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Comment and Opinion

Washington Institute: Hezbollah’s Syrian Quagmire, by Matthew Levitt

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Hezbollah – Lebanon’s Party of God – is many things. It is one of the dominant political parties in Lebanon, as well as a social and religious movement catering first and foremost(though not exclusively) to Lebanon’s Shi’a community. Hezbollah is also Lebanon’s largest militia, the only one to maintain its weapons and rebrand its armed elements as an “Islamic resistance” in response to the terms of the Taif Accord, which ended Lebanon’s civil war and called for all militias to disarm. While the various wings of the group are intended to complement one another, the reality is often messier. In part, that has to do with compartmentalization of the group’s covert activities. But it is also a factor of the group’s multiple identities– Lebanese, pan-Shi’a, pro-Iranian – and the group’s multiple and sometimes competing goals tied to these different identities. Hezbollah insists that it is Lebanese first, but in fact, it is an organization that always acts out of its self-interests above its purported Lebanese interests. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Hezbollah also has an “expansive global network” that “is sending money and operatives to carry out terrorist attacks around the world.”

Over the past few years, a series of events has exposed some of Hezbollah’s covert and militant enterprises in the region and around the world, challenging the group’s standing at home and abroad. Hezbollah operatives have been indicted for the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri by the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) in The Hague, arrested on charges of plotting attacks in Nigeria, and convicted on similar charges in Thailand and Cyprus. Hezbollah’s criminal enterprises, including drug running and money laundering from South America to Africa to the Middle East, have been targeted by law enforcement and regulatory agencies. And shortly after the European Union blacklisted the military wing of Hezbollah, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) followed suit, banning the provision of financial or other support for the group from GCC countries, and began deporting suspected Hezbollah supporters.

But all this pales in comparison to the existential challenges Hezbollah faces over its active participation in the war in Syria. By siding with the Assad regime, the regime’s Alawite supporters, and Iran, and taking up arms against Sunni rebels, Hezbollah has placed itself at the epicenter of a sectarian conflict that has nothing to do with the group’s purported raison d’être: “resistance” to Israeli occupation. After Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah gave a speech in August 2013, defending the group’s activities in Syria as part of its “resistance” against Israel, one Shiite Lebanese satirist commented that, “Either the fighters have lost Palestine on the map and think it is in Syria (or) they were informed that the road to Jerusalem runs through Qusayr and Homs,” locations in Syria where Hezbollah has fought with Assad loyalists against Sunni rebels. Now, in 2014, with Hezbollah’s credibility as a resistance group on the line, the group’s activities in Syria place it at odds with the majority of Sunni Palestinians, especially those in Lebanon and Syria where the conflict is felt most acutely. Indeed, in January 2014 Hamas leaders stepped in and pleaded with Hezbollah and Iran for humanitarian relief on behalf of the besieged and starving Palestinian population of the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus.

Read the piece in full at the Washington Institute.