Warriors of God

by Nicholas Blanford

  During the presentation of the new manifesto, Nasrallah admitted that it was essentially a “political document” that did not touch on “matters of creed, ideology, or thought.” Hezbollah’s view on the wilayat al-faqih, he added, “is not a political stand that can be subjected to revision.”

  Hezbollah had been mulling an update to the Open Letter from as long ago as 2002. Sheikh Naim Qassem told me that year that the update was necessary because “much has happened and much has changed between 1985 and now. Our basic principles remain the same because they are at the heart of our movement, but many other positions have changed due to evolving circumstances around us.” He said that Hezbollah needed to be “flexible” and to adapt to the prevailing situation, but, he added, “the resistance against Israel has been our core belief and that has never changed.”

  “Ignite the Whole Region”

  The “resistance” is Hezbollah’s beating heart, its one immutable defining certainty. All the other components of the organization—the parliamentary presence, the social welfare networks that have helped entrench it within Lebanese society—exist essentially to support and sustain the resistance priority. Paradoxically, however, accommodation with and assimilation into Lebanese society bring new responsibilities and obligations that Hezbollah cannot disregard irrespective of its allegiance to the wali al-faqih.

  Hezbollah’s critics argue that the so-called “Lebanonization” process of the 1990s was nothing more than a chimera, a deceitful fig leaf masking the party’s slavish obedience to the wali al-faqih and its role as the Lebanese detachment of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. While there is some validity to the claim, it misses the point. Hezbollah had no choice but to “Lebanonize”—tactically, if not strategically—to accommodate to the post–civil war realities in Lebanon. It could not have survived into the 1990s if it had not done so.

  Hezbollah may continue to adhere to its core ideological goals, including living under an Islamic regime in Lebanon, but the party has given considerable thought to a more pragmatic system of governance in keeping with the realities of a multiconfessional Lebanon. In its 2006 memorandum of understanding with Michel Aoun and in the updated manifesto of 2009, Hezbollah states that “consensual democracy” remains the “fundamental basis for governance” in Lebanon until the sectarian system can be abolished. Emphasizing a commitment to the Lebanese “homeland” and support for consensual democracy helps make Hezbollah more palatable to other sects, particularly the Christians, allowing the party to build alliances beyond the narrow confines of its core Shia constituency and thus better protecting its resistance priority. It also represents a potential new platform for Hezbollah if ever there is a region-shaping dynamic that fundamentally alters the Iran-Israel conflict paradigm, such as the conclusion of a comprehensive Middle East peace or the collapse of the Islamic Republic, which would compel the party to reassess its agenda in order to survive.

  Still, one should be under no illusions that Hezbollah’s public backing of consensual democracy and outreach to other sects represents a moderation of its ideological aspirations and agenda. After all, the legions of raw recruits who attend Hezbollah’s religious classes and military training programs are not there to learn about consensual democracy and coexistence.

  The seeming contradiction between Hezbollah’s increasingly complex Lebanoncentric attitudes and its continued obligation to the Islamic Republic in part explains why there are such differing views held by academics, journalists, policy makers, and others who closely monitor and analyze the party’s actions and behavior. Some will lean more toward Hezbollah’s evolving integration into the Lebanese milieu; others remain convinced that the party is little more than a ruthless tool of Iranian power projection. Hezbollah’s identity today actually lies somewhere in between. Certainly, Hezbollah long ago outgrew the ragtag Iranian proxy militia status of its earliest years and is today the dominant political and military actor in Lebanon, a multi-billion-dollar corporation with commercial interests and pockets of influence spanning much of the globe. Iran has a clear understanding of Hezbollah’s domestic realities and grants Nasrallah autonomy in matters related to Lebanese policy.

  While Hezbollah usually plays down its logistical and military ties to Iran, it does not disguise its ideological commitment to the Islamic Republic and to the wali al-faqih even though such declarations provide grist to those who deride the organization as an Iranian puppet. In May 2008, Nasrallah mocked Hezbollah’s opponents “who imagine they insult us when they call us the party of the wilayat al-faqih.… Absolutely not. Today I declare—and this is nothing new—that I am proud of being a member of the wilayat al-faqih party, the wise faqih, the scholar faqih, the courageous faqih, the truthful and sincere faqih.”

