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Lebanon guided by the Nasrullah factor
By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - Any person who was in Beirut on May 24, 2000, the day Hezbollah
liberated South Lebanon, understands how immensely popular the enigmatic Hasan
Nasrullah is in the country's Muslim, and particularly Shi'ite, community. Any
person watching his speech five years later, this month, after the US  started
to press for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, and the disarming of
Hezbollah, of which Nasrullah is the head, knows how easy it might be
for the United States to get Syria to leave Lebanon, but how
difficult, if not impossible, it would be to disarm or weaken the Shi'ites.
Syria said on Thursday that it was ready to work with the United Nations to
implement a Security Council resolution requiring its approximately 17,000
troops to quit Lebanon, but that speeding up the pullout would require stronger
Lebanese security forces. International pressure on Syria to pull out its
troops and relinquish its political grip on its tiny neighbor
intensified after the February 14 assassination of former Lebanese premier
Rafik Hariri. Many Lebanese blame Syria for his killing in a huge blast in
Beirut.
The long road to power
Napoleon Bonaparte once said: "I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and
I cannot give it up." Disarming Hezbollah, and writing them off the political
scene in Lebanon, would be like asking the Iraqi Shi'ites, who have now tasted
power after decades of oppression under Saddam Hussein, to leave office
willingly, abandon their new-found rights, and return to the wretched state
they were in during the previous 100 years.
They would not do that without putting up a bloody war - bloodier even than the
Anglo-American war of 2003. The Shi'ites, after all, are a majority in Lebanon,
estimated at 1.37 million (40%) of the nation's total population of 3,777,218.
So much has been said over the past two weeks about the disarming of Hezbollah
and the implementation of UN Resolution 1559 in Lebanon for the withdrawal of
its troops. Can that be done with minimal damage to Lebanon, Syria and the
Middle East as a whole? Have all parties seriously considered the Nasrullah
factor?
The Shi'ites of Lebanon, like the Shi'ites of Iraq, are a majority who have
long suffered from Sunni domination, especially during the 400-year rule of the
Ottoman Empire in what is present-day Lebanon. Located in the eastern Bekka
Valley, they survived during the early years of the 20th century through trade
with Palestine, which was cut off completely by the creation of Israel in 1948.
Preoccupied with domestic issues, consecutive Lebanese regimes paid little
attention to the plight of the Shi'ites, and they were forgotten, politically
and economically, during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
While government funds poured into the modernization of Beirut, making it the
"Switzerland of the East" during the 1960s, the Shi'ite districts were
neglected, receiving 0.7% of the state budget in 1974, although they made up
20% of the population at the time. Their representatives in parliament were all
absentee feudal landlords who paid little attention to their plight, making the
Shi'ites an economic under-class during the booming years of Beirut.
An Iranian-born cleric named Musa al-Sadr emerged as leader of the Shi'ite
community in the 1960s, creating the Movement of the Dispossessed in 1974 for
emancipation of the Shi'ites. When the civil war broke out in 1975, he founded
a military branch for his party, called Amal (Hope). It was trained by the
Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) of Yasser Arafat and flourished in a
poor neighborhood of Beirut, known as al-Dahiyeh, where the majority of the
Shi'ites lived and worked.
Sadr's movement demanded more government funds for the Shi'ite community,
better infrastructure, increased representation in politics, and more access to
government jobs. All of this was only achieved many years later, under the
leadership of Nasrullah in the 1990s. Amal fought with the Palestinians and
Druze militias of Kamal Jumblatt against Syria and its Christian allies. They
soon switched sides to the Syrians, fighting with them against the Christians.
Sadr disappeared, under mysterious circumstances, while on a visit to Libya in
1978, and he was replaced by the less popular Husayn al-Husayni, a man with no
charisma or strong power base in the Shi'ite community. Many shed doubt on the
ability of Amal to continue in the absence of Sadr, but then came the Islamic
revolution in Iran in 1979, inspiring new fervor among the Shi'ites of Lebanon,
who were supported wholeheartedly in their war for emancipation by the new
mullahs of Tehran.
