Hezbollah’s Enduring Challenge of the Lebanese State

Hezbollah’s Enduring Challenge of the Lebanese State By Perry Watson V00660682 The 2006 war in Lebanon was deemed inconclusive, but it marked the inability of the Middle East’s sole super power, Israel, from victory at the hands of a non-state actor, Hezbollah (Manyok, 11, and Blog 2013). In the West, Hezbollah has been deemed a terrorist organization with links to the purported rogue regime in Iran. Hezbollah constitutes a challenge to the already weak and fractured Lebanese state. Specifically, this paper will investigate the extent to which Hezbollah has decentered the Lebanese state because of its own network nature that has necessarily been employed due to its non-state actor status. First, John Herz’s analysis on the conditions that allowed for the early modern Westphalian state and two elements that could potentially lead to the downfall of the state, economic blockade and psychological warfare will be utilized. Second, Dan Deudney’s articulation of the ‘Kalashnikov revolution’ as an affront to Herz’s territorial hard-shell of impermeability will be analyzed with regards to Hezbollah’s ability to stockpile advanced weapons outside of the formally understood monopoly of the legitimate use of force over a given territory stated by Max Weber. Thirdly, Thomas Homer-Dixon’s grasp of the vulnerabilities of modern society and the ability for networked groups to burrow into the advanced technological interconnectedness in relation to Hezbollah’s ability to infiltrate use the existing system to finance their own affairs worldwide. Finally, utilizing Ralph Peters and William Rosenau’s understanding of modern military forces own intransigence toward urban warfare which in turn have only strengthened Hezbollah’s ability to protect and facilitate their continued role in the Middle East. Hezbollah was founded in 1982 in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley by Shia clergymen educated in Iran, absorbing a number of other Lebanese Islamic groups in the process (START). This came as a direct response to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in that same year. Hezbollah, or the Party of God comes from a Koranic verse promising triumph to those who join the Party of God (START). As Nicolas Blanford, longtime correspondent in the Middle East region stated, few would have guessed at the time of Hezbollah’s inception that this ragtag group of Shia militants, who drew guidance from then Ayatollah Khomeini and Shiism’s martyred founders 14 centuries earlier, would survive a civil war, let alone become the dominant political and military force in Lebanon three decades later (Nicholas Blanford 2011, xii). Hezbollah’s founding manifesto was stated in an open letter in 1985, their objectives included: the establishment of a Shiite theocracy in Lebanon, the destruction of Israel and the elimination of Western influences from the Middle East (Khashan 2013). Although Sheik Hassan Nasrallah is Hezbollah’s supreme leader, the organization has a global network apparatus that does not necessarily rely on a figurehead that Nasrallah assumes. Hezbollah was born out of Israel’s imperialist aggression, but upon further analysis, Lebanon’s vast and complicated social fabric gives an alternative motive. Lebanon has a complicated sectarian demography, with 19 official sects squeezed into its cramped coastal cities, shadowed valleys, and soaring mountains, and recent history of communal strife has forced the Lebanese to embrace the gospel of consensus to maintain internal stability (Nicholas Blanford 2011, xiii). After the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Sykes-Picot agreement, which cut the region into colonial holdings between the English and French, Lebanon was created. At the time the British backed the Druze, the French sponsored the Maronites, and the Ottomans championed the Sunnis. Today the same domestic client and foreign patron system exists. The West, chiefly the United States, France and Saudi Arabia, back a mainly Sunni and Christian coalition while Iran and Syria support Hezbollah and its allies (Nicholas Blanford 2011, xiv). Hezbollah, Iran and Syria have been called the ‘Axis of Resistance’ in the region, left to defeat, in their eyes, the illegitimate Zionist entity. It is worth noting that while Hezbollah’s stated enemy is Israel, within Islam, the majority Sunni creed sees Shiism as heretical, without even mentioning its further ties to Persian Iran (Nicholas Blanford 2011, 9). Now that Lebanon’s complicated social fabric has been addressed, it is