The leader of the Iranian militia in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah, has launched his first verbal attack against the Lebanese Army. In the past, Nasrallah was careful to include the Army in his mediatic triad of the "People-Resistance-Army", as a way to shelter his terrorist group behind a facade of legitimacy.
After having operated outside of State institutions for close to 20 years (1980-2000), Hezbollah faced an existential threat with the withdrawal of Israel from south Lebanon, since its "Resistance" was no longer needed, particularly since its existence was already a violation of the 1989 Taef Agreement that stipulated the dismantling of all militias. As a result, Hezbollah had to realign its strategy by entering the fray of Lebanese domestic politics. While maintaining its military capabilities, Hezbollah became also a political party, fielding candidates in elections and entering into alliances with other political parties. However, it never abandoned its essential nature as a terrorist militia serving Lebanon's archenemies Syria and Iran.
As it waged its new political battles, Hezbollah nonetheless waged a wave of political assassinations against those it perceived as a threat to its existence as a military terrorist organization: It assassinated the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and another dozen political figures, journalists and opponents. In July 2006, it initiated a destructive war with Israel with a cross-border kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. In May 2008, when its own communications and espionage network came under attack by the Lebanese government, Hezbollah dispatched its thugs into the streets of Beirut and parts of the Shouf mountains south of Beirut.
Politically, Hezbollah coined the triad mantra of the "People-Resistance-Army" which it imposed across government institutions and the media. By instilling fear throughout the social-political order of Lebanon, the mantra did survive to the present time. No one was willing, except in timid ways, to challenge this imposition by an foreign-funded terrorist militia on the entire country.
Until the fall of 2019, when a younger generation of Lebanese, fed up with the lies of the pro-Syrian, pro-Hezbollah camp and its domination, took to the streets primarily to protest the cover that Hezbollah and its allies provided a corrupt political establishment that was bilking the country of every penny and running the country down to the abyss it finds itself today.
It took some time for people to realize the nexus between allowing a freewheeling terrorist militia to operate outside of State institutions (with smuggling drugs, weapons and operatives to fund itself) on one hand, and the widespread rampant corruption that was sapping every corner of the Lebanese public administration on the other. It was fine to ignore Hezbollah when it was focused on fighting the Israeli occupation in the south, but as Hezbollah progressively turned inwards and became a tool with which to repress free expression, assassinate opponents, pilfer the treasury and threaten the very livelihoods of ordinary people, the anger led to an explosion in the streets of Beirut and across the country.
In the 30 years since the end of the 1975-1990 war, life did not improve in Lebanon. Basic infrastructure (electricity and water) deteriorated, communications (Internet and phone services) became mediocre and expensive, standards of living declined, and the remittances from the Lebanese diaspora (which have historically kept Lebanon alive) were gradually eaten up by bribery and corruption in every aspect of life. I count myself among those whose "returned" from overseas in recent years, only to experience repeated humiliations and extortion for every transaction with public and private transaction (moving, clearing belongings at the harbor, registering civil status documents, etc.)
As a result of the revolution of October 17, 2019, and the more recent explosion of Beirut Harbor in August 2020 (attributed to the stocking by Hezbollah of thousands of tons of explosive ammonium nitrate which it uses to manufacture bombs), the "People-Resistance-Army" mantra is finally coming apart.
As I alluded to in an earlier post (https://lebanoniznogood.blogspot.com/2021/11/useless-dangerous-lebanese-army.html), the perception was growing among the Lebanese people that the Lebanese Army had become subservient to the diktat of Hezbollah. Yet, in recent weeks, Hezbollah's leader has begun expressing his frustration at feeling the noose tightening around his neck and his organization, particularly when he knows that the only force that could stand against his militia (barring any foreign intervention) is the Lebanese Army.
Only yesterday, Nasrallah declared that US Army generals live and work in the Lebanese Ministry of Defense in Yarzeh, basically labeling the Lebanese military headquarters a den of American spies intent on hurting and ultimately eliminating his group. He also attacked in similar terms the US embassy in Awkar, northeast of Beirut, and US ambassador Dorothee Shea as directing operations in the Lebanese Army. I would like to remind readers that in the 1980s, Hezbollah bombed the US and French embassies twice, the US Marines and French paratrooper compounds (1983) in which 243 US servicemen and 58 French paratroopers were killed, kidnapped dozens of western journalists, clergymen, and academics chaining them for years, then handing them to the Syrian dictator Assad to trade them for political concessions from the West. The list is too long to enumerate all of Hezbollah's exploits over the decades, but the point is made.
For decades, a duplicitous American policy in Lebanon has been to strengthen the Lebanese Army just enough to stand up to, but never defeat, groups like Hezbollah. Apparently, the Americans, just like the Syrians and the Israelis, and behind them the Saudis and others, prefer Lebanon to remain a boxing ring in which these players can engage in matches once every few years, but without ever declaring a winner, least of all the legitimate State of Lebanon and its Army. Lebanon was, for example, never allowed to own fighter jets, or warships, or offensive weapons of any kind. The argument, according to the Americans, is that should the Lebanese State fall to Hezbollah, those weapons would then be turned against US interests and allies. Self-fulfilling prophecies indicating that successive US Administrations do not believe the Lebanese Armed Forces are capable enough to be trusted with weapons that could in fact restore the dominance of the State over groups like Hezbollah. A circular argument that never reaches a conclusion.
Thus, without real support and arming, the Lebanese Army can only scare Hezbollah but not defeat it, which means that the so-called friends of Lebanon, who claim to want to take Lebanon out from under the Syrian-Iranian umbrella, wish for Lebanon to engage in a renewed civil war, a war of attrition that never concludes, that drags on and on, allowing among other nefarious consequences Palestinian and Syrian refugees to settle permanently in the country and transform it irreversibly into a Muslim-dominated country that would, in a twisted mindset, make peace with Israel, the only thing that the US really cares about in the Middle East.
It's been decades since the mid-1960s when Lebanon began its descent. Not to repeat the clichés, but Lebanon thrived between the 1940s and the 1960s because it was the Western allies' best friend. Why has the West abandoned Lebanon? I leave the answer to the reader while recalling that the Middle East problem in the 19th century and for the first decades of the 20th century was centered on the Christians of Lebanon. Nowadays, another minority, certainly more reliable and advanced than Lebanon's Christians, has taken root south of the Lebanese border, and so the Middle East question in Western eyes is no longer that of the Christians of Lebanon.
Will there be a confrontation between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army? Most likely. Who will win in that confrontation? Most likely Hezbollah, barring a massive foreign intervention. I say to my fellow Lebanese: Brace yourselves for another 15 years of torment. You have been primed by the 1975-1990 episode, and now you're inured to such disagreeable ways of living your lives, while the desperate ones among you emigrate to never return.
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