  Hezbollah is Iran’s only true success in exporting the Islamic revolution, and its continued viability is important to Iran on several levels. It allows the Islamic Republic to project influence directly into the confrontation against the Jewish state; and Hezbollah’s martial successes against Israel over the years have helped burnish Iran’s standing in the Middle East and ameliorate to some extent the historic suspicions Sunni Arabs hold for the Shia Persians. Most important, however, Hezbollah’s military might today serves as a component of deterrence against the possibility of an attack by the West or Israel against Tehran’s nascent nuclear facilities. After all—and there should be no misunderstanding here—the billions of dollars Iran has spent on Hezbollah since 2000 was not an altruistic gift to help Lebanon defend itself against the possibility of future Israeli aggression. If Iran was so concerned about Lebanon’s territorial integrity, it could have directed its philanthropy into upgrading the Lebanese army on a transparent state-to-state basis. Instead, through Hezbollah, Iran has established a bridgehead on Israel’s northern border, enhancing its deterrence posture and expanding its retaliatory options in the event of an attack on the Islamic Republic.

  Yet here again Hezbollah faces the quandary of balancing its obligations to Iran and meeting the needs of its Shia constituency in Lebanon. The Shias of Lebanon generally support Hezbollah as a resistance to regain Israeli-occupied Lebanese territory and to defend against the possibility of future Israeli aggression. But they would have little sympathy for Hezbollah if the organization were to plunge Lebanon into another war with Israel for the sake of protecting the nuclear ambitions of a country lying 650 miles to the east.

  Hezbollah officials, in keeping with their customary ambiguity on such matters, decline to respond to specific questions on their expected course of action if Iran was attacked. Sheikh Naim Qassem once waved his hand dismissively and told me that Iran has plenty of retaliatory options without requiring Hezbollah’s assistance. But he added that much depended on the circumstances of an attack on Iran—the identity of the attacking force, the scale of the assault, and whether it was limited just to the Islamic Republic. “We don’t know what shape the Israeli aggression would take at that time and what areas it would include,” he said. “Would it be restricted to a limited strike on Iran or a large-scale one involving several countries? I can say that if it takes place from Israel, it is liable to ignite the whole region.”

  Pondering Hezbollah’s likely response is dependent on too many variables. But Iran must appreciate that Hezbollah is essentially a one-shot retaliatory option and therefore must be utilized wisely. If Iran is subjected to a limited attack, designed to set back the nuclear program a few months or years, that leaves the regime intact, would Iran really direct Hezbollah to respond by launching a cross-border offensive into Israel from Lebanon? Such a move would trigger the long-feared destructive war, the outcome of which is uncertain. Furthermore, there are no guarantees that Hezbollah would be in a position to rearm once more, as it did after the 2006 war, in readiness to counter a more ambitious attack on Iran.

  On the other hand, if the United States and its allies launch a massive, wide-ranging, and prolonged strike that is intended to destroy the nuclear progr
am and cripple the regime in Tehran, then Iran may consider it has little left to lose by activating Hezbollah, rallying its allies in the region, and launching the apocalyptic “last war” with Israel.

  “The Story of Resistance”

  To mark the tenth anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from south Lebanon, Hezbollah opened in May 2010 its old military base in the oak-tree-shrouded hillside at Mlita on the edge of what used to be the northern sector of the Israeli occupation zone. It was by far the most ambitious of Hezbollah’s many exhibitions and events held to laud the resistance and promote the struggle against Israel. Thousands of visitors descended on the site in the first few weeks to gawp at symbolic displays of smashed tanks, armored vehicles, and jeeps and piles of old military helmets. One Merkava tank had its barrel twisted into a knot. Another tank had run up against a giant concrete wall inscribed with Imad Mughniyah’s signature. A sandbagged walkway beneath trees led past numerous tableaux of dummy Hezbollah fighters in camouflage uniforms carrying Katyusha rockets or creeping through the undergrowth with rifles. One could even visit the alcove in the rocks where Sayyed Abbas Mussawi once prayed. His prayer mat, rifle, and copy of the Koran rested alongside a photograph of the slain Hezbollah leader. A recording of his gravelly voice reciting prayers wafted through the trees.

