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One of the comments in the post below noted how odd it is that Hizballah even cares about this stupid tribunal given the position of strength the organization enjoys in Lebanon. I agree this makes no sense looking at Lebanon from the outside, but I do not think Hizballah itself sees itself in the same way others see it.
First off, Hizballah's constituency is still the poorest in Lebanon, and until the rise of Musa Sadr in the 1960s and 1970s, it really had no strong political representation. The government in Beirut more or less ignored the needs of the Shia community. Just to give but one example, in pre-war Lebanon, southern Lebanon held 20 percent of the population of Lebanon yet received only 0.7 percent (!) of annual expenditures. Today, thanks to both remittances and more economic opportunities within Lebanon -- not to mention the provision of social services by Hizballah primarily outside the state and by Amal from primarily within the state -- the Shia of Lebanon enjoy a higher economic standing than ever before. But that doesn't mean a Shia Lebanese older than 35 can't think back to when his or her lot in life was a lot worse.
Second, Hizballah's constituency believes -- and not without reason -- that its new-found socio-political standing and seat at the table in Beirut has been won and maintained largely on account of Hizballah's arms. Like U.S. gains in Afghanistan, Hizballah's constituency consider this new respect and representation to be both fragile and reversible. An older Shia can remember the days when the Christians and Sunni trading classes of Beirut and Tripoli dictated their lot in life.
Third, to an outsider, Hizballah looks like the big bully in Lebanon -- which it most certainly is. But from within the organization, all many can see are enemies: Saudi Arabia, Israel, March 14th, the United States, etc. Just because you're paranoid does not mean people are not out to get you, and we know that Hizballah's domestic enemies have conspired with forces outside Lebanon to weaken Hizballah's standing. (Hizballah can also see the way in which the international community, led by the United States, has worked to isolate its primary sponsor, Iran.)
None of this is meant to excuse Hizballah, whose actions since 2000 have run counter to the interests of Lebanon and have caused much suffering for the peoples of both Lebanon and Israel. (I, for one, really wish Hizballah had disarmed and "Lebanonized" -- as some scholars and analysts predicted in the late 1990s that it eventually would.) But it remains a paradox that the organization the rest of the world sees as so strong sees itself as so very weak.
Note to newer readers: this blog mostly covers Afghanistan and Pakistan these days, but it was not always so. I spent from 2004 until 2006 in Lebanon and moved back for most of 2008. I just submitted my doctoral dissertation on Hizballah, too, but have not been back to Lebanon since last fall, so, caveat lector, some of my political analysis may be dated.
Doesn't what AM says here
Doesn't what AM says here about Hezbollah apply to most of the governments in the Arab world?
The only way they can appear strong is to act on the idea that they are always under mortal threat. And sometimes they are, but legitimacy -- the idea that a government or movement once established is ever secure enough to lower its armed guard and start working on economic development or social welfare -- is a rare thing in that part of the world. It probably doesn't help that the skills developed in preparing for war against Israel aren't much use doing anything else.
Recall Fatah Al-Islam? During
Recall Fatah Al-Islam? During the latter years of the Bush Administration a covert proxy war effort was launched against Hizballah by feeding military aid to a small group of highly unstable al-Qaeda linked actors. That was the so-called redirection:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh
Seymour Hersh: “American, European and Arab officials...told me that the Siniora government and its allies has allowed some aid to end up in the hands of emerging Sunni radical groups in northern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and around Palestinian refugee camps in the south. These groups, though small, are seen as a buffer to Hezbollah; at the same time; their ideological ties are with al Qaeda.”
http://aljazeera.com/news/articles/42/Nahr-El-Bared-fighters-US-protg-.html
In a recent interview with CNN International's “Your World Today”, Hersh also said groups like Fatah al-Islam are the result of Washington's underground policies. He said an agreement between the U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national security adviser, stipulated that the Saudi regime “covertly fund the Sunni Fatah al-Islam” as a counterweight to the Lebanon’s Shia resistance movement Hezbollah.
