Hezbollah and the State: Lebanon's Future Looks as Turbulent as Ever

Israeli forces bombarded Beirut and parts of southern Lebanon as they unleashed a wave of retaliatory strikes on Wednesday.

(Photo: AP/PTI)

The legend of Saint Theophilus is that he was the only monk to have been canonised by the Church despite having sold his soul to Satan. In other words, a tale of a spectacular Faustian bargain. 

Last month, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, was assassinated in Lebanon by Israel. Since then, many experts have predicted a turbulent future for Lebanon (and possibly, the Middle East). To draw a nuanced picture of a likely future, one must look at Lebanon’s past. 

In February 2005, the former Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafiq Hariri, was assassinated when he was on his way to Kuraytem Palace in Beirut. The various international forensic teams that investigated the crime concluded that “an amount of no less than 1,000 kilograms of military explosives were used”.  

A successful Sunni businessman turned politician, he was the first Prime Minister of Lebanon after the civil war ended. Winning the post-civil war election was no small feat. Lebanese politics has always been a minefield of various religious and factional agendas with, at times, competing interests. The civil war (from 1975 – 1990) had made the act of governing an impossible task. The civil war saw the participation of other countries, such as Syria, Israel, Iran and the United States.  

Prime Minister Hariri’s assassination led to the peaceful Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, and ousting of the powerful Syrian army. The subsequent Parliamentary election saw the victory of an anti-Syrian, Sunni majority “March 14” alliance (Hezbollah and others were part of a rival alliance named “March 8”). 

Pursuant to the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1664, the UNSC helped to create a Special Tribunal for Lebanon to fully investigate the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri. The government of Lebanon contributed to 49 percent of the total budget of the Special Tribunal.

The Tribunal found that Salim Ayyash, a Hezbollah operative, had participated in the “conspiracy to commit a terrorist act”.  

Lebanon, after the civil war, had remained a maze of various security agencies and nations. For Hezbollah, the end of the civil war provided an opportunity to transform into a political party. Much before it formally became a part of the Lebanese government, it was the proxy state that provided a range of social services in Southern Lebanon. 

The judgement in the case of Rafiq Hariri by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the year 2020 brought out an incredible contradiction. It held that Hezbollah had played a role in the assassination of the former Prime Minister; yet, Hezbollah was a part of the government that was investigating the assassination.  

While politics in the Middle East embraces dysfunction, politics, generally, cannot withstand a vacuum. In his time, Prime Minister Hariri was criticised for many of his actions; especially, when his role as a politician came in conflict with his role as a businessman. In his death, he was able to unite various factions of the Lebanese society to ultimately oust the Syrian army/security forces. 

Lebanon has not been able to catch a break since then. The country has been through a war with Israel in 2006; the intervention of Hezbollah in the Syrian civil war; widespread protest movements; severe financial crisis; a massive explosion at the port of Beirut described as “one of the largest non–nuclear explosions ever recorded”; and needless to say, political instability. 

Terrorists usually make great martyrs. In death, fables outlive the terror of their actions. With Hezbollah, the legacy is even more complex. A powerful military force responsible for spectacular violence, the militia takes pains to portray itself as a scrappy underdog in its fight against Israel. On the other hand, it has made it impossible for the Lebanese to form a government in the recent past. 

Pushed into a corner, the country is facing some serious questions.

After dealing with the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, will Hezbollah and other such terror outfits coalesce? Or, are we likely to see smaller splinters with a more dangerous ideological bent? The other crucial question: will Hezbollah continue to act as the whole state, though, it is merely one of the many components of Lebanese politics? And, if not, then who will represent the interests of the Shias in the Lebanese government?

The countries in the Middle East have managed to exist in a delicate Faustian arrangement of identities, bonds, and boundaries with each other. Increasingly, state-building has been impacted by the raging violence. At this moment, looking from the outside in, with history on our mind, the only certainty is that “excessive force” by Israel is not the answer.

There is an idea in our recent history that red lines can be shifted continuously, and yet, it is possible to end up on the right side (not unlike Saint Theophilus who made a Faustian bargain with evil). This may be so, though it is likely that international law will disagree. Since the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, Israeli troops began a ground invasion of Lebanon. Iran has carried out reprisals against Israel. All this, while the citizens of Israel continue to carry on with peaceful protests against the Netanyahu government.  

After the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri, the Shia vote was represented by the alliance of Amal and Hezbollah (the pro–Syrian faction). By joining the anti–Syrian government and not pushing an anti–Sunni agenda, the alliance demonstrated pragmatism (and that it had its ear to the ground in the region).

If history is the culmination of our collective past, so much of the present is an act of deliberate forgetfulness. Hopefully, there will be less forgetfulness this time around. 

(Sangeeta Chakravorty is a Mumbai–based writer and lawyer. Currently, she is pursuing her Masters in International Relations at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC. Views are personal.)