January 21, 2015
The Israeli attack Sunday in the
Syrian Golan Heights that killed Hezbollah and Iranian officials has
understandably generated much speculation primarily about whether, when and how
Hezbollah would retaliate against Israeli targets. The easy answer is that, of
course Hezbollah will respond, in some manner that it deems appropriate, but
this is really not the most significant aspect of what is happening. That label
must go to two related phenomena, which are the tangled dynamics of Hezbollah’s
relations inside Lebanon and around the Middle East, and that the Israeli
attack in Syria — an almost routine event in the last few decades, sadly —
actually hit three targets in one, namely Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.
How those three members of the “Resistance and Deterrence Front” (RDF) will or
can retaliate against Israel strikes me as the significant issue here, because
it can clarify the consequences of Hezbollah’s two concentric circles of its
relationships within Lebanese politics and among the RDF in the wider Middle
East.
Years ago, Hezbollah was a simpler actor, defined mainly by its two most
successful legacies: military resistance to Israel, and mobilizing and lifting
up the Lebanese Shiite community from the bottom of Lebanese society to
dominance of the national governance system (even though that dominance usually
was played out behind the scenes and took the form of blocking decisions it
disliked, until a national consensus was a reached that it liked). Today,
Hezbollah is a different and more complex actor, reflecting new, or just more
explicit elements of, its basic dimensions: its active warfare and military
deterrence with Israel, its fighting in Syria to maintain the Assad regime, its
fighting against takfiri militants like Jabhat el-Nusra inside Lebanon,
its continued structural and strategic links with Iran, and its deep dialogue
with the Future movement and allied March 14 forces in Lebanon to
reduce domestic polarization and reconstitute a legitimate governance system
with a functioning parliament and presidency.
A decade ago Hezbollah was widely acclaimed in much of Lebanon and the region
for leading the battle to liberate South Lebanon from Israeli occupation. With
every post-2000 military engagement with Israel that caused great destruction
and human dislocation inside Lebanon, Hezbollah’s luster has dimmed a bit;
today very polarized Lebanese see it either as the nation’s savior and
protector, or a dangerous Iranian Trojan Horse. The latter argue that Hezbollah
is an instrument of Iranian foreign policy that ridicules Lebanese sovereignty
and endangers all Lebanese by keeping them hostage to another destructive war
with Israel to serve Iranian strategic interests. That argument about whether
Hezbollah serves Lebanese or Iranian interests has gone on for years and
remains inconclusive.
Hezbollah’s active military and intelligence work in the north-east of Lebanon
and its cooperation with the revived and strengthened Lebanese armed forces is
a new dimension of its actions and priorities, one which most Lebanese are
grateful for because they know that its military capabilities are a valuable
element in repelling takfiri assaults from Syria by groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra.
So quite a few Lebanese now have another reason to simultaneously criticize
Hezbollah for entangling Lebanon deeper in the war in Syria which has come into
Lebanon in a frightening manner, while quietly appreciating Hezbollah for its
role in fighting alongside the Lebanese armed forces against the takfiris and
maintaining Lebanon’s integrity.
So the answer to the common question of whether Lebanese citizens support or
oppose Hezbollah is, “a little of both.” This complexity which has now replaced
the formerly linear and one-dimensional attitudes to Hezbollah is matched by
similar multi-faceted regional entanglements. Hezbollah-Syria-Iran are a single
unit in geo-strategic terms, and in recent years Iraq and Hamas variously have
been part of that alignment. So when Israel struck against all three parties in
the Golan Heights Sunday, it meant that analyzing when and how any
retaliation would occur had to consider the condition, interests, capabilities
and broader strategic interests of Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran.
That mini-universe automatically dovetails into a much wider cosmos that
includes the United States, Russia, global oil markets, Sunni-Shiite tensions
in the Middle East, fighting against ISIS, and other factors that directly link
Israeli-Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah relations to half a dozen major dynamics in
the Middle East and further afield. There is not a deep history of Syria and
Iran directly attacking Israel or Israeli interests (perhaps, as some argue,
because they have always left this dangerous task to Hezbollah), so the focus
of speculation today rests largely on what Hezbollah will do. Yet Hezbollah’s
options for action are more constrained than ever by its simultaneous fighting
and negotiations within its turbulent Lebanese-Syrian terrain; it also still
faces immense pushback from millions of Lebanese who do not want to see their
country destroyed because of Iranian- and Syrian-backed decisions by Hezbollah
to fight Israel, which it is able and willing to do.
Hezbollah probably also has a new challenge which is to tighten up its security
system, following the recent capture and trial of one of its members who was an
Israeli spy, and the probability that Israeli intelligence that allowed
the Sunday attack to happen reflected continuing security leaks in
what had always been a well-sealed system.
Because of all these inter-linked local, regional and global factors, any
expected retaliation against Israel in the near future will reveal much about
the state of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran and the condition of their Resistance
and Deterrence Front.
Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly in the Daily
Star. He was founding director and now senior policy fellow of the Issam
Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University
of Beirut. On Twitter: @ramikhouri.
Copyright ©2015 Rami G. Khouri -- distributed by Agence Global