Sunday Business Post [IRELAND]:Hezbollah power poses decommissioning dilemma

Hezbollah power poses decommissioning dilemma

by Michael Kerr | August 20, 2006

Last week, the Lebanese army began to fill the vacuum in southern Lebanon, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

After over a month of fighting and bombardment on both sides, there was much speculation as to whether Hezbollah would decommission its weapons.

UN reinforcements stalled as France raised concerns over deploying troops in the absence of Hezbollah demilitarisation.

Questions remained as to whether the Iranian-backed Islamists could be persuaded to decommission their heavy arsenal of weapons.

Common wisdom at the outset of the conflict suggested that Syria and Israel might have been able to influence Hezbollah in this regard - Syria as political persuaders and Israel as military enforcers.

Common wisdom suggests that Syria would no longer challenge Hezbollah’s position in Lebanon after the Israeli army failed in its considerable efforts to do so. Iran remains the key.

The irony of Lebanon’s predicament is that prior to this phase of the conflict, the Lebanese government sought to internally resolve Hezbollah’s Janus-faced ‘‘political-paramilitary’’ existence.

It failed because Hezbollah became the strongest military force in Lebanon after Syria’s withdrawal in 2005. Lebanon was on the brink of internal conflict, and all sides were surprised when war escalated between the Party of God and Israel on July 12.

One Israeli goal in this conflict was to increase the tension between Hezbollah and Lebanon’s communities. The Israelis hoped the Lebanese would collectively blame Hezbollah for bringing war to their country.

Beneath the surface, Israel succeeded in that goal. Publicly, however, few dare to criticise Hezbollah, such is its prestige in the Arab world today.

Hezbollah has what the other significant Lebanese communities lack and desire - the political and military backing of a powerful regional sponsor.

The ceasefire was barely in place when Hezbollah’s leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, pledged that his party would pay for the reconstruction of homes and villages damaged or destroyed during the war.

Anyone familiar with Lebanese politics will be aware that Nasrallah does not often make promises he cannot keep. He took out a sound Iranian insurance policy before escalating conflict in Lebanon with Israel.

Islamic groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement, do not simply gain political support from their religious zeal. Their support is derived from successfully implementing long-term socioeconomic development programmes which directly benefit the local population.

Before Hezbollah and Hamas became governing parties, the political wings of both organisations were consistently more effective than the central authorities in meeting the needs of the Shi’a and Palestinian communities in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, respectively.

Last week, the Lebanese army also moved into the south in anticipation of the arrival of a European-dominated UN force. This will offer nothing but cold comfort to the Israelis in their search for security.

They know only too well that neither Lebanon’s army nor the UN will disarm Hezbollah.

For the Lebanese, to attempt this would be to take one step closer to civil war.

For the UN, the reluctance of many countries to commit troops to such a force is equally understandable. Any deployment that was deemed unacceptable by Hezbollah - and as a consequence, the local population - might be viewed as an occupying army and resisted.

For Britain, supporting US policy during this conflict was something it was bounced into, and many British Foreign Office officials would have been acutely aware of the potential consequences that military action in Lebanon entailed.

At Britain’s expense, prime minister Tony Blair again failed to significantly influence the current US government’s Manichean view of the political situation in the Middle East.

Domestically, Hezbollah has strengthened its political position. In the Middle East, it has gained credit for withstanding the region’s most powerful army. In contrast, the US failed in its attempts to weaken Iran’s political and financial support for Sunni and Shi’a Islamists. This considerably strengthened Tehran’s position vis-a-vis Israel and the pro-western Arab states that surround it. Iran’s gain marks a setback for Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

There is substance to Hezbollah’s claim that it was the only Arab force capable of responding to Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon.

The Sunni populations of these three states increasingly look to Lebanon’s Shi’a militants in their support for the Palestinians. Hezbollah also appears to be the only Arab force willing both to support the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel and to oppose US policy in the region.

Comparing this with Northern Ireland’s recent political process brings clarity to many of these points. In both divided societies, democratically elected political parties with military wings obstructed the stabilisation of agreed power-sharing systems of government.

In the US, following the September 11 attacks, political and financial support for the IRA diminished. Closer to home, militant republicans could no longer point to the Republic’s constitutional claim over the North as their justification of political violence.

In Britain, justification for the IRA’s armed campaign was also weakened when Britain demonstrated that it had no ‘‘strategic, selfish interest’’ in Northern Ireland through its efforts to implement the Belfast Agreement.

In contrast, Hezbollah maintained its external struggle, following the Israeli army’s 2000 withdrawal, on the basis of Israel’s clearly expressed selfish, strategic interest in Lebanon.

It also increased its relevance to Iran and Syria in their regional power struggle with Israel and the US.

Domestically, however, Hezbollah did not share Sinn Fein’s level of political comfort in the North. Neither the 1989 Ta’if Accords, which brought an end to Lebanon’s civil war, nor the power-sharing arrangements that followed Syria’s departure, enhanced Hezbollah’s political role in proportion to its military standing and demographic weight.

At the end of the civil war, Hezbollah’s military continuity was assured on the authority of Damascus. It suited Syrian interests to maintain Hezbollah’s pressure on Israel in southern Lebanon and in the wider Arab-Israeli conflict.

Equally, Israel enjoyed the cover of the US-led ‘‘war on terror’’ and a pre-emptive self-defence doctrine, which fitted neatly with the Bush administration’s regional agenda.

Therefore, the same obstacle to decommissioning has a completely different magnitude in each case, thanks to external actors and their struggle for the Middle East.

Dr Michael Kerr lectures in the international history department of the London School of Economics and is the author of Imposing Power-Sharing: Conflict and Coexistence in Northern Ireland and Lebanon.