Once again, the Lebanese Army had to go in and halt the fighting in Nahr el-Bared refugee camp. Now, these stupid pet tricks were part of what the Welsh Club - the Elliot Abrams - David Welsh - Condi Rice etc. group (incl Cheney & Bandar) - infamously called the "birth pangs of a new Middle East."
However, nobody was pregnant, and that wasn't a baby - the constipated neocons just passed a giant turd, is all. Hopefully, the new State Department has learned its lesson - though one does wonder.
In any case, the only people who behaved like adults in that whole mess were the Lebanese Army commanders, i.e Michel Sleiman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAIiSvonvXY
P.S. For a good overview of the complex internal-external Lebanese political situation in 2007, see the wonderful Leila Hatoum:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcC5Q6UtoVw
P.P.S. The stupidest thing Hizballah did was to play into these games by kidnapping Israeli soldiers in the summer of 2006. Hopefully they've learned their lesson as well, and won't be pulled into such rope-a-dope strategies again - which would be nice for ordinary Lebanese citizens.
Beyond Hezbollah's
Beyond Hezbollah's insecurity, the tribunal also threatens the party's credibility. According to Hezbollah's ideology, just as there is no compulsion in religion, there is no compunction in resistance. As such, the party prides itself on keeping its word and taking responsibility for its actions.
One of Hezbollah's key promises to Lebanon is that it will never turn its weapons against fellow citizens. That promise was strained to the breaking point in 2008 with the violent takeover of Beirut. Yet they can paper that incident over as an attempt to restore order after a few hotheads overreacted. But if it is proven Hezbollah assassinated Rafiq Hariri, Hezbollah's credibility will suffer significantly. Such a blow would particularly affect the party's non-Shia supporters and, more importantly, threaten the party's political alliance with Michel Aoun and his Maronite base.
Beyond Hezbollah's
Beyond Hezbollah's insecurity, the tribunal also threatens the party's credibility. According to Hezbollah's ideology, just as there is no compulsion in religion, there is no compunction in resistance. As such, the party prides itself on keeping its word and taking responsibility for its actions.
One of Hezbollah's key promises to Lebanon is that it will never turn its weapons against fellow citizens. That promise was strained to the breaking point in 2008 with the violent takeover of Beirut. Yet they can paper that incident over as an attempt to restore order after a few hotheads overreacted. But if it is proven Hezbollah assassinated Rafiq Hariri, Hezbollah's credibility will suffer significantly. Such a blow would particularly affect the party's non-Shia supporters and, more importantly, threaten the party's political alliance with Michel Aoun and his Maronite base.
{sigh} Tell me something that
{sigh}
Tell me something that is not self evident.
Why should people in the US care?
Hillary Clinton was pointing her finger at the Arabs states telling them to be proactive with their water problems. Do they need a Mommy?
It is their countries, let them be.
Isn't Israel the one that has
Isn't Israel the one that has destabilized the region by being expansionary and being an Apartheid regime?...It's pretty clear that Hezbollah would not exist except to protect the people of Southern Lebanon from Israeli atrocities...
I think Stephen Walt wrote in
I think Stephen Walt wrote in "Revolution and War" that revolutionary states are simultaneously aggressive and insecure. Maybe that applies to social/military (or whatever you want to label Hezbollah) as well.
ADTS
This is hilarious - Al
This is hilarious - Al Jazeera is quoting Elliot Abrams as a "democracy-promotion adviser!"
"Elliot Abrams, former George W Bush security and democracy-promotion adviser:
Hezbollah has been holding the entire country hostage while arming itself to the teeth with the help of Syria and Iran. Today’s Hezbollah resignation from the government, where it formally held minority status, is a threat to every Lebanese. If Hariri complies with Hezbollah's demands, he is in my view finished as a national and as a Sunni leader, having compromised his own, his family's, and his country's honour. It appears that Hariri won't do it, which is both a moral and a politically intelligent decision. Instead he and his country are left floating, trying to avoid violence that may only benefit Hezbollah and watching Saudi and Syrian mediation whose outcome for Lebanese sovereignty is likely to be tragic."
