Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Hezbollah: Phoenix From the Ashes?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Hezbollah: Phoenix From the Ashes?

    Hezbollah: Phoenix From the Ashes?

    Middle East Online, UK
    Aug 1, 2006

    There is a chance that Hezbollah, far from being destroyed by Israel's
    current attacks, may emerge as an even more powerful political force
    in Lebanon by the next elections. Popular Lebanese (and wider Arab)
    attitudes have changed sharply in the past two weeks from being opposed
    to Hezbollah as a Syrian ally, to praising Hezbollah for standing up
    to Israel's aggression, notes Richard W. Bulliet.

    The rules are clear: Sovereign states can use all the military force
    they can get away with, but violence by non-state organizations is
    usually labeled "terrorism." But what if, in Lebanon, Hezbollah and
    its well-wishers end up controlling the Lebanese government? Israel
    and the United States may come to deeply regret Israel's reaction to
    the Hezbollah capture of two soldiers.

    How might Hezbollah pull this off? Today they are winning the worldwide
    sympathy war by a large margin. While Hezbollah stands up to the
    Israeli air force, navy and ground forces as it rains missiles on
    Israeli civilians far from the border, regional television coverage
    brings the horrors of Israel's attacks on Lebanese civilians and the
    destruction of the Lebanese economy into every Arab home.

    Israel's relentless pounding of the civilian infrastructure --
    and heartless declarations that Hezbollah alone is responsible when
    civilians get in the way of Israeli bombs -- has blunted internal
    Lebanese criticism of Hezbollah for provoking the attack. Prolonging
    the bloodshed is unlikely to change this. Is there a single Arab,
    Iranian, Turkish, or Muslim heart (and many a non-Muslim heart) that
    is not bleeding for the Lebanese dead and seething with anger toward
    Israel and the United States? Even the Arab leaders who initially
    curried American favor by condemning Hezbollah are scampering to
    reverse their positions.

    The Bush-Blair axis proposes an international intervention force for
    south Lebanon. Its mission: Separate the warring parties, disarm and
    dismember Hezbollah, and guarantee Israel's border security. There
    is every reason for Hezbollah to accept this opportunity to exit the
    field of battle with honour. It could legitimately claim that its
    brave few had fought Israel to a standstill, and has now relented to
    save Lebanon from further punishment. Many Lebanese Christians and
    Sunnis would still distrust Hezbollah's motives. But most Lebanese,
    starting with the 40% of the population that is Shi'ite, would hail
    them as heroes. And so would millions of Arabs and Muslims elsewhere.

    What, then, might happen in the next Lebanese election? The 1989 Taif
    Agreement that ended the Lebanese civil war set the number of seats
    in the National Assembly at 128, half assigned to Christian sects
    and half to Muslim. District lines were drawn according to where the
    various sects predominated.

    In an earlier format, only members of a given sect could vote for
    candidates belonging to that sect. But in an effort to make national
    interests as important as sectarian ones, the Taif agreement specified
    that all the voters should have a say in who was elected from their
    district. Thus the Armenian candidates vying for the one Armenian
    Catholic seat in the assembly had to campaign for the votes of all
    Christians and Muslims in their district. The winner would presumably
    be the one with the strongest appeal across sectarian lines.

    The Cedar Revolution of 2005 indicated that the Taif formula succeeds
    in making Lebanon's election turn on national interests. The Rafiq
    Hariri Martyr List, a coalition opposed to Syrian domination,
    won 72 seats. Winning candidates included Christians, Sunnis, and
    Druze. The Resistance and Development Bloc, a pro-Syrian coalition,
    won 35 seats. The winners were mostly Shi'ite - 14 from Hezbollah
    and 15 from Amal, the party run by National Assembly Speaker Nabih
    Berri - but two seats went to the Syrian Social Nationalist Party,
    a non-Shi'ite group.

    Rage over the Hariri assassination galvanized the formation of the
    anti-Syrian coalition. Could rage at Israel, pride in Hezbollah's
    resistance, and admiration of its leader, Sheikh Nasrallah, create
    an equally potent coalition? Such an alignment would have to be
    inter-sectarian because no one wishes to change the Taif formula for
    the sectarian allocation of assembly seats. But Israel's attacks have
    affected all Lebanese.

    If an anti-Israel alignment controlled the National Assembly,
    Hezbollah's militiamen would probably be incorporated into the
    Lebanese army. Syria would be rewarded for sticking by its proteges.
    And Iran would increase its prestige as Israel's foe and become the
    legitimate weapons supplier for an anti-Israeli Lebanese army. As
    for the West's hopes for the Cedar Revolution, these would die in
    the smouldering wreckage of the Israeli bombardment.

    When an international force deploys in south Lebanon, Israel and the
    United States will probably claim victory. But it will be a hollow
    victory indeed if an angry and democratic Lebanon with a new militant
    leadership takes the place of "terrorist" Hezbollah.

    This scenario may not play out: Lebanon's next elections are slated
    for 2010. So the passions of Lebanese who now rage against Israel
    and cheer for Hezbollah will have time to cool. Whether they do cool
    will depend on Israel. If Israel continues to punish Lebanon - or in
    Israeli terminology, "to defend itself" - and the international force
    fails to fulfill the vain dream of totally eradicating Hezbollah,
    Lebanon may become a nightmare for Tel Aviv and Washington.

    Israel's best hope is not to ferret out every Hezbollah missile,
    but to grab the earliest opportunity to withdraw - the Qana tragedy
    may be that opportunity - and then keep their fingers crossed, and
    their bombers on the ground, until 2010. Maybe the normally sensible
    and pragmatic Lebanese will forgive and forget... again.

    Richard W. Bulliet is Professor of History at Columbia University and
    author of Islam: A View from the Edge and The Case for Islamo-Christian
    Civilization

    http://www.middle-e ast-online.com/english/?id=17151
Working...
X