In 1980, Husayni was replaced by Nabih Berri, a secular Shi'ite lawyer who
had excellent relations with Syrian president Hafez al-Assad. During the heyday
of Syria's war with Arafat, Amal waged a bloody war against the Palestinians,
blaming them for the reprisal attacks carried out by Israel against Arafat's
forces in South Lebanon. Amal called it a "war of the camps" against Arafat's
PLO. The ones to suffer most from Israeli attacks were the Shi'ites, Berri
argued, since 80% of the South was Shi'ite. Radical elements of Amal broke away
in 1984, with money from Iranian hardliners, wanting initially to establish an
Iran-like theocracy in Lebanon. This group announced its official existence in
a press release, naming itself Hezbollah (Party of God).
Amal began to lose popular support among ordinary Shi'ites in the late 1970s
for its backing of the Maronite president Elias Sarkis and the secularism of
its leader, Nabih Berri. The reputation of Berri suffered a blow when, in 1984,
he became minister of state for rebuilding South Lebanon, under president Amin
Gemayel, forcing him to concentrate on political matters rather than the
military campaigns of Amal.
Husayn al-Husayni also lost credit when he became Speaker of parliament in
1985-92 and diverted his attention from Shi'ite grievances at the grassroots
level. In June 1985, Hezbollah highjacked TWA Flight 847, forcing it to land at
Beirut airport and taking hostages, who were only released after Israel
released 700 Lebanese prisoners. The TWA highjacking increased the popularity
of Hezbollah, at the expense of Berri, and its members began to clash openly
with both Berri and Dawoud Dawoud, the leader of Amal in South Lebanon.
In February 1988, Hezbollah attracted more supporters by kidnapping
Lieutenant-Colonel William Higgens, an American working with UN Interim Forces
in Lebanon (UNIFL). Dawoud led an offensive against them in South Lebanon, and
in September 1988 was ambushed and killed. Some pointed fingers at Hezbollah,
others at Berri, accusing him of eliminating Dawoud to clear the stage for his
unchallenged leadership of Amal. Berri's rise to pan-Shi'ite leadership was
challenged, however, with the rise of radical leaders in Hezbollah who captured
the minds and hearts of the Shiite masses from the mid-1980s onwards. It was
during this time that Hasan Nasrullah, a young charismatic leader of Hezbollah
who was 22 years Berri's junior, began to make headlines as one of the
impassioned military commanders of the new Shi'ite militia.
The rise of Nasrullah
Hasan Nasrullah was born on August 31, 1960, in Beirut. His father was a
vegetable vendor, originally from Bassouriyeh village in South Lebanon. He once
said in an interview with the Cairo-based al-Ahram, "No one from my family had
been a cleric before. I am one of those few who have no family claim to this
profession."
When the civil war began in 1975, his family moved back to South Lebanon, where
he was exposed to Amal, and the charismatic leadership of Musa al-Sadr.
Nasrullah became a devoted Shi'ite Muslim, frequenting mosques in his
neighborhood and capturing the attention of a cleric named Mohammad al-Ghrawi,
who advised him to continue his theology studies in Najaf, Iraq, at the hawza
(Islamic seminary) there.
Ghrawi gave him a letter of recommendation to give to ayatollah Mohammad Baqir
al-Sadr, who welcomed him and placed him under the guidance of another Lebanese
Shi'ite named Abbas al-Musawi, the future secretary general of Hezbollah who
was assassinated in 1992. Musawi, in turn, was a disciple of Sheikh Mohammad
Husayn Fadlallah, the current supreme Shi'ite cleric in Lebanon, who had
returned from his studies in Najaf in 1966.
Until the present, Nasrullah's relations with Fadlallah remained perfect. After
the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979, Saddam Hussein began persecuting
Shi'ite activity in Iraq, accusing the Shi'ites in Najaf of being agents for
ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, working to topple the secular Ba'athist regime
with a theocracy.
Nasrullah returned to Lebanon to study and teach at an Islamic institute
founded by Musawi in Baalbak. His young age and charisma attracted a large
following of Shi'ite men, who began looking up to him for guidance and
leadership. Nasrullah was expelled from Amal in 1982 for criticizing its
leadership's weakness in light of the Israeli invasion of Beirut, and in 1985
joined the newly founded Hezbollah, bringing along a large number of his
students and followers.
