Hezbollah’s defiance masks its defeat

Last week’s bombings of Hezbollah and Iranian interests in Lebanon are not the first since their direct involvement in the Syrian conflict, and they will not be the last. If anything, such attacks are likely to increase in frequency, scope and viciousness. It is a predicament of their own making, a direct result of their military support for Bashar Al Assad.

Each bombing results in statements of defiance by Tehran and Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah. However, in reality, it reveals his movement’s abject failure to achieve its main stated goals, indeed its raisons d’etre: Defending Lebanon, representing its constituents’ interests in the country and beyond and championing wider Arab rights and causes.

Long gone are the days when Hezbollah and its leader were revered and respected by the Arab street, even when certain governments felt differently. The organisation is now “widely unpopular in the region” because of its involvement in Syria, according to a survey by the Pew Research Centre that was published in June this year.

In every Arab country where the poll was conducted (Palestine, Lebanon, Tunisia, Jordan and Egypt), more people viewed Hezbollah unfavourably than those who had a positive opinion. In Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, outright majorities had a negative view: 59 per cent, 72 per cent and 75 per cent, respectively (73 per cent of Turks felt the same way).

That Hezbollah should be so unpopular in its own country, and among Lebanese and Palestinians — over whom the movement has portrayed itself a guardian — should be of great concern to Nasrallah, but not a surprise.

Hezbollah owed its former popularity to its carefully cultivated and hard-earned reputation as the only Arab fighting force with the will and the ability to check Israeli aggression, and to Nasrallah’s no-nonsense, steadfast approach in this regard. It managed to garner cross-sectarian support in a region woefully split along such lines.

Given the skill required to achieve such a status against the odds, Nasrallah’s involvement in Syria is an uncharacteristic and huge blunder by someone hitherto known as a cunning strategist. He is now seen regionally, with justification, not as a defender against Israel, but as a killer of fellow Arabs in support of a brutal dictator whose insistence on clinging to power has destroyed Syria and gravely impacted neighbouring countries and the wider region.

Hezbollah and Iranian troops are fighting Syrians while claiming to be a friend of the Syrian people. Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes violate Lebanese airspace daily and with impunity — an irony not lost on those on the ground.

A movement that had weathered the sectarian storm unleashed by the US invasion of Iraq is now a central contributor to the worsening of that storm. It is now seen simply as a Shiite party acting selfishly out of narrow sectarian interests. In fact, however, its actions are damaging those interests, as well as those of Lebanon and the wider Arab world.

Lebanon grows ever-more unstable, polarised and violent, with simmering sectarian tensions and extremism boiling over and communities increasingly taking up arms. Syrian rebels, their Lebanese allies and groups affiliated with Al Qaida are making good on their threats to take the fight to Hezbollah’s home turf.

Given that the latest bombings targeted the Iranian embassy in Beirut, this is the starkest warning yet to Tehran that its intervention in Syria will not go unpunished. This may be the start of a concerted campaign against specifically Iranian targets, not just those of Hezbollah.

Given the regional network of groups affiliated with Al Qaida, such a campaign may not be limited to Lebanon, as important as that country is to Iran’s strategic interests in the Middle East. The message may be that Tehran will pay a regional price for its regional meddling.

Shiites in Lebanon and throughout the Arab world are viewed with hostility as simply an extension of Hezbollah and Iran, even as foreign agents in their own countries. Entire communities are being targeted under the precarious pretexts — now made more convenient — of national security and fighting terrorism. The resulting accentuation of the arch-rivalry between regional powerhouses Iran and Saudi Arabia is impacting the whole area.

Iran’s recently-elected President Hassan Rouhani has vowed to continue his country’s support for Al Assad. This will make his pledge to mend ties with his Arab neighbours, particularly Riyadh, all the more difficult, if not impossible. Rouhani cannot have his cake and eat it. He would do well to realise the damage being done to his country’s interests — and those of other Shiite communities, with whom Iran repeatedly expresses its solidarity — by incurring regional hostility by propping up one dictator at all costs.

Similarly, those who claim that Hezbollah had no strategic choice, but to stand by its long-time ally in Damascus are wrong. It always had a choice. The Palestinian movement Hamas — now the black sheep of the discredited ‘axis of resistance’ — took the principled stand of leaving Syria and expressing support for the revolution, despite knowing full well that this would cost it the support of its former allies.

Hezbollah did not have to support the revolution — it could have taken a position of neutrality, as the Lebanese government has done. At the very least, it could have physically stayed out of the conflict, even if it was not ready to abandon the Syrian regime. It is highly unlikely that either approach would have caused Damascus or Tehran to break ties with Hezbollah, because they would find no other substitute willing or able to further their interests.

Instead of hedging its bets, Hezbollah has tied its fate irrevocably to Al Assad’s, ensuring that when he goes (no leader remains in power forever), its domestic and regional position will be even more precarious than it is now. It will have made itself vulnerable to its arch-enemy Israel, which is chomping at the bit to avenge previous losses and stalemates to the movement. A hobbled Hezbollah would make it easier to carry out a direct strike against Iran without the fear of massive retaliation closer to home.

Hezbollah fighters will stay in Syria “as long as they are needed,” Nasrallah said last week. “As long as the reasons remain, our presence there will remain.” He is thus committing the movement to a quagmire that could last for many years, at a cost that neither Hezbollah, Lebanon, Syria or the wider region can afford.

Judged by its former status in the Arab world, Hezbollah is already defeated, regardless of its military power or the outcome of the Syrian conflict, because it has lost the support and trust of the very people it claims to serve and protect. It did not have to be that way.

Sharif Al Nashashibi is an award-winning journalist and analyst on Arab affairs.