Neocons talking about "honor" - too much! More disturbingly, Hillary Clinton seems to be on the neocon side of the fence:
Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state:
"We view what happened today as a transparent effort by those forces inside Lebanon, as well as interests outside Lebanon, to subvert justice and undermine Lebanon’s stability and progress," Clinton said during a news conference at the Forum for the Future in Doha, Qatar. "We believe that the work of the special tribunal must go forward so justice can be served and impunity ended."
There are probably equally valid arguments that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon is also an "interest outside Lebanon" and not a true impartial actor in the conflict. The real question is this: why do external interests continue to play their dirty little proxy games in Lebanon, to the detriment of the interests of the Lebanese people? What do the idiots really hope to achieve there?
Nothing of value, as far as I can see. A pissing match between stuffed shirts, perhaps? Or are they worried that if Lebanon developed a true working peaceful democracy, then it might spread to their own autocratic states - since Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt etc. are all repressive states without real democracies, and Israel also has a two-tier system in which Arabs are second-class citizens, even if they are far more democratic than Saudi Arabia?
Elliot Abrams, in any case, is more of a democracy suppression advisor than anything else - and Hillary is sounding a lot like Condi, isn't she? Birth pangs, here we come...
"None of this is meant to
"None of this is meant to excuse Hizballah, whose actions since 2000 have run counter to the interests of Lebanon and have caused much suffering for the peoples of both Lebanon and Israel. (I, for one, really wish Hizballah had disarmed and "Lebanonized" -- as some scholars and analysts predicted in the late 1990s that it eventually would.) But it remains a paradox that the organization the rest of the world sees as so strong sees itself as so very weak."
Perspectives from the Hizballah narrative:
**"Lebanon" is a collection of communities, not a nation-state. Hizballah's growing deterrent prevents much suffering for Lebanese Shia. Want an example? Lebanon from 83-96. Suffering of other Lebanese communities? They should discuss that with their za'im.
**Disarm? In front of the IDF? Without any formal end to Lebanon-Israel hostilities? Let alone a regional context? Are you sekran?
**Weakness is a relative concept. Hizballah is strong in a domestic Lebanese context, but even that has limits, as the Party learned when it moved into the Shuf in 2008. But against the IDF?
Nasrallah is a much clearer thinker than Americans give him credit. God grant us such rational and effective allies in the future.
Bingo......rayoflight It is
Bingo......rayoflight
It is about Israel. It has been a religious pissing contest since.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Israel. It is one of the many places that the US has stepped on its dick. Vietnam was another. We supported Ho before Ho decide to get rid of the US. Afghanistan is another dick mashing experience. We liked that one so much we are back for more.
Someone should have thought about all those Palestinians that lost their homeland in 1948.
Think someone might get upset about loosing their land? Hard earned wages? Obamacare? Naaaaah , they love it.
We will educate them to love it......
Congratulations on turning in
Congratulations on turning in your dissertation, AM. Best wishes on the defense.
A simplistic focus on
A simplistic focus on Israel's poorly-considered behavior and de facto apartheid system misses the larger point that the autocratic Arab states rather like having Israel around as their propaganda whipping boy - it takes the focus off the fact that they are about as repressive to their own minority / disenfranchised groups as Israel is to Palestinians (a Shia Saudi, let alone a imported South Asian slave-employee, is not much better off than a Palestinian in the West Bank, and might actually have it worse). Similar issues exist in Iran, in Syria, in other Gulf Arab fiefdoms, as well as the North African states.
It's like this: if Lebanon develops a healthy multi-cultural democracy, then it will serve as a model and an example for repressed peoples all over the Middle East, and they'll clamor for the same thing. Or, you could say that Orwellian states need external enemies to help justify the repression of internal dissent.
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