He became involved in military activity, and in 1987 succeeded in driving Amal
militias out of districts in Beirut. Realizing that he was en route to becoming
a Shi'ite leader in his own right, Nasrullah cut short his military career to
complete his religious studies in Qom, Iran. Religious credentials are a must
for any ambitious Shi'ite leader in the Arab world. He returned to Lebanon in
1989 to lead his commandos against Amal militias in Iqlim al-Tuffah, South
Lebanon, and was wounded in battle. He became a member of Hezbollah's central
military committee at the age of 29.
Capturing the party
In October 1989, the leaders of Hezbollah supported the Taif Accord, a peace
formula orchestrated by Syria and Saudi Arabia to bring an end to the civil war
in Lebanon. Hezbollah agreed to release Western hostages it had captured during
the war, to back Syria's policies in Lebanon, which included the ousting of the
anti-Syrian army commander Michel Aoun, but refused to disarm as all the
militias did, claiming that it was needed in South Lebanon to liberate the
region from Israeli occupation.
Hezbollah's decision was dictated directly by Iranian president Ali Akbar
Rafsanjani, and backed by Assad, against the will of hardline clerics in Iran
who wanted to establish a theocracy in Lebanon, such as Ali Akbar
Mohtashemi.
Nasrullah, by now emerging as one of Iran's favorites in Lebanon, went to
Tehran in September 1989 to receive the blessing of Rafsanjani, and worked
briefly as Hezbollah "ambassador" to Iran. In 1991, his mentor Musawi became
secretary general of Hezbollah, but was ambushed and killed in February 1992 by
Israeli helicopters. The Iranians, most notably Rafsanjani and Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, backed Nasrullah's claims to leadership of Hezbollah,
since he had been Musawi's right-hand man, although the party's hierarchy
showed that the post should go to Sheikh Naiim Qasim, the deputy secretary
general. The blessing of Tehran secured the post for Nasrullah, however, and
Qasim remained deputy, a post he still holds today, 13 years later.
The ascent of the young Nasrullah was surprising to a majority of veteran
leaders in the Shi'ite community, notably Nabih Berri (by now Speaker of the
Lebanese parliament). Only 31 years old, Nasrullah was many years younger than
most clerics, regarded politically and religiously inexperienced (he had spent
only two years studying theology in Najaf, while Musawi had spent nine).
The same claims were made in April 2004 against Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq, who in
his late 20s emerged to lead the Mehdi Army and challenge more established
Shi'ite leaders, such as the veteran Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. He, too,
attracted a wide audience because he was challenging conventional leadership,
motivating the masses with his patriotic speeches, and using force, rather than
diplomacy, to combat the enemy.
The young leader in Lebanon started his new career by promising to avenge
Musawi's blood. On March 17, 1992, a car bomb went off at the Israeli Embassy
in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people. Nasrullah had sent off a clear message to
the world: Hezbollah was a key player in Lebanon that could not be dismissed or
eliminated that easily, and would strike at its enemies with force if they
dared to confront it.
In May 1994, Israeli commandos penetrated into Lebanon and captured Mustapha
al-Dirani, a pro-Hezbollah member of Amal. An infuriated Hezbollah responded in
July 1994 with a suicide bomber blowing himself up at the Argentine-Israeli
Mutual Association in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people. Hezbollah denied
involvement, to avoid international pressure to limit its casualties to the
battlefield, but everybody knew that Hezbollah was behind the bombing, in
retaliation for the capturing of Dirani.
For the next 10 years, Nasrullah would mention Dirani, and other senior
Hezbollah prisoners, in every single one of his speeches, promising to release
them from Israel. He eventually succeeded when conducting a massive prisoner
exchange with Israel in January 2004. In July 1993, Israel carried out a
seven-day offensive against Hezbollah, and Nasrullah responded by showering
Israel with 142 Katyusha rockets.