time to observe how Hezbollah’s adaptation to these circumstances has manifested over time. In 2005, Hezbollah was added to the U.S. government’s Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list (START). The move highlights a debate as to whether Hezbollah should simply be designated a terrorist organization. This is because within Hezbollah’s structure there are several different wings. Toward the end of the 1980s they created al-Emdad to provide relief to those harmed by the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon; Jihad al Binaa, its in-house construction company; and the Islamic Health Committee. While these services were less developed than they would become in the 1990s, they still helped to build Hezbollah’s relationship with the Shiite community (Ora Szekely 2012, 116). Today it’s political wing continues to run a variety of social programs in southern Lebanon and south Beirut that provide schooling, medical care, and welfare to Lebanese Shia. The U.S., Canada, and Israel classify Hezbollah strictly as a terrorist organization, which limits the group’s ability to raise funds and travel internationally. However, countries like Australia and the United Kingdom distinguish between Hezbollah’s security and political wings and other countries like Russia do not even consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization (START). Hezbollah’s infancy was remarkably different to the current strength they hold today. In the late 1980’s they were known as a radical militant group prone to flamboyant tactics and viewed with distrust even by many Shiites (Ora Szekely 2012, 110). Robert Pape’s work on the logics of suicide terrorism enlightens Hezbollah’s early suicide tactics. Between April 1983 and November 1986, Hezbollah carried out 28 attacks, 6 of these attacks were directed at U.S. and French military forces and 22 were targeted against the Israeli Defense Force. Pape notes 384 U.S and French soldiers being killed, causing a complete withdrawal from Lebanon. The IDF received 275 casualties, resulting in a partial withdrawal between 1983 and 1985 and no change in IDF behavior between June 1985 and June 1986 (Robert A. Pape 2003, 348). Hezbollah’s military activity in the 1980s cost it dearly in terms of public support within Lebanon (Ora Szekely 2012, 110). As Pape points out, suicide terrorism is them most aggressive from of terrorism, pursuing coercion even at the expense of losing support among the terrorists’ own community (Robert A. Pape 2003, 345). However, this tactic is not simply the by product of irrational individuals or an expression of fanatical hatreds, the main purpose is to use the threat of punishment to coerce a target government to withdraw forces from territory terrorists view as their homeland (Robert A. Pape 2003, 345), as demonstrated by the U.S./French withdrawal and a partial withdrawal from Israel. Shifting to John Herz’s 1957 essay, The Rise and Demise of the Territorial State and his articulation of the Westphalian state, Hezbollah indeed poses a challenge to this statist framework. For Herz there are three rudimentary elements that have facilitated the rise of the modern state, territoriality being the first aspect. Statehood necessarily needs territory, which, embodies a physical, corporeal capacity: as an expanse of territory encircled for its identification and its defense by a “hard shell” of fortifications, that shall be referred to as the “impermeability,” or “impenetrability,” of the modern state (John H. Herz 1957, 474). Just as the gunpowder revolution made it easier to protect the “hard shell,” today so to have weapons had a role in the degradation of the very same principles that defined the early modern state. The Kalashnikov revolution has allowed Hezbollah to decenter the Lebanese state and help create a “state within in a state” (“Hezbollah Rolls the Dice in Syria | Al Jazeera America” 2013). Hezbollah’s later legitimacy can be partially attributed to the ‘Kalashnikov revolution’. The composition of power at the lower end of the spectrum of violence capability has changed over the last half century. The diffusion of easy-to-operate automatic weapons and other conventional weaponry has made conquest and assimilation vastly more expensive than before (Dan Deudney 1995, 4). The Kalashnikov revolution has allowed paramilitary groups like Hezbollah to increase their military might. However, the way in which Hezbollah has come to acquire weapons is a point of contention that Middle East scholar Matthew Levitt has highlighted. Hezbollah’s global network nature comes to