Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: problemi in vista per Hezbollah

http://nationalinterest.org/print/commentary/the-hezbollah-apocalypse-5581
The Hezbollah Apocalypse
July 8, 2011
Nicholas Noe
In the opening weeks of the year 2000, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, leader
of Lebanon’s militant Shiite movement Hezbollah, granted a series of
lengthy interviews to the Arab media that directly addressed the
gravest threat hitherto seen to his party’s continuation as “The
Resistance”: a looming peace agreement between Syria and Israel.
Acknowledging that such a deal would necessarily obligate Hezbollah as
well as Lebanon (given the tens of thousands of Israeli and Syrian
troops occupying different swaths of the country), Nasrallah answered
the provocative question of what he would do when the Star of David
flag was raised over the Israeli embassy in Beirut by saying that this
would, in fact, represent a victory for the “rationale of resistance”
which had forced an end to Israeli occupation. Still, he and his
constituents would “refuse to normalize” the relationship in the
coming years.
No trade, no Israeli tourists visiting South Lebanon, he suggested.
Backs turned.
Crucially though, no rockets and no car bombs.
The end of violent resistance.
The “Syria Track,” of course, collapsed spectacularly in March of
2000, largely as a result of a dispute over a few hundred meters of
shoreline around Lake Tiberius which the Syrians and the Israelis
refused to concede (although U.S. President Bill Clinton didn’t help
matters by lying to the dying president of Syria, Hafez al-Assad,
promising him that he had the shoreline in his pocket as a means to
cajole Assad into coming to Geneva to sign a deal).
Eleven years on from this intensely regrettable episode, Hezbollah
again faces a major existential challenge, but this time the ending,
if there is to be one, looks decidedly more violent and open to all
possibilities.
Indeed, much to its surprise and chagrin, the party is now besieged.
The Iranian regime, and the supreme guide for Hezbollah, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, is involved in a bitter power struggle.
Syria, where Hezbollah finds much of its logistical support—or
“strategic depth”—is in crisis.
And it is Hezbollah’s stalwart backing of the Assad regime, which even
Hamas has bucked, that is largely eroding its vital claim to reason
and genuine public support at home and in the Middle East more broadly
(even though most of Hezbollah’s enemies think it relies only on a
toxic mixture of fear and brainwashing to sustain its power, officials
and cadres have long deemed the party’s ability to appeal to reason as
indispensable).
In a similar vein, even though the party has done a good job of
discrediting the Special Tribunal for Lebanon that is set to try
Hezbollah members (and possibly others) in the 2005 assassination of
former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri, the indictments for the murder
of a leading Sunni in the Middle East, when combined with Hezbollah’s
use of arms in May 2008 against its mainly Sunni opponents in the
streets of Beirut, has only exacerbated the sectarian divisions and
outright hatred which many of its opponents—and Hezbollah itself—
rightly view as the most potent offensive weapon it faces in the
field.
Across the border in Israel, Nasrallah’s multifaceted strategy and
multiple pronouncements vis-à-vis his most bitter enemy are also fast
unravelling.
For the last few years, Nasrallah had been able to masterfully appeal
to those in the region who yearned for a final settlement as well as
those who yearned for a total victory over Zionism.
On the one hand, he exhorted, Hezbollah’s critics and opponents in the
Arab world should use the growing—though still asymmetric—military
strength of Hezbollah and its Resistance Axis allies in the region
(mainly Syria, Iran and Hamas) to force Israel into a two-state,
negotiated solution. Though Hezbollah did not want this to come to
pass, he admitted, the only way to get Israel to change its bargaining
position is to increase your side’s military power in the field.
On the other hand, since the internal contradictions of the Resistance
Axis states were lessening, Nasrallah stressed, while Israel’s were
growing, time was on the side of those who would prefer to patiently
wait and see a one-state solution rise from the internal implosion of
Zionism (on account of demography, emigration as a result of growing
fear over military encirclement, corruption, international
deligitamazation etc.).
Unfortunately for Nasrallah, all of the resistance clocks appear to be
ticking down far faster than Israel’s, where the economy is humming
along and the United States is funding a massive effort to “Iron-Dome”
the country against the threat of the Resistance Axis’s rockets and
WMDs.
All of this, understandably, begs the question: What will Hezbollah do
in this next stage?
Should Assad’s multiplying list of enemies, including Saudi Arabia and
Turkey, choose to go in for the kill, either bluntly or obliquely,
Hezbollah, it now seems evident after meeting with party officials, is
prepared to use all necessary means to fight back, and fight back
widely.
A collapse of the Levant leg of the Resistance Axis is simply
unacceptable for Hezbollah. The group will become a vital part and
parcel of one last climactic conflict.
Since the Assad regime’s threshold for doing the same is probably
lower (and far more incendiary with its WMD capability), the actors
now consolidating themselves to boil Assad (and secondarily Hezbollah)
to the breaking point, including many influential voices in Washington
and European capitals, need to very carefully consider the wisdom of
the road that they are going down—a road that will, in all
probability, bring great destruction to the region, including to
Israel whose home front will undoubtedly be a main frontline.
Saying this, however, does not have to mean simply withering away in
the face of a threat. Instead, it could mean—it should mean—that
outside actors who hold such comparatively great power (Israel alone
could probably bomb both Syria and Lebanon back into the Stone Age
whereas its opponents cannot), might finally have to find a means and
a discourse to grant concessions to far weaker, though to many still
detestable, parties—a course that would actually fatally undermine
their ability and desire to exercise violence over time, either
against their own people or against other nations.

 The Hezbollah Apocalypse
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