  “Those of us who used to be based here in the 1980s when Sayyed Abbas was here begin to weep when they hear his voice in this place,” said Abu Hadi, the Hezbollah fighter who first met Mussawi at Mlita so many years earlier (as recounted in chapter 2) and today gives guided tours of the site.

  Perhaps the highlight of the display is the tunnel-and-bunker system built in the 1980s, the prototype of those I explored in the border district after the 2006 war. A glassed-in “operations room” deep inside the bunker had military maps pinned to a wall and an old computer on the desk. Recordings of fighters communicating by radio were played over loudspeakers.

  A small landscaped garden on top of the hill was lined with tools of Hezbollah’s trade: antitank missiles, including an AT-14 Kornet that had so bedeviled Israeli armor in 2006, and a variety of recoilless rifles and antiaircraft cannons, including the 57 mm gun that Hezbollah once fired across the border to alarm the residents of Galilee in response to the daily Israeli overflights in Lebanese airspace. From Mlita, one could gaze across a steep valley to the old Sojod compound just visible on the opposite side, once the most heavily hit outpost in the occupation zone.

  The Mlita project was undeniably slick—the organizers even hired a marketing consultant to design a logo and “corporate identity” for the facility.

  “As the main center of the resistance from the 1980s, this place talks to the souls of the visitors,” said Sheikh Ali Daher, the head of Hezbollah’s publicity department. “The whole project is to tell the story of resistance to the new generation.” He said that there were plans to expand the facility with a cable car and to open additional theme parks in the south. But Daher also cheerfully admitted that the Israelis were certain to bomb Mlita into dust in the next war.

  The landscape of the south has changed little in the ten years since those tumultuous few days in May 2000 when the SLA collapsed and the last Israeli troops dashed for the border with Hezbollah fighters and Lebanese civilians at their heels. The hardy little hill villages remain the same, largely bereft of the young, who migrate to Beirut or travel overseas to find work, leaving the dusty streets to the ruminations of the elderly and the watchful eyes of the resistance. Most of those who remain follow the same ineluctable agrarian cycle as their ancestors, tilling the stony chocolate-colored soil for tobacco and wheat and picking citrus fruit in the coastal orchards and olives and apples on the cooler mountain slopes farther east.

  The mementos of occupation fade a little more with each passing year. The Israeli and SLA outposts, those menacing volcano cones silhouetted on the ridges and hills of the old front line, have gradually vanished, the overgrown earthen ramparts subsiding beneath eleven years of winter rains or leveled by the bulldozers of construction workers. One still remains relatively intact—the old SLA compound near the village of Talloussa, where I was once briefly detained by militants after stumbling across their antiaircraft gun hidden inside. The position was bombed by Israeli jets in 2006, leaving a gaping crater on one side and a sagging roof of reinforced concrete. It is still possible to walk up the cramped staircases and corridors that lead to the cinder-block-lined parapets and machine gun posts with their wide horizontal window slits and views over the old Wadi Salouqi front line. Here SLA militiamen once shivered in winter and baked in summer, doubtless mulling their ultimate fate while sheltering from Hezbollah’s near-daily mortar bombardments. What ghosts must still linger in these darkened corridors and weed-ridden ramparts?

  What ghosts, too, flit through the thickly wooded slopes of Wadi Salouqi, the scene of so many bloody clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops? Once inaccessible, it is reachable today by a gleaming black asphalt road that winds along the valley floor, and if one knows where to look deep into the shadowed foliage on either side, there are fleeting glimpses to be obtained of ruined and abandoned Hezbollah facilities—the entrance to a bunker here, smashed cinder block huts and sandbagged steps there.

  There are ghosts in the unsmiling faces of bygone martyrs whose portraits adorn electricity pylons and telephone poles, an ever-present reminder of past sacrifices and an inspiration for new generations of mujahideen. The sun-faded and rust-speckled tin-panel portraits of Mohammed Saad, with his scraggly beard and sharp eyes, still hang in the villages where this early resistance leader once lived, fought, and died.

