The Hezbollah Problem

To defang Iran, and help Lebanon and Israel, we must demilitarize Hezbollah. Which means we’ll have to talk to them.

How to handle Iran may be the most pressing foreign-policy question of our time. The evolving consensus seems to be that in the face of a duplicitous and antagonistic Iranian leadership that refuses to engage seriously with the United States, containment is the least objectionable option. The containment view—notably expressed by James Lindsay and Ray Takeyh in Foreign Affairs—holds that Washington should adopt a broad array of energetic policies to blunt a potentially nuclear Iran’s influence and ambitions. In particular, the United States should bolster nuclear and conventional deterrence and tailor it to Iranian threats; intensify non-proliferation measures and efforts to resolve conflicts that Tehran exploits; and mobilize an international network in support of “smart” sanctions.

The alternative is to consider a more ambitious policy of rollback. The term originated with those hard-liners who wanted to invade the Soviet Union in 1946-47 but acquired a more respectable cast in the 1980s as Reagan Administration hawks’ label for more aggressive U.S. efforts to stem Soviet expansion, which helped advance the collapse of the Soviet Union. In modified form, rollback may be the better, if more challenging, option for dealing with Iran. The place to begin the campaign to roll back Iran should be Lebanon, where, apart from Iraq, Iran’s provocations and influence are most stark and troublesome. But major powers cannot simply scold Iran—or Syria, its strategic partner—out of Lebanon with periodic demarches. Instead, they need to focus sharply and durably on demilitarizing Iran’s most powerful and dangerous proxy in the region: the militant Lebanese Shi’ite Muslim group Hezbollah. This means orchestrating an intensive Western re-engagement in Lebanon that induces Hezbollah to reassess its priorities and ultimately subordinate its objective of extinguishing the state of Israel to that of competing for political primacy in Lebanon.

As we noted on the website of Foreign Affairs earlier this year, when we first broached this topic, the British government has been working, somewhat tentatively, in this direction. Capping London’s six-month long behind-the-scenes effort to get a meeting with the political arm of Hezbollah, in June, Frances Guy, the United Kingdom’s ambassador to Lebanon, sat down with Mohammed Raad, a Hezbollahi member of the Lebanese parliament. She urged full implementation of U.N. Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1701, which ended the 34-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah and calls for the disarmament of all non-state militant groups. In December, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he wanted the UK’s dialogue with Hezbollah to continue. As Max Weber once noted, the monopoly of the use of force is essential to the modern state. Thus, the substantial demilitarization, if not the complete disarmament, of Hezbollah—the only effectively armed militia left from the Lebanese civil war and a highly capable terrorist organization—is required to transform Lebanon from a perpetually war-torn society and geopolitical pawn into a durable 21st-century state.

Ostensibly, prospects for Hezbollah’s demilitarization are dim. On November 9, some five months after Lebanon’s parliamentary elections, the country’s two main political blocs—Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s Western-backed “March 14” coalition and the “March 8” opposition group led by Hezbollah—at last formed a governing cabinet. Until then, several issues, including Hezbollah’s disarmament, had stalled negotiations. A month after reaching the deal, though, the government capitulated, passing a bill effectively allowing Hezbollah to keep its weapons. Its relative political strength, combined with its retention of a formidable arsenal, makes Lebanon’s political future fraught in the absence of extraordinary diplomatic efforts by outside actors. That very strength might also appear to make any such efforts unlikely to succeed. But the fact remains that most Lebanese want a normalized Lebanon, freed from the role of client state and relieved of the threat of a formidable private militia. Demilitarization would be possible through diplomatic engagement if outside powers provided sufficient support for the domestic actors in favor of it.

Hezbollah’s Strategic Provenance

Hezbollah evolved as a state-sponsored, distinctly anti-Israeli organization—first as a military instrument of Syria, and then as Iran’s strategic asset. When the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was expelled from Jordan in 1975, it moved into Lebanon and spurred the growing Muslim majority to challenge the Maronite Christian government. The Muslim-Christian civil war ensued. Damascus exploited the resulting instability to take military control of Lebanon—which Syria considered its territory—in the hope of threatening Israel on its northern border and retaking the Golan Heights. Supporting the Christian government, Israel intervened with air attacks in 1976 and, in March 1978, invaded Lebanon to provide a more effective deterrent. Shortly thereafter, Israel withdrew. After four more years of cross-border hostilities, Israel invaded again, this time with some 80,000 troops. Israel quickly routed the PLO and Syrian troops in the southern part of the country, and maintained its presence to deter further PLO and Syrian attacks. In 1983, Hezbollah arose as an anti-Israeli splinter group of Amal, an existing Shi’ite organization. Unable to confront Israel militarily, Syria nurtured Hezbollah, which became the most effective military force against Israel in Lebanon.

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7

Post a Comment

Name

Email

Comments (you may use HTML tags for style)

Verification

Note: Several minutes will pass while the system is processing and posting your comment. Do not resubmit during this time or your comment will post multiple times.