More than anything else, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s speech marking the anniversary of the July 2006 war was blunt and explicit. He told us that instead of equivocation, this moment demands clarity. The speech left no contentious questions unanswered and presented no ambiguous positions. Indeed, he discussed everything from the role of the resistance’s arsenal to the events of May 7, 2008, the July war, the border demarcation deal with Israel, the presidential elections, the accusations that the party seeks to force a constituent conference to amend the constitution and legitimize the resistance, federalism, and division.
The speech explained the overarching framework through which the party chooses its policies and positions, what it wants and tolerations, and its red lines. In doing so, he preempted the materialization of the agreements reached by the Quintet Committee, though the Quintet’s meeting ended with the reiteration of previously declared stances and did not give rise to any serious shift that could change the course of the Lebanese crisis.
The speech put the ball into his opponents’ court, as it doubled down on his demand for dialogue without preset conditions. Here, we find the flaw in the logic of the party’s assessment of this dialogue. In fact, Nasrallah announced, for the first time, that the question of the resistance’s weapons and role would not be put on the table. He rebuffed the idea of following the example of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq and integrating the party and its weapons into the army.
There are two sides to his justification of this position. On the one hand, it avoids implicating the state in the actions taken by the resistance, and on the other, it affords the resistance a greater degree of freedom and more room for maneuver. Essentially, he told us that Hezbollah would not engage in discussion about disarmament or a national defense strategy. The party insists on making decisions of peace and war alone, i.e., that a military-security organization remains outside the control of the state until the conflict with Israel ends.
Hezbollah thereby managed to shift the focus away from the unprecedented crisis of their being a state within a state that is stronger than the official state. Instead, the focus is now on other contentious issues, most of which are a result of this perverse state of affairs. Indeed, this aberration explains everything from the economic collapse, which is more a consequence of policies than a question of figures, to the crisis plaguing the political system and the obstruction of its process, such as the election of a president and the formation of a government.
Moreover, his insistence on a consensual democracy is nothing more than a cover for disregarding the Taif Agreement and turning our current problems into existential crises that triggers sectarian tensions and calls for federalism, division, and isolation. In order to provide reassurance to Christians and Sunnis, the dialogue he put forward is open to all these issues and others, and no demands for altering the political system or tampering with the Taif Agreement were made.
Two other remarkable features can be pointed to in the speech. First, it celebrated the fact that our borders with Israel have been secure for the past 17 years and the consequent growth, stability, and prosperity in the South. This achievement, according to Hezbollah, is owed to the deterrence it provides, which has prevented Israel from violating Lebanese sovereignty. Hezbollah argues the deal that demarcated the maritime borders with Israel provides a strong example to support its claim. As for the land borders, it limits the number of unresolved disputes with Israel and argues that they can be resolved, which it argues would stabilize things. The party’s arsenal deters Israel and protects our sovereignty, and after doing so, the party can focus more on internal affairs.
Second, Nasrallah is convinced that Israel is weak and on the brink of collapse. If he and those calling the shots in Iran genuinely believe this to be the case, they could fall into dangerous and destructive pitfalls. Israel is indeed faced with domestic challenges. If they are exacerbated, they could engender negative repercussions. However, this doesn’t mean that the balance of power in the near or medium term will shift in favor of Hezbollah, its allies, and its backers. Any intentional or accidental provocation or aggression would result in catastrophe, especially if the party’s policies are found on this assumption. Despite its entanglement in a web of domestic problems, which led Israel to prefer to limit its relation to the party’s provocations, the calculus would change in the event of a war. War would temporarily unite citizens, as did the recent military operation in Jenin, during which the opposition rushed to support the military.
Despite the entertainment events, vibrant nightlife, and return to normal life one sees on the surface in an array of regions, observers can see that the country is undergoing an updated, and worse, version of the tensions seen in 1974 and 1975, the eve of the civil war. This is especially true for odious sectarian tensions, infatuations with seclusion, and the intolerance of the other under the pretext of despair, all of which hinder solutions. The political climate today is perhaps even more ominous than it had been before the civil war when responsibility could be attributed to the Palestinian organizations and then the Syrian army; no foreign forces can be blamed for the conflict.
Given this situation and the uncompromising political framework set by the party, what lies ahead for the local, regional, and international actors concerned? On the local level, the opposition continues to refuse to engage in a dialogue with the party that overlooks the parallel economy it built, the closure of illegal crossings (and the other illicit activities it is accused of directly or indirectly supporting), solutions for the economic collapse, reconciliation with the Gulf state, and Hezbollah’s meddling in the affairs of regional states on orders from Tehran.
The opposition insists on getting an answer to these questions, and it will not hold talks so long as the party claims these are issues that concern resistance alone, keeping them beyond the scope of discussion, effectively telling its rivals “what’s ours is ours, and what’s yours is ours too.” Will the dialogue be limited to an effort to compel the opposition to support its criteria for the next president - one that Hezbollah trusts and persuades it to disregard its demand for a founding congress? His incalcitrant stance brings us back to square one. It suggests that, whoever is named president, the status quo will not change. Iran, Hezbollah, and the Axis of Resistance more
broadly insist on this matter in anticipation of the US presidential elections that will be held 16 months from now and the materialization of the Saudi-Iranian agreement.
As for the Quintet Committee, two major obstacles stand in its way. First, the party refuses to discuss its weapons, which is the main demand of the opposition or most of the opposition. Second, for various reasons, the ruling clique, as well as most of the political forces in the country, refuse to fully engage in reforms that cannot succeed without a comprehensive political solution. Given the opposition’s fragmentation, the most the Committee can achieve is the appointment of a president that reassures the party and is reluctantly accepted by the opposition.
Thus, things will not change until further notice. This outcome is the objective sought by other countries in the region and beyond, as they believe that these are the limits for a settlement in Lebanon. The crucial question is maintaining “stability” on the surface. They want to see tourists continue to flock to the country and give it a veneer of security and avoid a volcanic eruption that burns everyone.