the forefront in this case. The Drug Enforcement Administration has recorded meetings with Hezbollah associates in Benin, Ghana, Romania and the Ukraine, during these meetings heroin and cocaine sales have been swapped for high-grade weapons systems such as; surface-to-air missiles, antitank missiles, grenade launchers, and AK-47 and M-16 rifles (Matthew Levitt 2011, 3). Levitt makes the point that Hezbollah’s global operatives have demonstrated their willingness to sell drugs and arms in order to supplement their revenues. To be sure, this willingness to walk outside the “Party of God” creed has allowed Hezbollah to become a formidable force within Lebanon and facilitates a decentering of the Lebanese state whilst doing so. Hezbollah’s rhizomatic global nature, has implemented modern Western technological and economic innovations to its own benefit. Thomas Homer-Dixon’s work on the rise of complex terrorism demonstrates one facet of Hezbollah’s ability to build up weapons stockpiles though using the complicated and extremely interconnected financial system to its own advantage. Homer-Dixon mentions the ancient hawala system of moving money between countries, widely used in the Middle East. The system, which relies on brokers linked together by clan-based networks of trust, has become faster and more efficient through the use of the internet (Thomas Homer-Dixon 2002, 54). Lebanese narcotics kingpin Ayman Joumma has used western banks to laundered as much as $200 million a month from cocaine sales in Europe and the Middle East to operations located in Colombia, Lebanon, Panama, and West Africa through money exchange houses, bulk cash smuggling and other schemes. According to U.S. prosecutors, the majority off those drug profits were funneled back to Hezbollah (Matthew Levitt 2011, 3). This phenomenon solidifies Homer-Dixon’s contention that advanced Western nations face increased vulnerability because of their economic and technological systems. The vulnerability is two-fold, first the growing complexity and interconnectedness of our modern societies; and second, the increasing geographic concentration of wealth, human capital, knowledge and communication links (Thomas Homer-Dixon 2002, 55). Ancient or modern, Hezbollah continues to run one of the largest and most sophisticated global criminal operations in the world, making them more difficult for Western nations to undermine it (Matthew Levitt 2011, 3). The second principle Herz outlined in forming the Westphalian state is the legitimacy principle, or sovereignty. As Max Weber articulated, sovereignty involves the monopoly over the legitimate use of force in a given territory (Daniel Warner 1991, 9). Today we are past the 17th century battle Herz called the “triangular struggle among emperors and popes, popes and kings, and kings and emperors” (John H. Herz 1957, 475). But given Lebanon’s fragile confessional political system, which attempts, and doesn’t always succeed, in sharing power between the 19 religious sects in the only Arab country with a Christian head of state, one could argue that Lebanon’s fractious political environment has nurtured the rise of Hezbollah (“Background: Lebanon’s Confessional Political System” 2009). However, the idea of a Hezbollah state is a long shot if recent public opinion is any indicator. A June 2013 poll found that only Lebanese Shia have a favorable view of Hezbollah (89%), with the next highest rating coming from residents of the Palestinian territory (43%) (Bruce Drake 2013). Herz noted that once the European lands had been given the claim of territoriality, which fell under single sovereign power it was necessary for these territories to develop a sense of unity. In the case of the tiny enclave of multiple identities that defines Lebanese life, it does not seem so simple. The final element Herz underscores is that of the sovereign’s own autonomy within its territorial region. The principle would be established that each ruler would decide the religious faith of his or her own territory. As stated previously, Lebanon has 19 religious sects all living together. Religious clashes are inevitable given the close proximity to each other within Lebanon. This is exactly why the country went through a 15-year civil war of it own from 1975 to 1990. The war concluded with the overthrow of the Christian military government in 1990, and the death of around 150,000 people in the process (“Lebanon Profile” 2013). The Taif agreement transferred much of the authority of the president to the cabinet and boosted the number of Muslim MP’s in parliament. This was