Part one can be found here
An Armenian proverb says: “When you are drowning, you are prepared to hug a snake”
It is ironic that radical Muslim groups that started a civil war with Lebanon’s Christians in the name of solidarity with the Palestinians bombed and blockaded the Palestinians.
Lebanon war ended in 1990, Syria occupied Lebanon, and all armed groups surrendered their weapons – except Hezbollah. The Christians were defeated and no one supported them (they were supported by the president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, so they had no support – B.M.). Muslim Sunnis were supported by Saudi Arabia, Shiites by Syria and Iran, so they all parties agreed to hand over their weapons, but only Hezbollah had to keep its weapons.
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The pretext was to liberate occupied southern Lebanon (it eliminated other groups fighting against Israel and monopolized that mission – B.M.).
Christian leaders were either exiled from Lebanon or imprisoned, lost all constitutional authority, presidential powers were transferred to a government led by a Sunni prime minister, a parliament led by a pro-Damascus Shiite leader, and Hezbollah with open Iranian financial and armed support.
Hezbollah became such a powerful military, financial, economic and social force under the Syrian occupation supervision (Damascus is an ally of Tehran), and they made sure that the Lebanese army did not receive modern weapons, the West did not arm the Lebanese army, fearing that those weapons will end up in Hezbollah’s hands, and thus Hezbollah became stronger than the army, and the de facto dominant force, alongside the occupying Syrian army.
Hezbollah began active military operations against Israel, which killed its leader Mousawi in 1992, and launched a large-scale military operation in 1996, which did not achieve any effective results.
In 2000, the Israeli army left Lebanon, Hezbollah reached the peak of its influence, the Arab world saw it as the first militant group to defeat Israel, and it became even among Arab Sunni public opinion.
Although Israel withdrew from Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Hizbollah played a cunning theater, A small area, Sheba’a, was not decided by the United Nations whether it was Lebanese or Syrian, Israel did not withdraw, Hizbollah saw it as keeping its weapons. pretext, stating that his mission is incomplete and he still needs to free Shebaa.
Syria could easily declare that these are Lebanese lands and the UN would demand that Israel withdraw, Syria does not recognize Lebanon as an independent entity and will use any excuse not to recognize Sheba’a as Lebanese. The Lebanese parties suggested to Hezbollah, since it has good ties with the Syrian regime, to ask it to hand over a document stating that Shebaa is Lebanese, so the Arab lands will be freed from Israeli occupation. and “Hezbollah” said that it is pointless, we cannot liberate lands by diplomatic means.
Israel could easily pull out of Sheba’a to deprive Hezbollah from the excuse to keep its weapons. But none of this happened, and the issue remains unresolved to this day. At the same time, the Sunni Prime Minister Raffiq Hari (a moderate, a multi-billionaire businessman supported by Saudi Arabia, who had very good ties with the US, France, Europe, Russia and almost all countries) entered into a silent conflict with the Syrian regime because he was asking Syria to exercise pressure on Hezbollah to maintain peace and stability on the border with Israel.
Harry had done Hizbollah a great service by using his international connections to convince the Europeans not to list Hizbollah as a terrorist organization. During Lebanon’s tourist season, Hezbollah’s actions deeply damaged the economy. his actions discouraged foreign investment because Harriry could not give guarantees to them regarding Lebanon’s stability.
Harry resigned from the head of the government several times, in 2005 he resigned again, that year he was killed, Syria was suspected of this terrorism. the Sunnis joined the Christians and Druze and were able to drive out the Syrian army with peaceful mass demonstrations and international support (UN National Council Resolution 1559 demanding the withdrawal of foreign armies from Lebanon-B.M.).
His son, the new Sunni political leader, Saad, made this famous statement: “Lebanon first.”
This meant that the Sunnis, Druzes and Christians finally had settled their choice – which is Lebanese identity, they argued that the salvation of Lebanon would be seen exclusively the state.
Sunnis no longer saw a contradiction between Lebanese identity and nationalism and Arabism. But now Lebanon faced another identity crisis.
Arab countries have historically supported Lebanese Sunnis, but mainstream Shiite political parties now see Iran’s Islamic identity as an orientation and choice, led by Hezbollah.
Hezbollah refused to lay down its arms and join the Lebanese united family, at the same time the rival front split, and a Christian leader left the anti-Syrian March 14 coalition and joined the Hezbollah front.
In 2006, Israel launched a large-scale attack on Hezbollah-controlled territories, but could not achieve a decisive victory, Hezbollah endured and was not defeated on the ground, Lebanon suffered millions of financial losses. The UN Security Council adopted resolution 1701, according to which international peacekeeping forces were to be deployed on the border between Lebanon and Israel, the Lebanese army would join (for 20 years, “Hezbollah” rejected this arrangement, arguing that it would make the Lebanese army the guardian of Israel’s borders – |B.M .).
