From when the American
public mobilized against Terrorism in general to the first
US-led intervention in Afghanistan, Tehran’s leaders got
extremely nervous about the changes hitting their
neighborhood. Any democracy anywhere around them is a bad
omen. When the Taliban regime was removed from Kabul in
2001, Tehran’s Khumenists witnessed the rise of women in
the electoral process and within the Afghani Government.
Iranian leaders understood the future implications at home.
When Saddam’s regime was removed from Baghdad, Khamenei’s
elite wasn’t unhappy with the removal, but with the multi
party process that followed, even though they succeeded in
inserting their influence in it. And when UNSCR 1559 was
voted calling on Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon and
Hizbollah’s disarming, both Tehran and Damascus felt the
heat pressuring their joint influence on the Eastern
Mediterranean. The Syrian Baathist reaction to the new era
was quick with the assassination of former Lebanese Prime
Minister Rafiq Hariri on February 14, 2005. Assad paid a
dear price for this fast drawing and shooting against his
opponents in Lebanon. In March of that year, and despite
an attempt by Hezbollah to shore up popular support to the
Syrian President inside Lebanon, one million and a half
citizens marched in the street of Beirut, shattering the
myth of both Syrian “brotherly” occupation and Hizbollah’s
untouched position in the country. With the political
weakening of its allied organization by the public and the
pulling out of Damascus’ regular troops from Lebanon,
Iran’s regime mobilized for the counter regional attack.
Hezbollah readied for its role in the general Jihadi
offensive.
The Jihadi
Syro-Iranian offensive started simultaneously in early
2005, with the Hariri assassination in Lebanon and the
selecting of Mahmoud Ahmedinijad as head of the Islamic
Republic in Tehran. In Lebanon and as the pro-Syrian
Government collapsed, new elections were held and an
anti-Syria majority was established, Hezbollah executed a
sophisticated one year plan in preparation for the war
launched in July 2006. It began with Nasrallah imposing on
the Seniora Government a strange offer: taking three
members of the Party into his cabinet, while Hezbollah
maintains a strategic relation with Syria’s regime. That
success brought other moves forward. For six months,
political leaders and journalists of the Cedars Revolution
were assassinated with car bombs: Samir Qassir, George
Hawi and Gebran Tueni. This sufficed to convince the
anti-Syrian politicians that any serious obstruction of
the Iranian-Syrian axis and opposition to Hezbollah will
be “punished.” The terror treatment seemed to have worked,
as the Government was forced to abandon the implementation
of UNSCR 1559 and have its components sit down with
Hezbollah to “discuss” the future of its weapons. In short,
it took Nasrallah and his allies less than a year to
contain and weaken the Cedars Revolution and the
Government it has produced. Twelve months passed after
Syria’s withdrawal from the country, and yet the Lebanese
army was not allowed by Hezbollah’s veto power inside the
Seniora cabinet to deploy along the borders or even inside
the sensitive area of south Lebanon. Strategically,
Hezbollah absorbed the consequences of the Syrian
withdrawal, penetrated the Government and along with
pro-Syrian politicians created further divisions within
Lebanon’s religious communities, including within Sunni,
Druze and Christian political establishments.
During 2006, several
factors pushed Iran and Syria to press their allies in
Lebanon and in Palestine for havoc. The nuclear crisis
with Tehran was the principal factor for convincing the
Mullahs that a major crumbling of the region’s new
democracies and peace processes is vital to deflect the
crisis away from Tehran. In fact the international
determination to remove the Iranian nuclear threat was
breaking Ahmedinijad’s ambitions for increasing
international power. The several elections in Iraq,
despite terrorism, indicated the rise of the political
process in that country, with future impact on Iran itself.
Syria’s isolation as a result of the UN investigation in
the Hariri assassination further convinced the Assad
regime that inflaming the Gaza and the Israeli-Lebanese
borders is the recipe to overshadow the UN report. Hamas
also had developed interest in the clash with the “Zionist
enemy,” as the financial credibility of their newly formed
Government in the Palestinian areas was sinking down and a
civil war with Fatah looming on the horizon. And finally
Hezbollah: the militia-turned party and still listed as a
Terrorist organization on the US list of terrorist group,
used extreme patience since 2000 in building its
hyper-arsenal across the country, infiltrated the Army and
avoided major escalation against Israel. But on Bastille
Day Sayyed Nasrallah ended the previous era of
preparedness: Now is the time for a qualitative Jihad, he
seemed to imply.