the beginning the confessional political system currently employed in Lebanon. Both sovereignty and autonomy in the way Herz qualifies them appear to be lacking in Lebanon today. This extends a possible explanation as to why Hezbollah has been able to flourish. Lebanon should, by all accounts, be considered a weak state, born out of the Western colonial plans for the Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. When Herz shifts his analysis to trends in the 19th century that appear to endanger the functioning of the classical system (John H. Herz 1957, 485) two of the four trends hold true to Hezbollah’s success at challenging the state. First, economic warfare permits belligerents to by-pass the hard shell of the enemy, never having to engage in the actual act of war in doing so. The second aspect is ideological or psychological warfare. Here, states that share similar cultures can penetrate other societies with propaganda, hindering states’ ability to fight war without needing to actually penetrate the territorial borders. In the case of economic blockade, Hezbollah’s relationship with Syria and Iran in terms of funding offers a sort of mutation to the account of Herz. The Lebanese state’s territorial borders are in fact being by-passed with funding going directly to Hezbollah, the non-state actor. Hezbollah has long relied almost exclusively on its relationship with Iran and Syria for economic support. As Nicholas Blanford notes, Syria, Iran and Hezbollah are known as the so-called “Axis of Resistance” in repelling Israel (Nicholas Blanford 2011, xvi). The Shia Muslims creed constitute an alliance between the three actors as well(Nicholas Blanford 2011, 9). Since the early 1990s, Hezbollah has operated with guaranteed annual contribution of at least $100 million a year from Tehran. Early last decade, Iran doubled that investment to more than $200 million a year, and its financial support for Hezbollah reached its pinnacle in 2008-9 (Matthew Levitt 2011, 2). According to a report by the global intelligence company STRATFOR, as the 2009 Lebanese elections neared, Iran allegedly pledged as much as $600 million to Hezbollah for its political campaign. By 2009, Israeli intelligence estimated that, since the summer of 2006, Iran had provided Hezbollah more than $1 billion in direct aid (Matthew Levitt 2011, 2). Hezbollah operates its own radio station and satellite television station, al-Manar, Arabic for “the Beacon” (“Beacon of Hatred:” 2013). It serves as the primary propaganda engine for Hezbollah and broadcasts anti-Israeli and anti-American propaganda to the Islamic world in multiple languages (START). Following Herz’s understanding, psychological warfare is the attempt to undermine the morale of an enemy population, or subvert its loyalty, shares with economic warfare a by-passing effect on old-style territorial defensibility (John H. Herz 1957, 486–487). Al-Manar can reach all of Lebanon and broadcasts 18 hours daily. Its satellite station, launched in 2000, now transmits 24 hours a day, reaching the entire Arab world and the rest of the globe through seven major satellite providers (“Beacon of Hatred:” 2013). Herz states, although wars have not yet been won solely by subversion of loyalties, the threat involved has affected the inner coherence of the territorial state ever since the rise to power of a regime that claims to represent, not the cause of a particular nation, but that of mankind, or at least of its suppressed and exploited portions (John H. Herz 1957, 487). This fifth column operates as Hezbollah’s media engine. One that calls Israel the “Zionist entity” and claims that Israel can be destroyed through a combination of low-intensity warfare and a demographic shift in favor of Arabs (“Beacon of Hatred:” 2013). This type of propaganda seems to be working as it is the third most popular station in the country, rising when events heat up in southern Lebanon or the Palestinian territories (“Beacon of Hatred:” 2013). There is a paradox in Hezbollah’s reliance on two states for its own survival, while within Lebanon the non-state actor constitutes a daily challenge to the Lebanese state. While Iran funds Hezbollah, Syria is the vital geo-strategic lynchpin connecting Iran to Hezbollah. It grants Hezbollah strategic depth and political backing, and serves as a conduit for the transfer of heavy weapons across the rugged border with Lebanon (Nicholas Blanford 2011, xvii). The scale of the transformation between 2000 and the outbreak of war in 2006 dwarfed the military advances of the previous decade. Some of the military