Hezbollah

In recent years, the strategic alliance between Iran and Hezbollah has grown to the point where the Lebanese militant group’s fealty to Tehran is paramount, a dynamic currently on display in Syria, says counterterrorism expert Matthew Levitt.

While there has been considerable discussion in the United States about jihadis who may be fighting in Syria against the Assad regime, less attention has been paid to the presence of Hezbollah fighters acting on the side of that regime. Asharq Alawsat, the London Arabic-language newspaper, reports on this issue today in a story entitled "FSA: Hezbollah fighters in Syria, carrying out raids." According to the FSA, the Free Syrian Army, there are also Iranian elements present. What are they doing? According to the newspaper’s sources, the Iranian are providing technical advice and assistance: "there are also Iranian specialists present in the northern areas [of Syria] close to the Turkish borders who have set-up operation rooms…in order to intercept the telephone calls of activists and FSA members...the Iranian specialists’ tasks include training, communication operations and uncovering activists." But the Hezbollah men are operational: they are snipers. I have had the same report from official sources in the region, and believe it. Given the importance of Syria to Iran and Hezbollah, it is not surprising that they are willing to fight to preserve the Assad regime. As we debate whether to offer non-lethal and lethal aid to the opposition, the intervention of Iran and Hezbollah on the Assad side and against the people of Syria ought to weigh heavily. A failure to offer adequate assistance is tantamount to saying that a victory for Iran and Hezbollah in Syria is acceptable to us, and a lesson to dictators everywhere to keep on killing. That would be a disastrous policy for the United States to adopt.

  An Israeli artillery unit fires a shell towards Lebanon from its position near the Israeli-Lebanese border August 9, 2006. Israel decided on Wednesday to expand its ground offensive in Lebanon, and Hizbollah's leader vowed to turn southern Lebanon into a graveyard for Israeli troops and to unleash more rockets on the city of Haifa. REUTERS/Yonathan Weitzman   Five years ago today, the thirty-four day Israel-Hezbollah war began when a Hezbollah team crossed into Israel near the the village of Shtula and ambushed Israeli soldiers on patrol, killing three and taking two others back into Lebanon. Israel responded militarily by implementing well-rehearsed contingency plans that targeted bridges and access roads leading from the abuduction site, suspected Hezbollah rocket locations, the Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, and Hezbollah’s Al Manar television station—which was knocked off the air for a full two minutes.  On the first day of the air strikes, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, predicted to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni that “It’ll be over tonight. A few hours. Maybe tomorrow morning.” Thirty-three days later a ceasefire negotiated by the United Nations went into effect. Though civilians (overwhelmingly Lebanese) and combatants on both sides suffered, the Israel-Hezbollah war was essentially a draw, with Hezbollah projecting itself as the winner for standing up to one of the most powerful militaries in the world. Foreign militaries (and insurgents), academics, and historians analyze Israeli military operations very closely for lessons that can be applied in comparable settings. Presented below are the ten best assessments of what happened a half decade ago between Israel and Hezbollah.  1. Final Report of the Commission to Investigate the Lebanon Campaign in 2006, “Winograd Commission,” January 2008.  Chaired by former Justice Eliyahu Winograd, this group of experts was appointed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with a wide mandate. A forty-one point unclassified version of its report determined “overall” the war was “a serious missed opportunity,” with “serious failings and shortcomings” at the highest levels of political-military decisionmaking and in the “quality of preparedness, decisionmaking and performance in the IDF high command.”  2. Benjamin Lambeth, Air Operations in Israel’s War Against Hezbollah: Learning from Lebanon and Getting It Right in Gaza (Washington, D.C.: RAND Corporation, 2011).  Lambeth’s unmatched analysis revealed the disconnect between the policy goals outlined by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the military missions assigned to Lt. Gen. Halutz, who Lambeth interviewed.  Disconnect between policy goals and military missions: sound familiar?  3. Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, 34 days: Israel, Hezbollah and the War in Lebanon (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).  These two well-connected Haaretz correspondents provide the most comprehensive retelling of the war, with special attention paid to the prime minister’s poor strategic judgment and leadership, and internal infighting of Olmert’s cabinet.  4. Daniel Byman, A High Price: The Triumph and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011).  In this excellent analytical overview of Israel’s counterterrorism policies since 1948, Byman offers chapters on the “false promise of normalcy” that settled over Lebanon after Israel’s military withdrawal in May 2000. He also examines the IDF’s failure to maintain its armed forces at a high level of readiness and Hezbollah’s exploitation of Israel’s widespread casualty aversion. 5. Matt Mathews, We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War, Long War Series Occasional Paper, no. 26 (Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, 2008).  Emphasizing the unsurprising nature of the conflict’s outcome, Matthews details the development of the IDF and Hezbollah’s doctrine and planning concepts before July 2006. He also gives a detailed assessment of the failed Israeli ground incursion into southern Lebanon, warning: “While the U.S. Army must be proficient in conducting major combat operations around the world, it is possible that years of irregular operations have chipped away at this capability, not unlike the situation encountered by the IDF.”  6. William Arkin, Divining Victory: Airpower in the Israel-Hezbollah War (Maxwell, AL: Air University Press, 2007).  From a brilliant and original airpower thinker, Arkin combines his vast understanding of targeting strategy with on-site inspections in Lebanon, concluding that “Israel bombed too much and bombed the wrong targets, falling back upon cookie cutter conventional targeting in attacking traditional military objects.”  7. Sarah Kreps, The 2006 Lebanon War: Lessons Learned, Parameters, Spring 2007.  Kreps criticizes the airpower-centric Israeli strategy in the 2006 war, arguing that only a comprehensive strategy that integrates airpower and military force can be successful against a well-entrenched and dispersed adversary like Hezbollah.  8. Daniel Byman and Steven Simon, “The No-Win Zone: An After-Action Report from Lebanon,” The National Interest, November/December 2006.  Byman and Simon assess the winners and losers of the Israel-Lebanon war, and draw some preliminary lessons—especially the need for a consistent and credible information strategy—from a conflict that no side could view as an unequivocal success.  9. UN Security Council Resolution 1701  This August 2006 UN Security Council Resolution calls for “the immediate cessation by [Hezbollah] of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations” in Lebanon, as well as the expanded presence of  15,000 UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers. (3PA Extra Credit: The UN secretary general’s most recent report on implementation of resolution 1701.)  10. Daniel Kurtzer, A Third Lebanon War, Council on Foreign Relations, July 2010.   Kurtzer’s Contingency Planning Memo discusses the most plausible scenarios and associated warning signs of a "Third Lebanon War," its implications for the United States, and U.S. policy options to reduce the likelihood of renewed Israel-Hezbollah conflict and mitigate the consequences should it occur.

