The affair of the explosives transported from the Bekaa to Beirut has dispelled hopes that the second anniversary of the assassination of the former secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, would be an occasion for reviewing the party's military and political choices in light of its heavy losses and of what Lebanon, and the party's base in particular, has suffered in killing, displacement, and destruction. The discourse of the party and its secretary-general, Naim Qassem, affirmed the continuation of its course and defended it, rather than holding the leadership, its policies, and their results to account.
With this insistence on its approach, the party presents its survival and its capacity to carry on as proof that its choices were right. But is survival alone enough? Or do the scale of the losses and the change in the balance of power require a review that goes beyond clinging to weapons and invoking the late leader's legacy without questioning his choices?
The party invokes Nasrallah as a source of legitimacy on which the current leadership leans to keep its public cohesive. But loyalty to the late leader does not exempt it from assessing his choices, nor does it make the continuation of his approach a duty above every other consideration.
Having placed the requirements of its regional role above the interests of Lebanon and the Lebanese, the party has not been moved to change its choices even by the losses it inflicted on itself and its base. This insistence becomes harder still to justify now that the conditions that built the party's influence have changed, its capacity to exert influence has declined, and the cost of using its weapons has risen. The leadership is responsible for reviewing its choices in light of these facts, rather than turning the leader's legacy into an immunity that shields it from accountability.
Qassem stressed that Israel has not succeeded in breaking the resistance. But the organization's survival and its continued fighting do not mean it has succeeded in deterrence or in protecting the population and the land. When the party's survival is presented as sufficient proof that its choices were right, preserving the organization becomes the measure of success and the security of citizens falls to second rank.
The review should therefore begin with an assessment of the decision to enter the war and to continue it. Were the party's estimates of the balance of power realistic? Did it account for the limits of Iran's support, the scale of the Israeli response, and society's capacity to bear the cost? And how does it explain the gap between the promises of protection and the actual results of the war?
The review also covers the party's relationship with its popular base, which bore the brunt of the war's cost. Continued loyalty to the party does not rule out restlessness within that base, nor does it drown out Shiite voices that have become bolder in opposing its weapons and its choices. These voices do not mean the collapse of its popular base, but they show that the base's cohesion does not mean consensus on the war's usefulness or acceptance of the cost of the attachment to Iran.
The review requires respecting the right of those who have been harmed to hold the leadership to account, rather than treating their loyalty as an open mandate to continue the same choices.
It also covers the party's relationship with the state. The speeches of its secretary-general and a number of its officials have turned to attacking the Lebanese authorities' choices, calling for a freeze on direct negotiations with Israel, and refusing to discuss exclusive state control of weapons on the pretext of the continuing Israeli occupation of the South. In this way the party keeps the state's sovereignty suspended on a condition whose criteria of fulfilment it sets itself, according to the agenda of its patron Iran, while demanding that the state provide protection, stop the attacks, and rebuild.
Here lies the contradiction: it loads the state with the responsibilities of sovereignty, while withholding from it the instruments for exercising them, by retaining - as a militia tied to Tehran - an independent military decision.
Reviewing the party's relationship with the state cannot be separated from reviewing its attachment to Iran's strategy. Tehran acts according to its own interests and may use its proxies to pressure its adversaries and improve its negotiating position, even at the expense of their interests and their countries'. With the American-Iranian negotiations stalled, Lebanon remains exposed to the consequences of calculations it does not control. The dilemma the party faces is how far it is ready to put its base and all Lebanese people's need to end the war and recover sovereignty ahead of the requirements of the role it plays within Iran's strategy.
Whatever the outcome of the "Dawn of Yemen" operation, launched by Yemeni government forces with air support from the coalition to restore the state and end Houthi control of Sanaa, the Yemeni developments reinforce the need for the party to review its regional role.
The Houthis' capacity to threaten navigation in Bab al-Mandeb and international interests increases their importance in Tehran's calculations, and may give them priority in funding and arms at the expense of Hezbollah, whose regional effectiveness has declined because of its losses, the imbalance of power with Israel, and growing Lebanese rejection of its weapons. Iranian support is governed by an ally's usefulness to Tehran, not the size of its sacrifices, while Lebanon and the party's base remain weighed down by the cost of its role within Iran's strategy.
Two years after Nasrallah's assassination, the party's leadership needs a review. The difficulty is that it requires ending the party's military role within Iran's strategy, accepting that weapons and foreign policy decisions belong exclusively to the state, and exercising its role in domestic politics within the state's institutions and laws. The state also bears responsibility for empowering the army and intensifying diplomatic pressure to stop the attacks, secure Israel's withdrawal, and ensure the return of the displaced and reconstruction.
Clinging to an approach that keeps Lebanon an arena for battles beyond its interests reproduces the causes of the crisis, and the party's survival is not enough to justify continuing the choices that have brought killing, displacement, and destruction on Lebanon, and on its own base in particular.