hardware at Hezbollah’s disposal today would not look out of place in the arsenal of a medium-sized European state (Nicholas Blanford 2011, xiii). Hezbollah is believed to have an arsenal of more than 40,000 rockets, making it arguably the strongest it has ever been (Matthew Levitt 2011, 1). Hezbollah’s stockpile of weapons includes rockets with sufficient range to accurately strike all major urban centers in Israel, placing the Jewish state’s heartland on the front line for the first time since the 1948 war (Nicholas Blanford 2011, xvii). Perhaps it is the fact that Hezbollah bases itself within a city setting that makes it such an effective fighting force with the ability to stealthily stockpile heavy weapons beyond the reach of the IDF. Cities constitute a different structure than that of the state; their organizational form poses a challenge to the state, whilst at the same time depending on one another for stability. In fully urbanized terrain, however, warfare becomes profoundly vertical, reaching up into towers of steel and cement, and downward into sewers, subway lines, road tunnels, communications tunnels and the like (Ralph Peters 1996). As William Rosenau states, “the world is urbanizing rapidly, yet Western military forces have yet to come to terms with the peculiar demands of urban warfare” (William G. Rosenau 1997, 371). Ralph Peters reinforces the role cities will continue to preserve in modern warfare, “the future of warfare lies in the streets, sewers, high-rise buildings, industrial parks, and the sprawl of houses, shacks, and shelters that form the broken cities of our world (Ralph Peters 1996). Cities have an opaque and heterogeneous characteristic to them, which limit the state’s ability to project power into them effectively. They are the post-modern equivalent of jungles and mountains, citadels of the dispossessed and irreconcilable (Ralph Peters 1996). The indigenous population will always have a better understanding of their own urban environment than any potential attacker would have. Lebanon has a complicated social fabric has allowed for the rise of the world’s most powerful paramilitary force in Hezbollah. Through Robert Pape’s work on the early machinations of Hezbollah it can be witnessed that they struggled for legitimacy in their infancy, resorting to suicide terror attacks in order to repel foreign occupation with mixed success. Hezbollah has demonstrated its ability to by-pass Herz’s impenetrable hard-shell of fortifications from within while hardening that inner shell through the Kalashnikov revolution. A noteworthy factor is to recognize that Lebanon’s creation after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, which chopped up the remnants into Western, inspired territorial borders is the basis for the weak, Lebanese state today that is full of disparate groups. Hezbollah’s network spans the entire globe in its quest for funding, skillfully exploiting the growing complexity and interconnectedness of our modern Western societies, further hampering Western governments ability to weaken the group. If Hezbollah wants to continue one critical factor cannot be overlooked, its relationship with its popular base, namely the Lebanese Shia, and the greater Muslim Shia. Throughout Hezbollah’s 31 years of existence, the organization has made cultivating good relations with Lebanese Shia a top priority, knowing full well that such ties would serve as its first and last lines of defense. It is one source that Hezbollah simply cannot live without or replace (Bilal Y. Saab 2013). Until Hezbollah’s next engagement with Israel it will continue to build strength through its patronage system with both Iran and Syria, using southern Lebanon and Beirut’s cityscapes as their post-modern equivalent of jungles and mountains to their advantage.  Works Cited “Background: Lebanon’s Confessional Political System.” 2009. Lebanon Wire. June 2. “Beacon of Hatred:” 2013. Accessed December 3. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/beacon-of-hatred-inside-hizballahs-al-manar-television. Bilal Y. Saab. 2013. “Hezbollah Under Fire.” Foreign Affairs (August 16). Bruce Drake. 2013. “As It Fights in Syria, Hezbollah Seen Unfavorably in Region.” Pew Research Center. Accessed December 3. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/07/as-it-fights-in-syria-hezbollah-seen-unfavorably-in-region/. Dan Deudney. 1995. “Nuclear Weapons and the Waning of the Real-State.” Daedalus 124 (2). Daniel Warner. 1991. An Ethic of Responsibility in International Relations. 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