Lines blur between Hezbollah, Lebanese army
By Victor Kotsev
"Soldiers are instructed to open fire. This is the army's decision," a senior
Lebanese officer, General Abdul al-Rahman Shitli, said on Wednesday evening
while describing Tuesday's skirmish on the Israel-Lebanon border as calculated
and approved by the proper channels.
A fully satisfactory account of the events that left a senior Israeli officer
and at least four Lebanese dead remains to emerge. It appears, however, that a
main beneficiary of the incident is
Hezbollah, and despite claims that its leader Hassan Nasrallah had been
surprised by it, it is not hard to see the Shi'ite organization's shadow behind
the clash.
There are two main versions of what happened: either Hezbollah instigated the
clash, through its strong influence in the army, or the army tried to
"out-Hezbollah" Hezbollah, perhaps in an attempt to reassert itself over the
militia.
Firstly, the background to the crisis. The incident may have much less to do
with Israel than with internal Lebanese tensions, and more specifically with
the persistent rumors that the United Nations' Special Tribunal for Lebanon
will indict members of Hezbollah next month in connection with the
assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri, Benjamin Joffe-Walt
argues in a story published by The Media Line. He writes: "In a matter of
weeks, Lebanon is set to face what some local analysts are predicting will be
the beginnings of another Lebanese civil war and which others are predicting
will be the largest political crisis since the country's former leader was
assassinated five years ago."
Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla concurs: "Our own sources in the Lebanese military
indicate that they were trying to avoid a major crisis; what they were trying
to do in this latest border skirmish was to try to divert attention from the
Special Tribunal crisis to the Israeli threat and try to galvanize support
among Lebanese factions in support of the Lebanese army."
It is established that the Lebanese army fired first, and that the Israeli
soldiers were operating inside Israeli territory, having notified, moreover,
both the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the Lebanese in a
proper manner. Lebanese fire on troops of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)
working on the border was "wholly unjustified and unwarranted", said US State
Department spokesman Philip Crowley on Wednesday, shortly after UNIFIL reached
a similar verdict. Despite some early reports to the contrary, Hezbollah did
not directly participate in the violence.
Something that stands out is the Lebanese military command's open admission
that their side fired first, and that they stand by their soldiers' actions
(exemplified by General Shitli's words). This can mean one of two things:
either they are desperately trying to cover up the fact that they don't have
full control over the rank and file of the army, or that this was indeed a
deliberate and calculated policy.
Israeli leaders also offered conflicting interpretations of the attack. It was
a "planned terror attack", claimed opposition member of the Knesset
(parliament) and former chief of staff General Shaul Mofaz. The border
confrontation was apparently unplanned by the higher echelons of the Lebanese
army, countered Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
It is possible that the Lebanese army attempted to re-assert its influence in
the country and that this signals a willingness for it to gradually swallow up
Hezbollah, willy-nilly, as the United Nations has insisted for years should
happen.
If that is the case, the means the Lebanese military chose to pursue its goals
might appear strange at first, but it would make sense in terms of the politics
of the region. We have a crude recent precedent, when Turkey's diplomatic
onslaught on Israel arguably served to weaken Iranian influence in the region.
[1]
However, this would overlook a whole set of other circumstances: namely, the
Lebanese army's profound weaknesses and level of penetration by Hezbollah. One
of the main reasons why the army wants to avoid having to confront Hezbollah is
the very real danger that its Shi'ite contingent (approximately a third) would
desert and join the militants. (Similarly, the military broke down along
sectarian lines during the civil war.) According to a Stratfor report:
Hezbollah
has significant influence over and an established presence in the already weak
and fractured Lebanese army. The organization makes it a point to discharge a
portion of its recruits after they serve two years in the military wing and
then enlists them in the Lebanese army. This allows Hezbollah to both control
the composition of the army's ranking officers and influence specific
operations. This latest border skirmish could be an illustration of Hezbollah's
influence over the Lebanese army.
Sources in the IDF concurred,
and suggested that a single radical Shi'ite officer was responsible, according
to Debka File. Moreover, Israel also issued an ultimatum to Lebanon to dismiss
or court-martial this officer.
The two probable scenarios are less mutually exclusive than might initially
appear. Based on these descriptions and the political context in Lebanon in the
aftermath of the civil war, it is likely that we are confronted with a very
fluid reality, where at times it is difficult to tell where Hezbollah ends and
where the Lebanese army begins. Both, in a sense, are struggling to incorporate
and control each other, and this, on top of the general power vacuum in the
country, has created numerous gray areas.
It is hard not to notice, however, that the incident left Hezbollah some
breathing space, at least in the short term. Nasrallah was quick to capitalize
on the opportunity to dust off his image of a popular resistance fighter: "The
only thing that can defend Lebanon from Israeli aggression is unity," he said
in an interview on Tuesday, offering the army his help against Israel, and in
the same breath promising to divulge next week information exonerating
Hezbollah and linking Israel to the Hariri murder. "The trilogy of Hezbollah,
the Lebanese people and the Lebanese army was baptized today," he concluded,
quoted by the Iranian Press TV.
Hezbollah's standing vis-a-vis Israel was also strengthened somewhat. Israel
was caught off-guard, despite all its precautions and threats, and the Shi'ite
organization can claim at least some indirect credit. Just when it seemed
cornered by a Saudi initiative and increasingly isolated from its ally Syria,
it managed to respond creatively, or at least to be perceived that way. (See
Turning up the heat on Iran Asia Times Online, August 3, 2010.)
It is difficult to tell which way the balance between Hezbollah and the
Lebanese army is going to tilt eventually. Tuesday's events came as a surprise
to many observers who had viewed the army as a moderate counter-weight to the
Shi'ite organization, and demonstrated how fluid the reality on the ground
actually is.
Unless Lebanon slides back into civil war, a further shortening of the distance
between the army and the militia in the mid- to long-term appears unavoidable.
The big question is to what extent this process will result in a Lebanon that
retains its national sovereignty, and thus its capacity to take a moderate
stance on regional issues.
Victor Kotsev is a freelance journalist and political analyst with
expertise in the Middle East.
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