political Strategy,” Survival 53, no. 2 (April-May 2011)

Hezbollah - Stay Out of Trouble!! (Part 3)

   Let me start by saying: Hezbollah cannot afford for the "powder-keg" of Lebanon to explode into full-scale civil war. Moreover, Hezbollah cannot afford a war with Israel due to the severe consequences for the organization itself, its supporters, Lebanon and the region.

   Given Hezbollah’s sensitivity to local and regional conflicts, it would be risky for it to try to revive the terrorism myth by perpetrating terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. Over the past two decades, the organization has carried the labels of pragmatism and Lebanonization, and acts of extremist violence do nothing but undo this hard work. Of all of Hezbollah’s labels, ’resistance’ was meant to be the most aggressive. The label of ’terrorist group’ shouldn’t have been carried by an organization wanting to be recognized as a legitimized player in national, regional and global games.

   Hezbollah does indeed want to be a part of the Lebanese political system. Nasrallah realizes, and emphasizes that "the alternative to dialogue among rival political leaders is chaos." The dialogue Nasrallah is referring to stands at the same point, more or less, for months – disagreement between the rival March 14 coalition and the March 8 alliance whether Hezbollah should be disarmed. Nasrallah refuses to disarm Hezbollah, but agrees to continue the dialogue in order to find another solution that might satisfy his political rivals.

   Aside from the "white aspect," there is the criminal aspect of the organization. By renewing its terrorist activity, Hezbollah is also risking its global criminal networks. The execution of terrorist activities requires financial resources that Hezbollah does not have at the moment. Currently, Western governments hunt terrorists more aggressively than they do criminals. Hezbollah’s smuggling cell in the Canada., for example, could be charged with terrorism, incapacitating that part of their criminal enterprise.

   Contrary to Hassan Nasrallah’s radical and hateful public statements, he is, in fact, a pragmatic leader of a multi-faced international organization. Although Israeli and American security agencies consider Hezbollah to be as a terrorist organization, it is important to remember that every coin has another side, and in the case of Hezbollah, the coin has four sides. Nasrallah’s every statement has a rationalization, but they all have the same goal – gaining points in Lebanese public opinion and frightening the Israeli public. But Nasrallah is not aiming for war.

   The Middle East, one should note, is a militaristic region, with militaristic countries. Hezbollah is a natural player in the region, and exists primarily to resist the State of Israel.

   Nasrallah's statements are just empty threats. Nasrallah knows it, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati knows it, and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu knows it. And yet, none of these kings and bishops tells the pawns in Israel and Lebanon, who expect another imminent, deadly war. What a shame.     

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2012/Aug-07/183700-nasrallah-alternative-to-dialogue-is-chaos.ashx#ixzz22qmdcLLj 

Hezbollah – Back to Terrorism: Reviving the Myth (Part 2)

   It seems that Hezbollah is at its lowest point in years: networks of senior officials spying for the Mossad and CIA, its telecom devices destroyed by the IDF, millions of dollars of embezzled funds discovered a few months ago by one of the organization’s seniors, and internal disagreements in the organization's leadership – all with wide coverage in the Lebanese and global media.

   Hassan Nasrallah is witness to all and cannot believe this is the same organization he took over in 1992. The powerful, unharmed, secretive and uncorrupt resistance/terrorist organization with fearless, dedicated and disciplined fighters has degenerated to become the opposite – weak, disorganized and permeable. Now Nasrallah has to prove to the world and to his people that he is still in control. For this purpose, militant statements work, but militant actions are even more effective.

   For the sake of this post, the author assumes that Hezbollah was behind the attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria. Nasrallah openly declared after Imad Mughniyah's assassination in 2008 that revenge to the 'Zionists' will come. Since then, American and Israeli security intelligence sources have argued that Hezbollah keeps trying to execute terrorist activities against Israeli targets, but until now, has failed.

   The successful attack in Bulgaria came just in time for Hezbollah, and particularly for Nasrallah. The attack was perpetrated a few hours before Nasrallah's intended speech marking the sixth anniversary of the July 2006 war with Israel. Unfortunately for Nasrallah, another attack occurred earlier that day – the suicide attack in the Syrian Cabinet meeting, which killed Bashar al-Assad's Defense and Interior ministers. In his evening speech, Nasrallah eulogized the dead Syrian ministers and ignored the attack in Bulgaria.

   By simply ignoring the terrorist attack in Bulgaria and Hezbollah's alleged responsibility for it, Nasrallah elevated his position as a leader, and eliminated, at least for the coming period, internal disagreements. In doing so he replaced the failed terrorist/resistance organization label with Hezbollah’s natural label - the terrorism myth. Hezbollah is back to being the fierce organization it used to be.

   Less than a month following the attack, Hezbollah decided to demonstrate its power and terrorist mystique once more. Last Friday night (July 27), when most Israeli families were sitting around the Shabbat dinner table and watching the news, Hezbollah released a short video showing the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers on July 12, 2006. This video gives Hezbollah major credit with its global and domestic supporters and raises its prestige as a resistance movement.

   At this point, Hezbollah needs to gain strength and improve its reputation, so we can assume that the terrorist attack in Bulgaria and the kidnapping film are just the tip of the iceberg. Hezbollah must have determined that these steps would not start a war with Israel at this point in time, as Israel is distracted by bigger concerns, such as nuclear Iran. On the other hand, the organization came to the same conclusion about potential Israeli response before the kidnapping of the two soldiers in July 2006. And we all know how that ended up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMDDr1IMXh0&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fresults%3Fsearch_query%3Dhezbollah%2Bkidnapped%2Bisraeli%2Bsoldiers%2B2006%26oq%3Dhezbollah%2Bki%26gs_l%3Dyoutube-reduced.1.1.0l2.66276.72550.0.74674.12.9.0.3.3.1.348.1899.1j3j2j3.9.0...0.0...1ac.BbTj6mekFOw&has_verified=1