Hezbollah's Victory

Informative piece at OpinionJournal. Goes into the problems that Hezbollah is having with their victory. Strange that the perspective here isn't news for the majority of the MSM. This is information that would provide a better balance in the publics opinion of what Lebanon is like at the moment. It also puts the Hezbollah hierarchy in a clearer light.

The way much of the Western media tells the story, Hezbollah won a great victory against Israel and the U.S., healed the Sunni-Shiite rift, and boosted the Iranian mullahs' claim to leadership of the Muslim world. Portraits of Hassan Nasrallah, the junior mullah who leads the Lebanese branch of this pan-Shiite movement, have adorned magazine covers in the West, hammering in the message that this child of the Khomeinist revolution is the new hero of the mythical "Arab Street."

Probably because he watches a lot of CNN, Iran's "Supreme Guide," Ali Khamenei, also believes in "a divine victory." Last week he asked 205 members of his Islamic Majlis to send Mr. Nasrallah a message, congratulating him for his "wise and far-sighted leadership of the Ummah that produced the great victory in Lebanon."

By controlling the flow of information from Lebanon throughout the conflict, and help from all those who disagree with U.S. policies for different reasons, Hezbollah may have won the information war in the West. In Lebanon, the Middle East and the broader Muslim space, however, the picture is rather different.

There are some interesting perspectives relating to 4GW here. Hezbollah's control of the media, not to mention their own media organ controlled how the world witnessed the effects of the Israeli attacks and completely eliminated any reporting on Hezbollah's tactics. Anything on Hezbollah's tactics coming from the Israeli press was heavily discounted. (That is clearly a win for Hezbollah)

Then there is the methods that they are now using to try to recover from their actions which play a negative role with the Lebanese people of the region.

Politically, however, Hezbollah had to declare victory for a simple reason: It had to pretend that the death and desolation it had provoked had been worth it. A claim of victory was Hezbollah's shield against criticism of a strategy that had led Lebanon into war without the knowledge of its government and people. Mr. Nasrallah alluded to this in television appearances, calling on those who criticized him for having triggered the war to shut up because "a great strategic victory" had been won.

The tactic worked for a day or two. However, it did not silence the critics, who have become louder in recent days. The leaders of the March 14 movement, which has a majority in the Lebanese Parliament and government, have demanded an investigation into the circumstances that led to the war, a roundabout way of accusing Hezbollah of having provoked the tragedy. Prime Minister Fuad Siniora has made it clear that he would not allow Hezbollah to continue as a state within the state. Even Michel Aoun, a maverick Christian leader and tactical ally of Hezbollah, has called for the Shiite militia to disband.

Mr. Nasrallah followed his claim of victory with what is known as the "Green Flood"(Al-sayl al-akhdhar). This refers to the massive amounts of crisp U.S. dollar notes that Hezbollah is distributing among Shiites in Beirut and the south. The dollars from Iran are ferried to Beirut via Syria and distributed through networks of militants. Anyone who can prove that his home was damaged in the war receives $12,000, a tidy sum in wartorn Lebanon.

I wonder at how effective the money will be, considering the level of destruction in some areas. The declaration of victory was obviously for the Arab neighbors, though this likely soured the Lebanese opinion. Not that that can't be recovered. You can be certain that large amounts of funding will find itself in the right places to fix infrastructure and deflect the responsibility for being the cause. This is grass-roots management of the after effects and is definitely a 4GW method. Keep the support of the public.

They do have some serious problems with the public on some issues though.

Hezbollah is also criticized from within the Lebanese Shiite community, which accounts for some 40% of the population. Sayyed Ali al-Amin, the grand old man of Lebanese Shiism, has broken years of silence to criticize Hezbollah for provoking the war, and called for its disarmament. In an interview granted to the Beirut An-Nahar, he rejected the claim that Hezbollah represented the whole of the Shiite community. "I don't believe Hezbollah asked the Shiite community what they thought about [starting the] war," Mr. al-Amin said. "The fact that the masses [of Shiites] fled from the south is proof that they rejected the war. The Shiite community never gave anyone the right to wage war in its name."

There were even sharper attacks. Mona Fayed, a prominent Shiite academic in Beirut, wrote an article also published by An-Nahar last week. She asks: Who is a Shiite in Lebanon today? She provides a sarcastic answer: A Shiite is he who takes his instructions from Iran, terrorizes fellow believers into silence, and leads the nation into catastrophe without consulting anyone. Another academic, Zubair Abboud, writing in Elaph, a popular Arabic-language online newspaper, attacks Hezbollah as "one of the worst things to happen to Arabs in a long time." He accuses Mr. Nasrallah of risking Lebanon's existence in the service of Iran's regional ambitions.

Before he provoked the war, Mr. Nasrallah faced growing criticism not only from the Shiite community, but also from within Hezbollah. Some in the political wing expressed dissatisfaction with his overreliance on the movement's military and security apparatus. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they described Mr. Nasrallah's style as "Stalinist" and pointed to the fact that the party's leadership council (shura) has not held a full session in five years. Mr. Nasrallah took all the major decisions after clearing them with his Iranian and Syrian contacts, and made sure that, on official visits to Tehran, he alone would meet Iran's "Supreme Guide," Ali Khamenei.

Their base is definitely religious. They have an issue with that religiosity on a couple of fronts. First there is the problem with recognition of Ayatollah's from outside the immediate region that is causing anger.

Mr. Nasrallah was also criticized for his acknowledgement of Ali Khamenei as Marjaa al-Taqlid (Source of Emulation), the highest theological authority in Shiism. Highlighting his bay'aah (allegiance), Mr. Nasrallah kisses the man's hand each time they meet. Many Lebanese Shiites resent this because Mr. Khamenei, a powerful politician but a lightweight in theological terms, is not recognized as Marjaa al-Taqlid in Iran itself. The overwhelming majority of Lebanese Shiites regard Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, in Iraq, or Ayatollah Muhammad-Hussein Fadhlallah, in Beirut, as their "Source of Emulation."

There is also a perception that they are a secular organization. The article fails to mention that they also have issues with the Christian public of Lebanon, which Israel used during their occupation. It is unlikely that they will ever get their support. Then there is the Sunni block that also doesn't want to play. So the religious variations are working against them in their 4GW tactics.

The situation may be a little better for Israel now that Chirac has, at least in appearance, gotten some testicular fortitude. Though I'm uncertain it will be of any value unless the UN can stop the dithering and actually provide a resolution that means something.

Jacques Chirac agreed last night to increase France's contribution to an international force in southern Lebanon to 2,000 troops.

The announcement gave much-needed momentum to international efforts to put UN troops on the ground before the fragile truce between Israel and Hizbollah unravels.

France was willing to lead the force after winning assurances from the UN that the troops would be able to defend themselves fully if attacked and could use force to protect civilians.

The announcement, in a televised address by the French president, followed a blizzard of international criticism over the initial commitment of 200 troops to join the 200 already serving in the UN Interim Force (Unifil).

The article does give some perspective on the French resistance to joining the force. No surprise, the problem was the UN mandate.

There was widespread disappointment at the UN last week when the French defence minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, said her country, the former colonial power in Lebanon, would initially send just 200 extra troops. It had been expected to contribute up to 4,000.

The French army has painful memories of a Shia militant attack in Beirut in 1983 that killed 58 French soldiers and of the UN peacekeeping fiasco during the Bosnia war, where it lost 80 men under orders not to use lethal force. Mr Chirac has consistently said that he would send more soldiers only if the UN strengthened the force's rules of engagement, as well as clearly defining its mission and providing guarantees that Hizbollah would be disarmed.

Last night he said that he was satisfied that his concerns had been met.

I'm a bit baffled at any military force taking casualties and not at least defending themselves with lethal force. I guess I wouldn't make a very good UN soldier.