Hizbullah's Syrian adventure

Has Nasrallah lost the plot?

A GOOD PIECE

By Brian Whitaker

".....Whatever the precise motivation, though, it's a move that has far-reaching implications and brings considerable risks – not least for Hizbullah itself.

Hizbullah's principal raison d'être has always been resistance to Israel, and Israeli occupation of Lebanon in particular. On those grounds it has succeeded in retaining its military wing, arguing that the Lebanese army is incapable of defending the country alone. 

Until now, that has been a persuasive argument for many Lebanese, even beyond Hizbullah's own Shia community. But many of them will surely balk at the idea of Hizbullah's militia being used to support a beleaguered dictator next door – especially when the dictator in question had been forced to withdraw his troops from Lebanon in 2005 as a result of popular demonstrations in the wake of Rafiq Hariri's assassination......

 As an ally, Hizbullah is useful to him but he certainly wouldn't risk martyrdom for its cause. In 2006, when Lebanon faced a month-long onslaught from Israel (and Israeli leaders talked of obliterating Hizbullah once and for all), Syria generously opened its doors to thousands fleeing the conflict but made every effort to stay out of the fight. Rhetoric aside, the Syrian military adopted an obviously non-aggressive posture – one that was intended to be seen, and noted as defensive, by Israeli surveillance.

Meanwhile, Hizbullah is already paying a price for its stance, as Ghassan al-Azzi, professor of political sciences at the Lebanese University, observed in remarks to AFP:

"Hezbollah's reputation has suffered not only in the Arab world but also in Lebanon. Gone are the days when polls named Nasrallah as the most popular political leader in the Arab world for his resistance against Israel." ......

But even if the fighting can be confined mainly to Syria, does Hizbullah really appreciate what it is getting into? Peter Harling of the International Crisis Group suspects not. The war in Syria may prove more challenging for Hizbullah than anything it faced in three decades fighting Israeli troops, he told Reuters:

"Hezbollah will soon realise that this conflict is far bloodier than anything it has seen before. This is a very deadly conflict. If they go all in, they will have huge losses."

Whether or not Harling is right about that, fighting "takfiris" in Syria on behalf of a dictator is not, and never has been, Hizbullah's core business. It's a diversion that smacks of adventurism – and one that Lebanon's Shia community will probably come to regret.

In the meantime, Israel can sit back and watch as "the resistance" exhausts itself."