In April 1996, war broke out again, for 16 days, and Hezbollah responded with
489 Katyusha rockets. In September 1997, Nasrullah's 18-year-old son Hadi was
killed in combat, and Nasrullah received news of his death with stunningly calm
composure. An article in al-Ahram described Hadi's funeral, saying: Sayed
Hassan Nasrullah entered the hall in solemn dignity accompanied by Jawad, his
teenage son. He stopped before each coffin and offered the Fatiha [the
Muslim equivalent of the Lord's Prayer] until he reached the one marked 13. He
beckoned an aide and spoke to him in a whisper. The aide summoned two workers
of the Islamic Health Association, a Hezbollah outfit. They opened the coffin,
exposing a body wrapped in a white shroud. Sheikh Nasrullah's eyes closed, his
lips trembled as he offered the Fatiha. Slowly, he bent over and
tenderly stroked the head of Hadi Nasrullah, his eldest son, who was 18 years
old when he died in battle on September 13 [1997]. Jawad, the younger son,
stood still and pale next to his father. A deep silence fell on the room while
his right hand rested on his son's chest. It was broken by the clicking of a
reporter's camera, but promptly returned when Sheikh Nasrullah looked up in
cold surprise. Over the next decade, Katyusha rocket attacks
on Israel became common combat methods for Hezbollah, usually in response to
Israeli attacks, but they rarely caused real physical or military damage inside
Israel. The psychological damage on Israeli citizens, however, was paramount
and the Israeli media would portray them as "terror attacks". After every
attack, an inflammatory speech by Nasrullah would follow, and hundreds of
Hezbollah followers would roam the streets of Beirut, shouting: "Ya Nasrullah
Ya Habib, Damer, Damer Tal Abib!" (Oh Nasrullah, our Beloved. Destroy,
destroy Israel!"
The popularity that Hezbollah accumulated in the 1990s was due to two things:
its massive media machine, and the countrywide educational and social network
of schools, charities, hospitals and mosques that they operated, often under
Nasrullah's direct supervision. Hezbollah put a lot of money into rebuilding
poverty stricken neighborhoods of the Shi'ite community, and subsidizing
housing in South Lebanon, after the Israeli withdrawal in 2000.
Much of the money initially came from Iran, but after gaining nationwide
popularity in 2000, Hezbollah began to raise a lot of money on its own. On
every road leading into Beirut, and on every route to the Shi'ite
neighborhoods, Hezbollah youth would create friendly roadblocks, adorned with
pictures of Nasrullah, the yellow flag of Hezbollah, booming nationalist songs,
and a charity box. These petty donations added up and pretty soon larger
donations came in from the emigrant Shi'ite community in the US, Latin America
and Africa.
Needy families in the Shi'ite community received sealed envelopes from the
secretary general of Hezbollah at the start of every month, with a decent
stipend. This endeared him to the lower class of the Shi'ite community, which
30 years earlier Musa al-Sadr had described as the "wretched of the Earth".
Part of Nasrullah's success was that while always appealing to the Shi'ites, he
never mentioned pan-Shi'ite loyalties, and always claimed to be speaking for
Lebanon. This was not the case with Musa al-Sadr, who rose to power in the
1960s and 1970s through emphasis on Shi'ite nationalism as part of the greater
Lebanese nationalism.
This different approach gave Nasrullah a fairly large following among the
Sunnis of Lebanon as well. Like Sadr, however, he fully understood the
multitude of Lebanon's confessional system, never once calling for an Islamic
state in Lebanon, and always proclaiming to be a firm believer in the right of
all Lebanese, regardless of religion, to live in harmony. Sadr, on the other
hand, had referred to the Shi'ites as "disinherited", criticizing Maronite
arrogance toward the Shi'ite community and the disproportionate representation
of Shi'ites in senior political posts. While Sadr was highly critical of the
Lebanese army for failing to protect the South from Israeli attacks in the
1970s, Nasrullah requested the protection of no one, claiming that Hezbollah
can do well in South Lebanon without assistance from the Lebanese army. This
was partly in order to maintain his hold over the South, and mainly to have a
free hand in launching sporadic cross-border attacks against Israel.
Nasrullah liberates South Lebanon
Nasrullah's attacks on Israel usually resulted in retaliatory attacks on South
Lebanon. In 1999, however, Israel's new prime minister Ehud Barak responded by
bombing Beirut, causing much discontent among non-Shi'ite civilians who did not
want to pay the price for Nasrullah's war. They quickly silenced their
grumbling when one year later on May 24, 2000, Nasrullah liberated South
Lebanon from the Israeli occupation it had been under since 1978. He was hailed
throughout the Arab and Muslim world as a great leader, the only Arab to fight
a war and emerge victorious against Israel since 1948.