What kind of Syria might follow the fall of the Assad regime? For many years, a significant percentage of American and Israeli military officers thought things would get worse. A new regime would be dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, many said—including some of the highest-ranking American generals. I have always thought this was a foolish position, given what Assad’s Syria was actually doing. How much worse could things get than a regime that was Iran’s only Arab ally, gave Iran a port on the Mediterranean and a border with Israel (through Hezbollah in Lebanon), helped Iran arm Hezbollah to the teeth, built a nuclear reactor with North Korean help, brought jihadis to Iraq to kill American soldiers, and viciously repressed the Syrian people. Moreover, the notion that the Muslim Brotherhood would rule after Assad was just that, a notion, never supported with hard evidence about their level of internal support. The strategic argument for getting Assad out is powerful: it would be a huge defeat for Iran and Hezbollah, and indeed the greatest defeat we could administer to Iran short of ending its nuclear program. As to the argument that the successor regime may follow worse policies, recent reports suggest that in fact Syrians hate the Assad/Hezbollah/Iran alliance and will end it once he is gone. France 24 reports as follows: “Syrian opposition protesters are not just calling for the fall of President Bashar al-Assad: they have recently begun directing their anger against his regional allies, Iran and Hezbollah. Our Observer says this is a new and unexpected turn of events. “Videos of recent protests in Syria show demonstrators chanting slogans against Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s Islamic revolution, as well as the Hezbollah, an Islamist political party from Lebanon with a powerful armed wing. Even more surprising has been footage of protesters burning posters of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general and a widely respected figure throughout the Middle East. “Their anger is a result of Tehran’s and Hezbollah’s unwavering support for the Syrian government, even as it ruthlessly crushes its own people’s calls for more democracy.” The alliance with Iran and Hezbollah is seen by increasing numbers of Syrians, then, as one of the characteristics of the hated Assad regime. When Syrians get the chance, they will end both the regime and that alliance. The sooner Assad falls, the better—from every moral, political, and strategic point of view.