Hezbollah would be spread some distance from the border, but the resolution was not under Section 7 (Section 7 means that it will be enforced by force if necessary, and this unit will open fire on any party that violates the agreement-B.M. ), and years later Hizbullah was able to launch rockets into Northern occupied Palestine, because it carries long-range missiles, the impact of its attacks was reduced but not destroyed.
In 2008, the Lebanese government demanded that Hezbollah’s “communication system” be dismantled.
“Hezbollah” invaded many regions, and the government was forced to abandon the decision. “Hezbollah” has always said that its weapon is for fighting against Israel and would not be used on the internal front, but in practice it decides everything. his arms control all aspects of Lebanese politics after actually using his army on the home front. A new government was formed, and gradually Hezbollah and its allies increased their political presence in the parliament and government until they became the majority, and a Hezbollah ally was also elected president.
At the same time, the Syrian revolution broke out and Hezbollah entered Syria to support the regime of President Bashar Assad, would the Assad regime fell, the movement would been cut off from Iran.
In response, the Arab Gulf countries boycotted Lebanon economically, as a result, Hezbollah and Iran strengthened their control over Lebanon, and eventually Lebanon went bankrupt.
Lebanon is now completely dysfunctional, the Lebanese parliament, controlled by Hezbollah, prevents the election of a president, while no coalition has a majority among the 3 groups (Hezbollah and its allies, its opponents, and civil society) to elect a president. , and when there is no president, the government has only limited functions of constitutional law. Under these circumstances, we believed that Hezbollah would not risk provoking a war with Israel, in a country facing economic, social, financial and service shortages, the majority of Lebanese, even the Shiite environment that sympathizes with it, would not tolerate war.
Hezbollah seemed to realize this as well, and when the Gaza war broke out, it announced that it would not engage in a full-scale war, but would only become a “limited support front” and managed to avoid a full-scale but controlled limited war for a year, which, according to him, will remain under control. But Hezbollah apparently miscalculated, while many warned it that it was playing with fire and that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted to draw the US into a war with Iran and thus provoke Iran with several strikes, even if Iran inside, and that “Hezbollah” is firing rockets into the northern regions of Israel, which creates a serious problem for Israel, because it has to evacuate a large population, which it will not tolerate for a long time.
Iran was reading the signs, Hezbollah wasn’t.
In 2006, Hezbollah invaded Beirut to protect its communications system. Last week, Israel took the system out of the equation in one fell swoop. According to some analysis, when the pagers went off in Lebanon, 4,000 Hezbollah fighters were eliminated from the equation, with 400 of its members losing their sight.
The next day, when they had a funeral, another communication system blew up, causing more casualties. All this is noted as the most peculiar and mysterious military strike in history.
Hezbollah failed to appreciate the enormous technological advances enjoyed by Israel that have enabled it to kill Hezbollah, Iran and Hamas leaders wherever they hide, even inside Iran.
He did not understand that Israel managed to almost completely eliminate Hamas and now he was left alone.
And its leader Hassan Nasrallah made a crucial mistake, he declared in a reaction speech. “Israel, forget about it, I will not stop attacks on Northern Occupied Palestine until you stop your attacks on Gaza.”
It did not read Iranian pragmatism, and that Bashar Assad, to whom Hezbollah sacrificed thousands of his fighters to maintain his regime, now Russia controls the regime in Syria, neither Bashar, nor Iran, and Putin does not seek confrontation with Israel. On the contrary, it entered Syria with the green light of the US to provide stability in the Golan Heights, the Syrian front with Israel.
Today, a few days later, Israel has successfully killed 90% of Hezbollah’s leadership, including its leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, it knows all its movements, hideouts, secret tactics, weapons caches, it seems that Hezbollah has lost its 90%, strength – the military gap is huge.
Now many prominent Shiite leaders, those whose voices were suppressed by Hezbollah for years, are speaking out and blaming its strategic choices, claiming that in 2005, Hezbollah should have chosen Lebanese national unity and statehood as an umbrella, surrendered its weapons to the Lebanese army, which would have avoided the Shiites of Lebanon, all these disasters. They argue that Hezbollah’s growing military and political influence in Lebanon has never provided security and stability for Lebanese Shiites, but a temporary illusion of power and ultimately a tragedy, and that its alliance with Tehran, leaving the Arab family, has destroyed the Community.
Just 24 hours before Nasrallah’s murder, the Shia cleric sent a very dangerous advice to Nasrallah on “Alarabiya” TV. Sheikh Ali Hussaini declared: “Cheikh Nasrallah, write your will, your fate is sealed, Iran bargained for your head and your fate is decided, and you only have only a few remaining days”
It appears that Lebanon will now have only one way out: to implement Resolution 1701 to the last detail, and the Lebanese Army to take full control, and Hezbollah to hand over what is left of its decimated armed forces, and choose the Lebanese State and Army.
Bedros Manoukian