  There are ghosts here for me, too, having spent a third of my life chasing Hezbollah and watching the occupations, battles, massacres, victories, and defeats of war in the valleys and hills of the south.

  I see them in the golden beams of sunlight that pierce the brooding purple rain clouds of winter and spotlight tracts of gray stony hillside beneath Beaufort Castle. I see them in the hot, dry wind that blows up from Galilee in the heavy heat of August and buffets the Shebaa Farms mountains rising above the cool, limpid waters of the Wazzani springs. I see them in the poppies, cornflowers, and buttercups of spring in the meadows of the Litani River below Marjayoun, like some vast Impressionist canvas suffused with the scent of wild thyme and sage.

  There are ghosts in the forest of umbrella pines and the forbidding mountains overlooking Jezzine where I once spent an evening with Johnny, the whisky-swigging SLA militiaman, his old wartime comrade Nimr, and Manny, the terrified teenager.

  There are ghosts in Tyre at what was once UNIFIL’s logistics base—and is today a parking lot—where I would sip morning coffee and chat with my friend Hassan Siklawi and his colleagues Rula and Joumana in their portacabin office before heading for a tour of “the area,” the volatile frontline district.

  There are ghosts where the border road takes a sharp left turn near the village of Meiss al-Jabal, where Abed Taqqoush was murdered by an Israeli tank gunner. The rusted skeleton of his burned-out car was towed away for scrap many years ago, and for a long time the only physical reminder of what happened there was the melted patch of asphalt where Abed’s car was engulfed in flames. Even that ugly cicatrix eventually disappeared beneath a fresh layer of asphalt, but the memory lingers and dampens my mood every time I pass by.

  I see ghosts, too, in the faces of the southern Lebanese, whose stoicism and unbreakable sense of humor helped sustain them through decades of sacrifice, violence, and bloodshed. Scarcely a village along the old front line or in the border district does not hold some memory for me. Mansouri, to give one of many examples, where in August 1999 I met with the family of Mahmoud Zabad a few hours after an Israeli tank had fired antipersonnel rounds filled with thousands of steel darts into his home, knocking holes in a wall and nearly killing his children. As we sat chatting over tiny cups of coffee, Mahmoud reduced his family to hysterical laughter with a graphic account of how his seven-year-
old son, Hassan, had urgently needed to visit the bathroom even as the tank shells were exploding outside. Dozens of the vicious steel darts were still embedded in his ruined kitchen wall as Mahmoud clutched his behind and staggered in front of his family in imitation of the incontinent Hassan, to hoots of laughter that even a flare-trailing Israeli jet swooping over the village failed to diminish.

  There are ghosts—too many ghosts—in Qana, once famous in Lebanon for being the place where the Lebanese believe Christ performed the wedding miracle of turning water into wine, but today synonymous with bloody massacre.

  It was this village that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the diminutive, narrow-eyed Iranian president who seems to take puckish delight in pricking Western sensibilities, chose to visit in October 2010 on his inaugural trip to Lebanon as president. He had held a triumphal rally in Beirut the evening before, attended by the Hezbollah faithful. Nasrallah, who since 2006 has delivered nearly all his speeches by video screen for security reasons, disappointed his supporters by not standing in person beside Ahmadinejad at the Beirut rally. But the Hezbollah leader doubtless anticipated that his rare appearance in the flesh would completely overshadow the presence of his Iranian guest.

  There was another huge crowd awaiting Ahmadinejad in Bint Jbeil the next day. Hezbollah security men clutching the ubiquitous walkie-talkies marshaled the throng along the streets to the sports stadium, which was bedecked with Lebanese and Iranian flags. A giant banner reading “Welcome” in Arabic and Farsi hung by the stage. The sun had dropped below the stadium walls by the time Ahmadinejad arrived on the floodlit stage. To one side of him stood Sheikh Nabil Qawq, Hezbollah’s tall southern commander, who was dressed in his customary brown cloak and white turban. The crowd roared their greeting and Ahmadinejad smiled, waved his hand, and gave V for Victory signs. He stood less than two miles from the border with archenemy Israel, a country he has insisted must be destroyed—an ambition that Hezbollah’s faithful hope to fulfill.