Hezbollah’s Choices

Ahmed Quraishi, 17 August 2006

BEIRUT, Lebanon—Linda, a thirty-something trendy Lebanese woman, stood in front of a building in the heart of Beirut’s southern suburb yesterday. The apartment building was smashed to the ground. Her apartment was on the sixth floor. Her handbag was distinctly visible in the rubble.

She pointed to her bag. I tried to reach out and pull the bag from the rubble. “Don’t touch it,” she shouted at me, as tens of other people in this destroyed Shia neighborhood searched for their homes and shops and cars. “It could be booby-trapped. The authorities have warned us of Israeli toy bombs.”

Beirut’s southern suburbs, a prewar Hezbollah stronghold, suddenly came to life yesterday. Hundreds of thousands of its residents were back in their old neighborhoods for the first time since the war began. And the scenes were unbelievable. It could have been a Hollywood set if it wasn’t real. Entire apartment blocs flattened to the ground, as if smashed by a giant hammer. And the heart of southern Beirut, the real ‘Hezbollah country’, where tens of Hezbollah office and community buildings once stood, was unrecognizable.

At the road junction leading to the southern suburbs, a Hezbollah van played victory songs on loudspeakers as young activists distributed Hezbollah’s yellow flags and posters bearing Hasan Nasrallah’s pictures. The militia’s PR machine is amazing. Only seven or eight hours after the ceasefire came into effect, and Hezbollah was already distributing neatly printed colorful posters especially made for the occasion, bearing victory words. One poster, with the picture of Hezbollah’s chief, said in English, “The Divine Victory.” Another one read in Arabic, “Allah’s promise fulfilled,” (صدق وعد الله ) rhyming with Hezbollah chief’s last name, Nasrallah (meaning, coincidentally, ‘Allah’s victory’).

Coming back to Linda, who, by the way, is a Lebanese Shia lady. She said something that I thought pointed to Hezbollah’s future troubles. I thought no women wore jeans and skin-hugging T-shirts in Hezbollah’s stronghold. Linda proved me wrong. “I’m not a Hezbollah supporter,” she said, “but I like the party and like Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah. He’s a hero.”

I asked her, “You’ve lost everything. Who is going to rebuild your apartment building?” She answered, “Hezbollah. Sayed Nasrallah has pledged Hezbollah will rebuild everything.”

Truth is, Hezbollah has done just that – rebuild houses destroyed by Israel – after every confrontation between the militia and Israel in the past twenty five years. The problem this time is that the militia’s entire support base – the people of south Lebanon and the people of south Beirut – are displaced. There are scores of small villages and hamlets across south Lebanon that have been wiped out by Israel army. The entire southern population moved to Beirut and elsewhere. And the whole support system that existed in the south, including businesses, jobs, workshops, etc. are no more. That’s a lot to rebuild.

As if this was not enough, Hezbollah – a real winner on the battlefield – is facing a tough political battle that it cannot escape.

As of yesterday, it has become very difficult to be Hasan Nasrallah.  The Hezbollah chief has to decide which side to take. And he has to decide fast.

The government in Beirut wants him to disarm and become just another Lebanese politician, flexing his muscles inside parliament or on television screens, not on the battlefield.

But his two main backers, Syria and Iran, want him to continue playing the role of a thorn on Israel’s side. Iran’s foreign ministry made it clear in a public statement, made by Hamid Reza Asifi, that Tehran opposes disarming Hezbollah. He said it was “illogical and unfair” to do that. And he’s right. It’s not fair. Hezbollah has won a war against Middle East’s most powerful military. He should be dictating terms, not being pushed around.

Problem is, Hezbollah’s foreign backers have real agendas, and they don’t have a sense of humor when it comes to business. Lebanon’s former premier, Rafic Hariri, was mysteriously killed when he turned against Syria. A cynical Kuwaiti columnist has suggested that Hezbollah chief knows he can’t alienate the Syrians and the Iranians. Not after coming this far, at the least.

So the challenge before Hasan Nasrallah is simple: His colleagues inside the Lebanese government want him to stick to the deal and disarm his military wing and surrender his south Lebanon stronghold to the Lebanese army. In other words, they want him to voluntarily surrender the only sophisticated fighting machine in Lebanon, in accordance with the U.N. resolution. Nasrallah’s formidable foreign backers don’t want him to do that.

A Lebanese cabinet meeting has been postponed that was supposed to discuss steps to disarm Hezbollah. The reason for the postponement is that the two militia ministers in the government have conveyed to their colleagues that Hezbollah refuses to disarm. Confusion reign supreme in Beirut on the political front. And no new date for the cabinet meeting has been set at the time of writing this report.

Nasrallah’s tough choices are: saving Lebanon or saving Hezbollah. As thousands of displaced Lebanese families try to return back to their homes, the world awaits Hezbollah’s decision. And the fingers are crossed.

The writer was a PTV World correspondent in Beirut during the conflict. This report was first published by Pakistan’s The Nation daily newspaper.