Rami G. Khouri
The status of Hezbollah has become central to any discussion of events in Lebanon, which in turn instantly takes you - like clicking on a political hyperlink - to other sites in the region, given its linkages with Syria, Iran, Hamas, the Palestinian territories, Israel, other Shiite populations, and various Islamist and nationalist movements.
Comment: This is from the Arab press-very instructive piece-notice how they frame the group.
Something very important has happened to Hezbollah, however, in the last year: It has slowly and quietly become another political movement in a country full of them. It engages in the pull and push of politics, making both advances and mistakes, learning on the job. Unusually, it seems to be searching for a way out of the relative quagmire it has found itself in, partly through the consequence of its own policies. It has not become weaker in the past 14 months, but rather more constrained.
It continues to make a challenging yet erratic shift from a predominantly South Lebanon-based military resistance organization that confronts Israel's occupation to one that must engage more directly in domestic Lebanese political horse-trading in order precisely to preserve its main role as a resistance and deterrence force. Fourteen months after last summer's war with Israel in which it performed rather impressively at the technical military level, its military prowess today is as much a constraining as an empowering and defining element.
The nuances and complexities of Hezbollah's status are important for Lebanon, but they also mirror a range of related issues throughout the Middle East: What are Islamist movements' ultimate domestic aims? What is the real balance among its religiosity, nationalism, resistance, communal empowerment, and politics? How do ties with Iran play in Arab circles? Is the Syrian-Iranian-led "resistance front" against the United States, Israel, and the conservative Arab regimes the way of the future, or a cruel deception from the past? How far can armed struggle go in the battle against Israel, before the US-Israel combine uses devastating force to turn threatening neighbors into wastelands of total destruction - and would such destruction have any long-term impact?The mainstream Western media and political elites - especially in the US - continue to ignore the considerable nuances and ever changing realities of Islamist-nationalist groups like Hezbollah. It is simplistic and counter-productive for Western mainstream elites simply to condemn Hezbollah as a terrorist organization or a dangerous Iranian- and Syrian-manipulated militia, and engage it through confrontation, threats, vilification, ultimatums and sanctions.The tendency in much of the Arab-Islamic world is to go to the other extreme, of seeing Hezbollah as a valiant, inerrant force for righteousness, self-respect and powerful Arab and Islamic self-assertion.
The truth, as always, is found at neither extreme. A timely example of how to analyze the Hezbollah phenomenon constructively appeared this week in the form of a fine report by the respected International Crisis Group (ICG), entitled "Hezbollah and the Lebanese Crisis". It accurately captures the multiple dimensions of Hezbollah, along with the many factors that must be addressed in the current quest for a new political compact and balance of power in Lebanon and the region.
Its main thesis is that, "[a]midst Lebanon's political deadlock, all parties and their external allies need to move away from maximalist demands and agree on a deal that accepts for now Hezbollah's armed status while constraining the ways in which its weapons can be used."The report correctly outlines the many dimensions of Hezbollah and its numerous, and increasingly complex, sometimes contradictory, relations with other political forces in the country and the region. These include its role in the aftermath of the 2006 war, the elusive election of a new president, Hezbollah's weapons, its growing status among Shiites, its increasingly tense ties with Sunni Muslims, and the consequences of its failed move to try to topple a Sunni-dominated Lebanese government.
Sectarian tensions have increased in Lebanon in the past year, and the deployment of Lebanon's army and a larger United Nations force at the Israeli border has constrained Hezbollah's military posture. This has made its turn to domestic politics all the more urgent, but also messy. It makes mistakes that slightly deflate its once infallible status. Patrick Haenni, an ICG senior analyst, says that "Hezbollah's resort to street politics was ultimately self-defeating.The street battles quickly morphed into confessional ones, forcing Hezbollah into the sectarian straightjacket it has long sought to avoid." The net result is that Hezbollah as a domestic political player with a mixed performance is now subject to analysis, criticism and horse-trading offers that had always been alien to its world.
Hezbollah's new status as a domestic political player that challenges the government, makes deals and threats, and gets analyzed and kicked around at the same time is an important new development that probably opens the door toward more pragmatic politics - if there are any pragmatic politicians in Lebanon willing to walk through the door. We shall soon find out.Published in Lebanon’s Daily Star
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