In addition to the
regional injunctions to strike Israel in order to focus
the international heat on the Arab Israeli conflict,
Hezbollah has also included a number of “Lebanese” factors
in its decision to flare up the borders with its enemy.
Back in March 2005, the leaders of the Iranian-backed
organization saw in disbelief the enormous masses marching
against Syria, and by ripple effect, against Hezbollah.
Not only the largest democracy demonstration in the
history of the Middle East, but also a multiethnic and
multi-religious one: Christians, Druze, Sunnis and even
some Shiites broke the taboo of Hezbollah’s “sacred”
character in Lebanon. Second nightmare was with the actual
withdrawal of the Syrian army from the country, opening
the path for the implementation of the second item of the
UNSCR 1559, i.e., disarming the fundamentalist militia.
The third nightmare came when this anti-Syrian coalition
brought a majority in Parliament during the May-June 2005
legislative elections in Lebanon. The threat to Hezbollah
was not the formation of a cabinet opposing Syrian
influence in as much as it was a signal that the people of
Lebanon wasn’t endorsing the “resistance” story, or put it
simply, wasn’t buying the party’s story period. The Cedars
Revolution was the worse development the Khumeinist
movement had to absorb since its inception. The sight of a
million young men and women in colorful outfits marching
in downtown Beirut was the beginning of a new era: liberal
democracy, freedom and rejection of the dark ideology of
Nasrallah. Hence, it became a must to eliminate that
revolution at any price.
In a few months, a
number of leading politicians and journalists were
savagely murdered by the pro-Syrian camp: Syrian
intelligence, Hezbollah and other groups were suspected as
being behind the assassination campaign. In parallel,
Hezbollah and its allies outmaneuvered the parliamentary
majority, which was supposed to form an anti-Baathist
Government, bring down the pro-Syrian President Emile
Lahoud and remove the pro-Syrian speaker of the House,
Nabih Berri. A magic hand convinced the so-called
politicians of the March 14 movement, that none of these
measures is feasible. Hence Syria maintained its power in
Lebanon, while U.S and French Presidents were singing the
praise of the liberation of Lebanon. Furthermore, and in a
suicidal move the Lebanese cabinet, headed by Fouad
Seniora invited Hezbollah to join the Government, before
the latter disarm. By the summer of last year, the Cedars
Revolution was bleeding seriously. Not only entrenched in
the legal Government of Lebanon, but Hezbollah succeeded
in a penetration of the Christian community, the hardcore
of the anti-Syrian resistance, by enlisting the former
commander of the Lebanese Army who performed an about face
after 10 years in exile, where he claimed opposition to
Syria. Michel Aoun signed an agreement of “understanding”
with Hassan Nasrallah during the spring of 2006. The
“revolution” was beheaded and Hezbollah was waiting for
the right time to operate its come back into the center of
Lebanese politics, while executing the instructions of
Tehran and Damascus.
By early July 2006,
Hezbollah’s preparations for the bloody return to the top
were fulfilled. The organization had already accomplished
its Lebanese tasks:
1) Elimination (direct
or in conjunction with Syrian intelligence or Syrian
Social Nationalists) of visible symbols of anti-Syrian
leadership: Tueni, Qassir and Hawi, and attempts against
others such as May Chidiac, as an intimidation lesson to
all others.
2) Paralysis of PM
Seniora’s cabinet from the inside and in cooperation with
President Lahoud networks on the outside.
3) Paralysis of the
parliament in collaboration with speaker Berri and the
Aoun bloc.
4) Dragging the
political forces in the country in the so-called national
dialogue on the weapons of Hezbollah, a major waste of
time and marginalization of the 1559 stipulation
3) Intimidation of
the Lebanese army command.
4) Attempts to
divide the Lebanese Diaspora by implanting agents linked
to the axis.
5) Reactivation of
the pro-Syrian and Jihadist networks in Lebanon and within
the Palestinian camps.
6) Distribution of
weapons among allied militias
7) Finally and most
importantly, completing the final steps in the deployment
of a system of rockets and long range artillery batteries
aimed at Israel.
