Thoughts on Hezbollah and the US Role in Lebanon
I don’t have a deep enough knowledge of Hezbollah or Lebanon to feel comfortable holding forth in a substantial way on the current conflict. But I do know enough to spot ill-informed commentary when I see it, and there’s an awful lot of it out there right now. It comes from people who should know better, like our President, who was caught on an open mike saying to Blair last week “See, the irony is what they really need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s***.” And Tom Friedman, who is billed as an expert on the Middle East, had a different but equally simplistic formulation, telling Tim Russert a few nights ago that Hezbollah was a “wholly owned subsidiary of Iran.”
Chas Freeman, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and former Asst. Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, has provided the most concise and, I believe, accurate analysis of Hezbollah’s relationship with Syria and Iran. Understanding this relationship correctly is critical, as there is likely to be no workable solution to the current crisis if the US proceeds with faulty assumptions. His statement was published at The Washington Note:
The assumption in Israel and here is that Iran and Syria put Hezbollah up to its provocative gesture of solidarity with the beleaguered Palestians in Gaza. The assumption in the Arab world is that the U.S. put Israel up to what it is doing in Gaza and Lebanon. Both assertions remain politically convenient assertions that are almost certainly wrong. There is no evidence for either.
The relationship between Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran is analogous to that between Israel and the United States. Syria is the quartermaster and Iran the external financier and munitions supplier to Hezbollah; we play all three roles in support of Israel.
There is no reason to believe that Hezbollah, which is an authentic expression of Lebanese Sh’ia nationalism birthed by the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon in 1982, is any less unilateralist or prone to consult its patrons before it does things it sees as in its interest than Israel, which is an authentic expression of Jewish nationalism birthed by European racism, is in relation to us.
Remember the assertions that Vietnamese expansionism was controlled and directed by the Chinese? similar stuff. Chinese backing for the Viet Minh and the Hanoi regime did not equate to Chinese control or direction of North Vietnam, its armed forces, or its agents in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Consider the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war.
The irony now is that the most likely candidate to back Hezbollah in the long term is no longer Iran but the Arab Shiite tyranny of the majority we have installed in Baghdad. But that will not mean that the successors of Nouri Al-Maliki control Sheikh Nasrullah. Sometimes clients direct the policies of their patrons, not the other way around. This is a point exemplified by the dynamic of Israeli-American relations but far from unique to them.
To gain an understanding of the Arab world’s perspective on the current conflict, I recommend Prof. Marc Lynch’s blog, Abu Aardvark. He has frequent posts summarizing what he sees on the Arab TV networks, which - as you might expect - have a very different perspective than US news shows. Be warned that he sometimes includes screenshots of bombing victims, which are apparently shown frequently on Arab newshows (on the one hand, you could call it anti-Israeli propaganda, but on the other hand, our news coverage of the conflict is almost completely sanitized, which can have its own misleading affects - even Condi Rice was unaware of the extent of the destruction in Lebanon until she saw it herself, as evidenced by her expressed amazement). To be clear, I’m recommending this for his coverage of the Arab perspective, not as a source for comprehensive coverage.
Prof. Lynch also provides his own commentary, and I find myself in agreement with much of it, particularly his thoughts on the US role:
I don’t know anyone who will be surprised that the Rome conference failed - it seems to have been designed to fail, to give the US the chance to appear to be “doing something” while giving Israel the time it wants to continue its offensive. But this policy is so transparent, such an obvious stalling mechanism, that it is probably making things even worse for the United States and for Israel: when you are faking it, you’re supposed to at least try to maintain the pretence so that others can at least pretend to believe you. The call for an immediate ceasefire has become more or less universal now, other than from the United States and Israel: even the pro-American Arab states like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, which initially blamed Hezbollah for the crisis, are now loudly demanding an immediate ceasefire.
America is totally alone on this. And more than most Americans might realize, America is being blamed for Israel’s actions. The shift in Arab public discourse over the last week has been palpable. For the first few days, the split between the Saudi media and the “al-Jazeera public” which I wrote about at the time. Then for a few days, horror at the humanitarian situation, fury with the Arab states for their impotence, speculation about the endgame, and full-throated condemnation of Israeli aggression. But for the last few days, the main trend has been unmistakable: an increasing focus on the United States as the villain of the piece. (That the Israeli bombing of Beirut stopped just long enough for Condoleeza Rice’s photo op certainly didn’t help.)…
Perhaps this negative focus on America was inevitable, given Iraq and the war on terror and al-Jazeera?
No. This wan’t inevitable. Real American leadership, such as quickly restraining the Israeli offensive and taking the lead in ceasefire negotiations, could have created a Suez moment and dramatically increased American influence and prestige (especially if the Saudis had delivered Iran in a ceasefire agreement, as I’ve heard that Saudi officials believed that they could). But by disappearing for the first days of the war and then resurfacing only to provide a megaphone for Israeli arguments and to prevent international efforts at achieving a ceasefire, the Bush administration put America at the center of the storm of blame. I think that the Lebanon war will go down in history as one of the greatest missed opportunities in recent American diplomatic history - not because we failed to go after Iran, or whatever the bobbleheads are ranting about these days, but because we failed to rise to the occasion and exercise real global leadership in the national interest.
If you’re not sure about the “Suez moment” reference, he’s talking about the US intervention in the Suez crisis of 1956. Britain, France, and Israel attacked Egypt after Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal Company. President Eisenhower forced a cease fire. To compel the British to back down, he actually threatened to sell off US reserves of the British pound, which would have caused the British currency to collapse. If Bush were in Eisenhower’s place, can you imagine him taking a stand against Israel, Britain, and corporate interests, all at the same time?
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