Many speculated that he would now lay down his arms, and transform Hezbollah
into a political party, but Nasrullah had other plans. He refused to disarm,
just as he is doing today with regard to Resolution 1559, claiming that Israel
still occupies Sheba Farms in South Lebanon.
President Emile Lahhoud could do little to stop him, since by that point Hasan
Nasrullah was literarily the strongest man in Lebanon, supported wholeheartedly
in his war against Israel by both Syria and Iran. The death of Syria's
president Hafez al-Assad in June 2000 left the activities of Hezbollah
unchecked inside Lebanon, since only Asad had the influence to dictate policy
on the Shi'ite guerillas.
They maintained a strong relationship with Syria's new leader, Assad, based on
common objectives in the Middle East, but no longer received orders from Syria.
They informed the Syrian government of their plans, received guidance,
supported Assad, and often relied on the Syrians for advice, but apart from
that, this is where Syrian influence ended.
Nasrullah's team entered the political arena, running for parliament and
winning 12 seats in 2000. In 1992, they had won eight seats in the 128-seat
parliament. Hezbollah refused to assume government office, however, because
according to Nasrullah, this would make the party bear responsibilities for
mistakes done by any regime, whereas in the resistance it remains purified from
political corruption and blundering.
After liberation of the South, Nasrullah was received as a guest of honor at
the Presidential Palace by Lahhoud, and in 2000 met with UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan during his visit to Lebanon. In reviewing the situation in Lebanon,
Annan had to meet with all decision-makers, and it was impossible for him to
sidestep Nasrullah.
Post-2000 Nasrullah
To increase its power base outside Lebanon, Hezbollah began to transmit its
al-Manar TV by satellite in 2000. Hezbollah propaganda and Nasrullah's
inflammatory speeches could now be viewed by Arabs and Muslims all over the
world, much to the displeasure of the US and Israel. In 2004, it was estimated
that 10 million people watched al-Manar.
Not once on al-Manar were the Arabs portrayed as defeated. Every single piece
of propaganda showed a victorious guerrilla warrior, either during battle
striking at Israeli targets, or returning from combat in triumph. Military
operations were often filmed in detail, and so was training of Hezbollah
commandos. Nasrullah would meet with every single bomber before he/she carried
out an operation against Israel. To raise their morale, he would stress that
they are going to heaven, because religious war (jihad) was an obligation in
Islam, and tell them: "Give my regards to the Prophet Mohammed."
Al-Manar drummed up a lot of support against the US war on Afghanistan in 2001,
and Iraq in 2003. After September 11, 2001, US President George W Bush wanted
to name Hezbollah as one of the "terrorist organizations" in the world, but was
prevented from doing so by Lebanese premier Hariri, who warned that this would
undermine support for the US war on Afghanistan throughout the Arab World.
Syria, at the time cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to
track down al-Qaeda members in Europe, also lobbied on Hezbollah's behalf in
Washington.
Nasrullah increased his cooperation with Syria in late 2000, after the
Maronites mobilized behind their patriarch, Mar Nasrullah Boutros Sfeir,
demanding that the Syrian army withdraw from Lebanon. This threatened to
increase Maronite influence in Lebanon, at the expense of the Shi'ites, and
return the community to the plight of the pre-1975 era.
Nasrullah was loud and clear in refusing Sfeir's demands, claiming that the
Syrian army in Lebanon was needed so long as the Israelis remained in the Sheba
Farms. In March 2001, Sfeir returned from a visit to the US aimed at lobbying
international support against the Syrians in Lebanon. He had applied for a
meeting with Bush, but had been turned down by the White House.
He was greeted, nevertheless, by thousands of Christian supporters opposed to
Syria. Nasrullah responded by staging a public rally in April 2001, where about
300,000 Hezbollah supporters gathered to listen to their inflammatory leader
defend Syria. The presence of Syrian troops in Lebanon, Nasrullah argued, "was
a regional and internal necessity for Lebanon" and a "national obligation for
Syria".
