How Weak Is Hezbollah? (Part 1) - Hugh Fitzgerald

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by Hugh Fitzgerald

Hezbollah's -- ability to act as Iran’s deterrent has been severely compromised by Lebanon’s domestic situation, and this may not end any time soon.

The story, posted at The National, a UAE paper opposed both to Iran and to its proxy Hezbollah, is here:

Some would say that, given the crisis Lebanon is facing today, Hezbollah’s project for the country is dead. Such statements, however, go too far.
With thousands of men under arms, a missile arsenal, Iranian backing and much of the Shiite religious community behind the party, Hezbollah remains a potent force in Lebanese society. Yet it is also true that today its ability to act as Iran’s deterrent has been severely compromised by Lebanon’s domestic situation, and this may not end any time soon.

Hezbollah has 140,000 missiles in its armory, hidden throughout civilian areas so as to make it more difficult for Israel to destroy them. But the Israelis have made clear that they will not be deterred in any future conflict; the Lebanese will not be spared, and it is up to them to pressure Hezbollah to move those missiles out of civilian areas. Those who are not in Hezbollah – the Christians, the Sunnis, and even a growing number of Shi’a – are angry with the terror group for taking the country hostage. They remember the great damage inflicted by Israel on Lebanon’s infrastructure in its 2006 war with Hezbollah, and have no desire to repeat that experience. The Lebanese are not consumed, as Hezbollah is, with a fanatical desire to destroy Israel whatever the cost. They are simply trying to survive in the face of their country’s impending economic ruin and a political class of thieves and incompetents.

What is Hezbollah’s plan? Principally, it is to turn the country into a so-called “resistance state” that acts as an outpost for Iranian influence, and another counterweight to Israel and the United States. The common assumption is that the militant party has succeeded in that effort.
But has it?
Hezbollah has power over the Lebanese state, but its sway has also helped to bankrupt and undermine Lebanon, negatively affecting the party’s capacities.

Hezbollah has helped to bankrupt Lebanon in two ways. First, the war it began with Israel in 2006 led to massive destruction, costing the Lebanese state tens of billions of dollars to repair. Second, Hezbollah’s support has kept the corrupt ruling elite in power, where they continue to siphon off for their own benefit large sums from the state treasury.

In protecting a corrupt political class and allowing it to continue its looting of the state, Hezbollah was partly responsible for the collapse last October of Lebanon’s financial order. At the time, the party’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, had understood the risks of popular protests against the ruling class and tried to neutralise public anger. He failed.

When Hassan Nasrallah gave his support to the regime that, through mismanagement and corruption, has helped to bankrupt the Lebanese state, by sending his fighters out to suppress the protests, his terror group lost whatever residual sympathy it might still have possessed among ordinary (i.e., non-Hezbollah) Lebanese.

For weeks Hezbollah sought to retain some control over a system that had lost all legitimacy, and in January it thought it had succeeded when a government formed by the party and its allies came to power.
But something was definitely broken. Lebanon was insolvent, hundreds of thousands of people were out of work and all of the political parties were forced to recalculate.

The change in government in January meant that Hezbollah was ever more closely identified with the regime – it had, after all, with its allies, been responsible for forming that new government. Hezbollah thought that “new” government – which kept many of the same figures — would satisfy the protesters. It did not. It only enraged them further.

As for the financial debacle, Hezbollah has had nothing to offer to solve Lebanon’s colossal problems. For years the country has been living far beyond its means, racking up debt. Some of that debt was e tens of billions in reconstruction costs, the damage a result of the war that Hezbollah instigated with Israel in 2006. Those in charge didn’t care very much, as long as they and their cronies could continue to divert funds to themselves. Then came the steep rise in unemployment, exacerbated by the closures of businesses due to the coronavirus. Lebanon now has a debt of more than $100 billion, and no way to pay any of it back. The cupboard is bare.

A report on Lebanon, published by the Council on Foreign Relations, is hair-raising:

The Lebanese suffer from many afflictions: an insufficient voice in government, a lack of government transparency, limited economic opportunities, corruption, nepotism, and poor quality of life. Lebanon’s infrastructure is crumbling, and the Lebanese experience daily electricity outages, garbage piled up in the streets, sporadic water cuts, and environmental degradation. Since October 2019, protesters have taken to the streets to blame the sectarian political system for their economic plight and demand a complete replacement of Lebanon’s political system and leadership.
The protests ceased as the country went into lockdown over the pandemic of a novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, but difficult living conditions exacerbated by the COVID-19 response reignited the protests in late April. Lebanon is suffering what is likely its worst-ever financial crisis. There is a dollar shortage, which in turn has seen the Lebanese pound lose more than 50 percent of its value on parallel markets in the past six months. In that time, banks—some of which are on the verge of collapse—have limited withdrawals of the Lebanese pound and entirely phased out withdrawals in the foreign currencies the Lebanese use to pay a variety of obligations, such as mortgages and tuition.2
Coronavirus-related restrictions have added to systemic economic problems, pushing the unemployment rate to over 30 percent and reducing incomes and economic activity. Multiple humanitarian organizations have warned of food insecurity.

And the ruling elite who have brought about these wretched economic conditions remain in power thanks mainly to the support of Hezbollah. No wonder the Lebanese masses are enraged with the Shi’a terror group.

This lost Hezbollah two of the essential prerequisites needed to conduct a war against Israel, were Iran to demand it. The first is Lebanon’s ability to absorb Israeli retaliation and rebuild, as happened in 2006. The second is a minimum level of consensus nationally behind Hezbollah’s “resistance” agenda.

Following the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, Lebanon managed to rebuild despite the enormous damage done to the country’s infrastructure by Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah outposts in civilian areas. But Lebanon is now completely broke. If there is another war, instigated like the previous one, by Hezbollah, it will be unable to rebuild. And in 2006, there was much more domestic support for Hezbollah, which had been presenting itself as a movement of “national resistance.” The Lebanese no longer believe that. They have seen how Hezbollah, at Iran’s command, sent thousands of troops to fight in the Syrian civil war, which had nothing to do with any “national resistance” against Israel. Hezbollah was no longer seen as a Lebanese movement but, rather, as a Shi’a movement based in Lebanon, but directed from Tehran. It owed its allegiance not to Lebanon, but to Iran. That has decreased still further any residual support for the so-called “national resistance” agenda of Hezbollah.


Hugh Fitzgerald

Source: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/06/how-weak-is-hezbollah-part-1

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