It is based on these
domestic achievements in Lebanon and on strategic
injunctions by its regional sponsors that Hezbollah
decided to trigger its awaited Armageddon. What was the
Hezbollah’s initial plan? The pro-Iranian militia had
constructed a theory of invincibility based on the
rationalization of a string of former successes against
the United States and France in the 1980s, against Israel
and the ex-South Lebanon Army in the 1990s, and its
intimidation of the Cedars Revolution in 2005. In short,
Nasrallah’s team was convinced of the following: A
spectacular operation against Israeli military would:
1. Bring back the
“struggle with Israel” to the forefront of Lebanese
politics, thus cornering the Lebanese Government into
capitulation on the Hariri and the disarmament matters.
2. Expect a harsh Israeli retaliation, good enough to
attract world condemnation, but not strong enough to
change realities in Lebanon.
3. The operation, dubbed “al-Waad al sadeq” (Faithful
Promise) would signal the beginning of a series of
skirmishes with Israel and a generalized assault on the
Seniora cabinet and the Cedars Revolution, to be accused
on treason and collusion with the Zionists.
4. With the crumbling of the Lebanese Government under the
strikes by Hizbollah-Lahoud-Aoun, the pro-Syrian President
would dismiss the Seniora cabinet, and in cahoots with
pro-Syrian Berri, would disband the Parliament. A massive
campaign of assassinations, arrests and exile would target
the March 14 movement, followed by Terror-backed
legislative elections, brining back a pro-Syrian
Hizbollahi assembly and a radical Government.
5. The “putsch” would reestablish a Pro-Syrian-Iranian
regime in Lebanon, and reconstruct a third wing to the
Tehran-Damascus axis, reanimating the Arab Israeli
conflict, rejuvenating the Syrian dominance, isolating
Jordan, reaching out to Hamas, crumbling Iraq, and
unleashing Iran’s nuclear programs unchecked. The domino
effects of Hezbollah’s “Waad al sadeq” are far from being
even imagined by Western and Arab policy planners.
Nasrallah seemed to
be in control of his strategy when he appeared in his
press conference of victory. His back was safe since he
has terrorized the Cedars Revolution’s movement, enlisted
Aoun’s support (breaking Christian community unity), and
pushed Sunni and Druze breakaways to challenge Jumblat and
Hariri (the son). To his south, he was applauding Haniya’s
Hamas “cabinet” for having already engaged the Israelis.
To his east, Syria was mobilizing and waiting. In Iran,
the “masters” were extending their strategic umbrella; and
in Iraq, the Terror sapping of sectarian relations was on.
All the brothers in Khumeini Jihadism were awaiting
Hezbollah to break the chain of events from the Galilee.
Nasrallah was at the forefront of a plan aiming at
wrecking the rising democracy and the fledgling stability
of the region. The stakes were really high for the “axis.”
But Hassan Nasrallah’s master plan failed. First the
Lebanese Government, smelling the odors of conspiracy was
quick to distance itself from the operation. “The
Government was not informed by it nor does it endorse it,”
stated the Seniora release. Second, Israel’s volte-face
surprised Hezbollah and their allies. Why would the Olmert
Government, declare a full war on an organization that
classical armies cannot take out, thought the Tehran
planners. Then came, the Arab position: Arabia, Egypt and
Jordan, followed discretely by others didn’t extend their
full support to the move. They certainly criticized Israel
to the fullest of rhetoric, but didn’t praise the “Hizb.”
On the international level, the Terror group
“that-provide-services” didn’t fare better. The United
States firmly extended its bipartisan support to UNSCR
1559; France and the rest of Europe stated the same –with
their continental language- Russia wouldn’t side with
Nasrallah against the world, and China has other
priorities on its plate. Only Iran threatened to wage wars
in the rescue of its most western army. Nasrallah fell
into his own trap but decided to come up with a
contingency plan.
Not so different
from Plan A, the objectives of Plan B have been readjusted.
If Israel bombards Hezbollah’s infrastructure to the
ground, Iranian oil will rebuild it. If Israel invades by
land, it will find itself against a more aggressive
Hezbollah than the one of the 1990s. Besides, Hezbollah
will attempt nevertheless to go after the Seniora
Government anyway. Calling on the “reserves,” Hezbollah
enlisted President Lahoud and his son in law Defense
Minister Elias Murr to drag the Lebanese Army in the War
against Israel’s forces. And in collaboration with Aounist
cadres (while the majority of his partisans are still
stunned by the events), Hezbollah has unleashed an
international campaign against the “inhumane aggression.”
