Surprising events have created awkward situation for Hizbullah
Iran too mired in post-election troubles to support Lebanese group
A series of surprising and significant events here and abroad have created a daunting summer for Hizbullah that clouds its future, though the group remains the strongest actor on the Lebanese political landscape, a number of analysts told The Daily Star on Monday.
Iran, Hizbullah’s top financial and military benefactor, has been mired in turmoil since a June 12 presidential election set off mass protests over the disputed landslide re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. That poll came less than a week after Hizbullah and its allies in the March 8 alliance suffered an unexpectedly clear defeat by the Western-backed March 14 coalition in parliamentary elections here. Lastly, a munitions cache exploded on July 14 in Khirbet Selm, a Hizbullah stronghold in south Lebanon, and the UN has said the site was a Hizbullah weapons depot in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
“Hizbullah cannot claim to be having a nice vacation,” said Hilal Khashan, head of the department of political studies and public administration at the American University of Beirut.
While the outcome of the Iranian crisis is unclear, it appears Tehran might have difficulty keeping up its recent regional course – including generous support for Hizbullah – as new power centers emerge in Iran and more citizens question the regime and its policies, Khashan added.
“The relationship between Iran and its proxies in the region – namely Hizbullah – will be affected in a negative way,” he said. “Hizbullah remains a powerful actor on the domestic scene, but what is more important than that is its connection to its regional patron. What has changed is not [Hizbullah’s] status in Lebanon, but the support it gets from a regional partner.”
The unresolved situation in Iran has forced Hizbullah to refrain from taking any bold steps here until conditions become more stable in Tehran, said retired General Elias Hanna, who teaches political science at Notre Dame University.
“Iran is occupied in internal problems. That’s why you don’t hear Hizbullah saying anything high-volume,” Hanna said.
Iran’s inability to focus its usual attentions on the region is enhancing the standing of Syria, which seems to be inching away from Iran toward the West and its Arab allies – a move which could also threaten Hizbullah, Hanna said. Hizbullah has long worked closely with Syria, but Damascus is engaged in rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and the US, as US Middle East envoy George Mitchell met on Sunday with Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“All of this is putting more pressure on Hizbullah,” Hanna said. “It’s a little bit off-balance.”
Syrian entente with the West remains in an embryonic phase, but decoupling Damascus from Tehran would have major impact on Lebanon, likely to the detriment of Hizbullah, Khashan said. However, Syria lacks the negotiating and military leverage to disarm Hizbullah, he added. “If Syria changes, then the whole domestic formula is bound to change – that would negatively affect the status of Hizbullah,” he said. “Syria is edging toward the moderate Arab states. Syria is changing. The limitations of Iran are giving Syria leeway.”
On the other hand, Syria derives much of its regional weight from a perceived measure of control over Hizbullah and Hamas, so Damascus would be loathe to abandon Hizbullah, positioning itself instead as a mediator between the West and its foes in the Middle East, said Walid Moubarak, director of the Institute of Diplomacy and Conflict Transformation at the Lebanese American University.
“I don’t think Syria would give up on Hizbullah,” Moubarak said. “Hizbullah has given Syria much bargaining power. Hizbullah is still of use to Syria.”
In addition to difficulties in the region, Hizbullah had to swallow an electoral setback of unforeseen proportions, as the Shiite group and its allies garnered 57 Parliament mandates to 71 seats for the March 14 coalition in the June 7 parliamentary elections.
The emphatic defeat has harmed Hizbullah’s status as a broadly backed Lebanese resistance against Israel, Moubarak said. Many Lebanese reassessed their support for Hizbullah after its fighters seized control of large swathes of Western Beirut during mostly Shiite-Sunni clashes in May 2007, he added.
In addition, much of the populace has come to believe that the Lebanese territories still occupied by Israel will be liberated by diplomatic means and not by force, Moubarak said.
“If I were a member of Hizbullah, I would read the election results very carefully,” he added. “They have a lot to do with its legitimacy as a national resistance movement. Hizbullah doesn’t like … being regarded as a militia. It prefers to be regarded as a national resistance movement. The facts on the ground portray that differently.”
Despite the string of inauspicious events, Hizbullah has not seen any erosion of its core constituency of Shiites, who probably make up the largest sect in Lebanon, Moubarak said. “They have all the Shiites behind them,” he added. “We cannot really ignore this fact.”
Moreover, Hizbullah still stands as the most powerful domestic player because of its military pre-eminence, Moubarak said.
“The balance of power among the different communities in Lebanon is still in favor of Hizbullah, and the reason why is because Hizbullah possess arms, and it’s maybe the most organized party ever in Lebanon,” he said.
The security offered by Hizbullah’s weapons also shape the focus of its post-electoral stance: Hizbullah wants a guarantee – most likely in the form of a one-third share of ministerial posts – that the coming cabinet will not touch Hizbullah’s arms, Moubarak added.
The issue of Hizbullah’s weapons returned to prominence unexpectedly, however, with the July 14 munitions explosion in Khirbet Selm.
The blast put Hizbullah in an awkward position, because – whatever set it off – it would be extremely unusual for Hizbullah to store explosives with fuses or forget all the other precautions typically taken to prevent such an incident, noted Hanna, who has served in the Lebanese Armed Forces as an explosives expert.
“It is an embarrassment for Hizbullah, for sure,” he said. “It is humiliating.”
Hizbullah supporters clashed with peacekeepers from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon on July 18 when the peacekeepers tried to investigate the explosion, and Hizbullah might well have welcomed the skirmishes as a way to deflect attention from the UN finding that Hizbullah had breached Resolution 1701, Khashan said.
Hizbullah might be experiencing an unpleasant summer with all these troubles, but the group is in the end probably unperturbed by the Khirbet Selm incident, and despite the changing political tides Hizbullah has not lost any capability in the south Lebanon region which brought the group to prominence, Hanna said.
“Does it care [about the explosion]? It doesn’t care,” Hanna said.
“Don’t think that Hizbullah is not ready in this area.”