Why America wants Hizbullah beaten even more than Israel does

By Henri J. Barkey
Commentary by
Monday, August 14, 2006


As diplomats looked for a way to end the conflict in Lebanon, the United States was reticent to support an immediate cease-fire endorsing the status quo ante. What most observers failed to see in Washington's reluctance was how important it was for the US that Israel defeat Hizbullah. In fact, a successful conclusion was far more critical for Washington than for Israel.

Of course Israel wants to defeat Hizbullah. However, what would satisfy Israel may fall short of US strategic goals. Israel would accept a severely weakened Hizbullah that retreats north concurrently with the deployment of Lebanese and international forces to the border region. As far as the Israelis are concerned, a Hizbullah that remains armed within Lebanon but far away from Israel then becomes a Lebanese problem. The Lebanese will have to decide if they want Iran and Syria to continue supplying a militia within their own borders. Israel has amply demonstrated its fury and it is unlikely that a Lebanon-based organization will ever again risk a repeat of recent events.

Why would such an outcome fall short for the US? There are two reasons. The first is what can be called the Hizbullah model. It represents the nightmarish metamorphosis of a well-supplied and trained militia. If it can work in Lebanon, the model can be emulated elsewhere around the globe. Consider for one moment what Hizbullah has achieved: It has a parallel state structure in Lebanon complete with its own social services and rudimentary revenue collection system. It conducts its own foreign policy and, as events have demonstrated, its decision-making system is unaccountable to the central government. Worse, it has managed to build up a sophisticated arsenal of missiles and other armaments that intimidates the Lebanese Army.

Arms by themselves do not make the organization. Clearly, Hizbullah fighters have been trained at using weapons that no terrorist organization has hitherto acquired or mastered. It fired two Chinese-designed Iranian-built Silkworm missiles at an Israeli naval vessel. One of the missiles hit its target while the other sunk a nearby commercial vessel. The Silkworm is a weapon that armies use and it boggles the mind that a militia such as Hizbullah not only can acquire it but also use it with a modicum of success. Hizbullah is far more sophisticated and entrenched among a supportive population than Al-Qaeda. It is impossible to defeat it without inflicting civilian casualties. Therein lies Hizbullah's strength; it calculates that the outside world will relent in the face of civilian casualties.
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The Hizbullah model can easily be exported to other failed or semi-failed states, ranging from Somalia to Sri Lanka, Iraq and Colombia and perhaps even to Pakistan one day. All you need is an external patron willing to invest resources just as Iran has in this case, and a supportive population base. One can easily imagine a scenario of a Venezuela-supported FARC in Colombia initiating action against Bogota's southern neighbor, Ecuador or Peru. The Hizbullah model completely emasculates the notion that a state is defined by, among other things, a monopoly over the means of violence.

The second reason is because of Iran's patronage. Bogged down in Iraq, the US is facing an emboldened Iran ready to challenge it at any moment of its own choosing. For Iran, Hizbullah is another strategic tool in an asymmetric conflict with the West. Hizbullah extends Iran's reach well beyond the immediate region and the Middle East, but also to far-flung places such as the South American continent where it has an entrenched presence in the tri-border area of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. In Iraq, the Mehdi Army has already modeled itself along Hizbullah lines, as has Hamas. Any outcome that does not end up with Hizbullah's disarmament is another step in the institutionalization of the model under Iranian tutelage.

The US as the sole superpower, which for better or worse also acts as the world's first responder, cannot afford to see the proliferation of Hizbullah-like organizations deciding the fate of nations. For the same reasons, it is critical for the international community that UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for Hizbullah's disarmament and the reinforcement of Lebanese authority, be implemented fully.

Henri J. Barkey is chair of the International Relations Department at Lehigh University and a former member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff. This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter.