http://www.lebanese-forces.org
Monday , September 11th ,2006
Hezbollah
Didn't Win
Arab writers are beginning
to lift the veil on what really happened in Lebanon.
WSJ - BY AMIR TAHERI
Friday, August 25, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
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.
Let us start with
Lebanon.
Immediately after
the U.N.-ordained ceasefire started, Hezbollah organized a series of firework
shows, accompanied by the distribution of fruits and sweets, to celebrate its
victory. Most Lebanese, however, finding the exercise indecent, stayed away.
The largest "victory march" in south Beirut, Hezbollah's stronghold,
attracted just a few hundred people.
Initially
Hezbollah had hesitated between declaring victory and going into mourning for
its "martyrs." The latter course would have been more in harmony with
Shiite traditions centered on the cult of Imam Hussain's martyrdom in 680 A.D.
Some members of Hezbollah wished to play the martyrdom card so that they could
accuse Israel, and through it the U.S., of war crimes. They knew that it was
easier for Shiites, brought up in a culture of eternal victimhood, to cry over
an imagined calamity than laugh in the joy of a claimed victory.
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.
The Green Flood
has been unleashed to silence criticism of Mr. Nasrallah and his masters in
Tehran. But the trick does not seem to be working. "If Hezbollah won a
victory, it was a Pyrrhic one," says Walid Abi-Mershed, a leading Lebanese
columnist. "They made Lebanon pay too high a price--for which they must be
held accountable."
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.
Mr. Nasrallah
justified his style by claiming that involving too many people in
decision-making could allow "the Zionist enemy" to infiltrate the
movement. Once he had received the Iranian green light to provoke the war, Mr.
Nasrallah acted without informing even the two Hezbollah ministers in the
Siniora cabinet or the 12 Hezbollah members of the Lebanese Parliament.
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."
Some Lebanese
Shiites also question Mr. Nasrallah's strategy of opposing Prime Minister
Siniora's "Project for Peace," and instead advancing an
Iranian-backed "Project of Defiance." The coalition led by Mr.
Siniora wants to build Lebanon into a haven of peace in the heart of a
turbulent region. His critics dismiss this as a plan "to create a larger
Monaco." Mr. Nasrallah's "Project of Defiance," however, is
aimed at turning Lebanon into the frontline of Iranian defenses in a war of
civilizations between Islam (led by Tehran) and the "infidel," under
American leadership. "The choice is between the beach and the
bunker," says Lebanese scholar Nadim Shehadeh. There is evidence that a
majority of Lebanese Shiites would prefer the beach.
There was a time
when Shiites represented an underclass of dirt-poor peasants in the south and
lumpen elements in Beirut. Over the past 30 years, however, that picture has
changed. Money sent from Shiite immigrants in West Africa (where they dominate
the diamond trade), and in the U.S. (especially Michigan), has helped create a
prosperous middle class of Shiites more interested in the good life than
martyrdom à la Imam Hussain. This new Shiite bourgeoisie dreams of a
place in the mainstream of Lebanese politics and hopes to use the community's
demographic advantage as a springboard for national leadership. Hezbollah,
unless it ceases to be an instrument of Iranian policies, cannot realize that
dream.
The list of names
of those who never endorsed Hezbollah, or who broke with it after its Iranian
connections became too apparent, reads like a Who's Who of Lebanese Shiism. It
includes, apart from the al-Amins, families such as the al-As'ad, the Osseiran,
the al-Khalil, the Hamadah, the Murtadha, the Sharafeddin, the Fadhlallah, the
Mussawis, the Hussainis, the Shamsuddin and the Ata'allahs.
Far from
representing the Lebanese national consensus, Hezbollah is a sectarian group
backed by a militia that is trained, armed and controlled by Iran. In the words
of Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the Iranian daily Kayhan, "Hezbollah
is 'Iran in Lebanon.' " In the 2004 municipal elections, Hezbollah
won some 40% of the votes in the Shiite areas, the rest going to its rival Amal
(Hope) movement and independent candidates. In last year's general election,
Hezbollah won only 12 of the 27 seats allocated to Shiites in the 128-seat
National Assembly--despite making alliances with Christian and Druze parties
and spending vast sums of Iranian money to buy votes.
Hezbollah's
position is no more secure in the broader Arab world, where it is seen as an
Iranian tool rather than as the vanguard of a new Nahdha (Awakening), as
the Western media claim. To be sure, it is still powerful because it has guns,
money and support from Iran, Syria and Hate America International Inc. But the
list of prominent Arab writers, both Shiite and Sunni, who have exposed
Hezbollah for what it is--a Khomeinist Trojan horse--would be too long for a
single article. They are beginning to lift the veil and reveal what really
happened in Lebanon.
Having lost more
than 500 of its fighters, and with almost all of its medium-range missiles
destroyed, Hezbollah may find it hard to sustain its claim of victory.
"Hezbollah won the propaganda war because many in the West wanted it to
win as a means of settling score with the United States," says Egyptian
columnist Ali al-Ibrahim. "But the Arabs have become wise enough to know
TV victory from real victory."
Mr. Taheri is author of "L'Irak: Le Dessous
Des Cartes" (Editions Complexe, 2002).
http://www.lebanese-forces.org/news/viewarticle30.html
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008847
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/19904
Other
HEZBOLLAH'S 'VICTORY' – Benador Associates from September 1 , 2006 in Washington Post