If things go well, Nasrallah expect Plan B to become Plan
A, and a land advance by Israel would unleash a total
offensive against the Government of Lebanon by pro-Iranian
and Syrian forces. If Israel moves north to create a safe
area against Rockets, Hezbollah would move north to
control the rest of Lebanon. The Syrian-Iranian axis will
refuse UNSCR 1559, reject international initiatives for
disarming the militias, and will make its stand in Lebanon,
even if the Switzerland of the Middle East is to be
reduced to rubbles. Assad wants to save his regime in
Beirut, and Ahmedinijad wants to shield his bomb in the
Bekaa: Alea Jacta Est, the dice are rolling.
Hezbollah’s plan for
the Lebanese Army is to drag it to a fight with Israel, as
a way to destroy it. For the past 16 years Syria and
Hezbollah have penetrated the Lebanese Army and installed
their followers at various positions. For example, the
command of the southern command, the officers in charge of
the southern suburb of Beirut, the Murabb’a al amni (security
zone for Nasrallah) and many offices in the second bureau
are in the hands of Shiite officers linked to Hezbollah.
Syria’s allies including the Hezb and Amal can count on
20% influence within the institution. The commander in
chief, General Michel Sleiman is neutral, with
possibilities of shifts to either side. The head of the
military intelligence, a Christian, follows Lahoud orders.
The power map inside the Army keeps changing, but at the
core of this institution, most officers are pro-Lebanese,
close to the West. If Hezbollah pushes the regular troop
into battle against Israel, the Army may split.
The United Nations
is bound by a resolution it cannot but implement: UNSCR
1559. Having been among those who worked on introducing it
in 2004, I have followed up till very recently the
international efforts in this regards. There is a solid
consensus that the resolution has to be implemented; it is
inescapable. The question is who would implement it?
Reality is that the Lebanese Government and its armed
forces are too weak in front of the
Hezbollah-Baath-Ahmedinijad axis. So if a regional bloc is
obstructing a UN resolution, the international community
should provide the balance of power. Hence, the US and
France, along with the European Union, the moderate Arab
states with the consent of the Security Council must
provide the tools for the Lebanese Government to spread
its sovereignty over its national soil, and the support
for the Cedars Revolution to revive itself. The options
are very limited: Either Hezbollah will dominate the
Lebanese Republic, or the latter will disarm Hezbollah.
Anything in between would be a waste of time. If Israel
stops its operations short of an international
intervention, Hezbollah will win the war. If Israel moves
forward inside Lebanon after Hezbollah, an international
intervention is inevitable. The days, weeks and months
ahead will tell.
Meanwhile Hezbollah
and its allies both in the region and in the West are and
will be waging the mother of all propaganda wars. The task
assigned to the propagandists is to stop military
operations so that Hezbollah survives and fail
international interventions so that the Lebanese
Government collapses. A war of images, photos, mudding,
internet, and media will explode in all directions.
Operatives helping Hezbollah, including many with
Christian names, will be waging an indiscriminate
propaganda offensive against Lebanese, Arab, Western and
obviously Israeli figures to spread confusion and
psychological collapse in the international community.
Objective: Obstruct the implementation of UNSCR 1559,
trash the March 14 movement, criticize the Arab Government,
and incite for Jihadi violence.
Hezbollah waged an
Iranian War with Syrian backing. It knew how to start it,
but it won’t know how it will end. The forces unleashed in
this conflict have been unpredictable including Israel,
Lebanon’s politics, the Arab Governments, and the
international community. Hezbollah and its regional allies
have spoken of “surprises” to come. In fact the latter are
pretty much predictable: more rockets on and suicide
attacks in Israel, coup d’Etat in Lebanon, and obviously
international terrorism, including in the West. But
“surprises” could also happen to Hezbollah. The “Waad al
sadeq” operation may not be the only miscalculation by
Secretary Hassan Nasrallah. The future of Hezbollah’s war
is as uncertain as the fate of the organization.
*****
Dr Walid Phares is a Senior
Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a
visiting Fellow with the Foundation for European Democracy,
the author of Future Jihad (English) and of books on
Lebanon and Iran. Phares was one of the architects in the
introduction of UNSCR 1559 in 2004