Matters worsened for Hezbollah when Syria fell from Washington's grace after
the US war on Iraq in March 2003. As US pressure on Syria increased, so did
accusations against Hezbollah, whom Bush described as a "terrorist group" with
"global outreach".
At the US Institute of Peace, then deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage
said that Hezbollah was an "A-team" of "terrorists" with a "blood debt" to the
US, in reference to the bombing of a US Marine Corps base at Beirut
airport in 1983, widely believed to be the doing of the Amal militias that
became Hezbollah in 1985. Armitage threatened that Hezbollah's time would come,
and meanwhile, think-tanks, US media and neo-conservatives described the
Shi'ite militias as the next al-Qaeda.
Yet nobody made any move against Hezbollah, because the Shi'ites of Iraq would
not hear of it. By 2004, the US was involved in an all-out war with militant
Shi'ites in Iraq, headed by Muqtada, arousing much anger among the community,
which comprises 60% of the Iraqi population.
The US could not afford another Shi'ite war in the Middle East, which would
turn all the Shi'ites of Iraq, and not only Muqtada's Mehdi Army, into enemies
of the United States. Nasrullah can, with ease, call them into combat and
unleash hell for the Americans in Iraq, especially since some media reports are
saying that he has already set up cells for Hezbollah in Iraqi cities like
Basra and Safwan, a fact that he denies.
Instead of taking action against him, Washington tried to isolate the Shi'ite
guerrillas of Lebanon by getting Canada to label them a "terrorist
organization" in 2002, followed by Australia in mid-2003. The European Union,
however, declined to follow suit, yet al-Manar was forbidden from broadcasting
in France in 2004.
Then came the assassination of Hariri this month. Hariri was believed to have
been behind the passing of UN Resolution 1559 in 2004 calling for Syrian troop
withdrawal from Lebanon and the disarming of Hezbollah. The Lebanese
opposition, along with the US, pointed accusations for the murder against
Syria, claiming that it had failed to protect Hariri, or even ordered his
elimination since he had joined the opposition in late 2004 to oppose renewing
the presidential mandate of Lahhoud, Syria's No 1 man in Lebanon,
until 2007.
While the Druze rallied around their leader Jumblatt, a onetime puppet of
Damascus, in calling on the Syrians to leave Lebanon, the Maronites rallied
around their leaders, and so did most of Hariri's Sunnis, who were accusing
Syria of having failed to protect their leader. Standing alone in the fight for
Syria were Hezbollah and the Shi'ites of Lebanon. Nasrullah responded to the
massive demonstrations that took over Beirut after Hariri's death by calling
for a public rally on the Shi'ite ceremony of Ashura, attracting thousands of
Hezbollah followers.
The Ashura event, usually broadcast exclusively by al-Manar, was
aired on all Arabic and Lebanese satellite stations, reportedly at Nasrullah's
request. Particular emphasis was placed on the number and power of Shi'ite
militias in Lebanon, who roared while clad in black: "Death to Israel!"
Nasrullah stressed that contrary to what many were saying, he did not have
cells for Hezbollah in Iraq.
Iraqi Interior Minister Falah Hasan al-Naqib had said earlier that his
government had arrested 16 members of Hezbollah in Iraq. "Let Iraq utter the
full name of one of them," Nasrullah replied. He refused the
internationalization of the Syrian-Lebanese crisis, demanding that all
conflicting parties sort out their differences among themselves.
"Today, our responsibility and commitment for a nation make it obligatory for
all parties to avoid further deterioration. God forbid, if the roof collapses,
it collapses on all of us." He added, "We must not repeat mistakes of the
past," in reference to the civil war that led to the killing of 250,000 people,
15% of the population of Lebanon. "Let us discuss, calmly and rationally, the
implementation of Resolution 1559 and the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon," he
added.
Hezbollah described the Ashura march this year as "a massive rally in defense
of the resistance". "We gather today to express the people's will to protect
the resistance movement against all attempts that aim at eliminating its
presence and ending its role," Nasrullah said.
And that is exactly what Nasrullah will do: work for the protection of his
interests, those of Syria, and the Shi'ites of Lebanon, against all external
meddling by the US.
Dr Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
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