CAN HEZBOLLAH GO STRAIGHT?

 Artículo de MICHAEL YOUNG en “The New York Times” del 09/03/2005

Por su interés y relevancia, he seleccionado el artículo que sigue para incluirlo en este sitio web. (L. B.-B.)

Beirut, Lebanon — AT Syria's request, Lebanon's Hezbollah organized a huge demonstration in downtown Beirut yesterday, as a counterweight to weeks of anti-Syrian protests. The numbers notwithstanding, and despite the party's claim that the rally was not directed against the Lebanese opposition, Hezbollah will come to regret this moment, which has placed the party squarely athwart much of Lebanese society on the question of Syrian hegemony.

As international and Arab pressure mounts on Damascus to withdraw its forces from Lebanon, Hezbollah has become the last rampart of the Syrian order here. This position is not one the party should welcome: while Hezbollah fears that the United Nations will target it once Syria pulls out (a United Nations Security Council resolution passed last summer demanded not just the withdrawal of Syrian forces but the disarmament of militias in Lebanon), it gains nothing by tarnishing its credibility with other Lebanese communities because of Syrian priorities.

The essence of Hezbollah's problem is its failure to decide on its destiny. Under Syrian rule in Lebanon, the party has been able to play two roles simultaneously: it has worked to integrate itself into the Lebanese body politic, participating successfully in elections; but it has also sought to use its liberation of South Lebanon from Israeli occupation, in May 2000, as a springboard for a seminal regional struggle against the United States and Israel.

This duality is the result of a mutation in the Lebanese Shiite vocation. In the late 1970's, under a charismatic cleric, Imam Musa al-Sadr, Shiites began organizing to demand their rightful place in the Lebanese state. Though demographically on the rise, Shiites were stifled by several factors: their relative marginalization in the political elite and domination by feudal leaders; the presence in the predominantly Shiite south and southern suburbs of Beirut of Palestinian movements imposing their political diktat; and underdevelopment.

The catalyst for change was Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The Palestinians were expelled, allowing a new Shiite leadership to emerge and overthrow, or co-opt, traditional leaders. At the same time, Iran's Revolutionary Guards entered Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and began organizing militant Shiite groups. Iran and Syria would later use these groups against the United States, ultimately forcing a withdrawal of American and other Western forces from Lebanon in 1984.

Behind the scenes, a struggle for the future of Lebanon's Shiites took place. On one side was the Amal movement, headed by the man who is now the speaker in Lebanon's Parliament, Nabih Berri. On the other were the groups that would in the 1980's come together with Iran's help to form Hezbollah. Mr. Berri initially championed the success of Shiite integration into Lebanese political society; Hezbollah came to embody, particularly after the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, a transnational militant ambition. Thanks to Syrian tutelage, but also because of the quality of its leadership, its network of social services, and its military prowess, Hezbollah emerged as the most effective Shiite party, sweeping away the more modest, parochial aims of Amal.

An essential component of Hezbollah's resistance against Israel was its portrayal of the party as beyond partisan considerations. Since all Lebanese opposed the occupation, the line went, the resistance spoke for a national consensus. This positioning allowed Hezbollah to maintain ties to all groups, even as it became indispensable to Syria, which was happy to use the party's military operations as leverage in negotiations with Israel over the Golan Heights.

Now, by supporting Syria, Hezbollah can no longer claim to be above the fray. Its desire to pursue resistance will almost certainly hit up against the reluctance of other communities, and indeed many Shiites, to see Lebanon suffer the backlash of Israeli and perhaps American retaliation.

In short, Hezbollah faces a dilemma: to defend its regional ambitions, it must preserve a Syrian-dominated Lebanese order (and Syria is working to impose one before its troops depart), even if doing so alienates the clear majority of Lebanese who believe Syria must go; or it can side with that majority, which means abandoning Syria and its own regional objectives.

The party can undeniably bring out many supporters, as it did yesterday, but it has also discredited itself by so effectively defending Syrian hegemony over Lebanon. Now Hezbollah can straddle the fence no longer. It must decide whether to take its chances as a national party in a Lebanon free of Syrian domination, or risk losing all that it has built up by becoming Syria's unwelcome enforcer.

Michael Young is the opinion editor of The Daily Star in Lebanon and a contributing editor at Reason magazine.