Hizbullah and Syria

Here is a question about Hizbullah I just received and my answer.

Dear Professor Landis,
In light of last week's border skirmish between Israel and Hezbollah I was hoping you could give your SyriaComment.com readers some insight on how much influence does Syria really wield over Hezbollah? Does the Syrian government/military encourage these military exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah? How does the non-Shiite Lebanon population feel about these flare-ups on the Israeli-Lebanon border?
[end]

Dear ...,
I don't know the answer to most of these Hizb questions. The Iranian foreign minister was just in Lebanon and Syria before the incident, but I think Hizb is working for domestic consumption as much as anything in order to keep the "resistance" in front of people's faces and to legitimize itself. Of course Syria is very happy for all Hizbullah's support of late. It and Amal have become the major defenders of Syria's interests and point of view in Lebanon. Now that the Syrian army has no sway over local Lebanese politics and trade issues are being sorted out, the Shiite parties remain the only effective supporters of Syria's interests and the major deterrent to Lebanon falling completely into the US's foreign policy orbit. Syria also sees Hizbullah as the ultimate deterrent to Lebanon signing a peace agreement with Israel, which would sink remaining hopes of ever getting the Golan back.

Israel's leaflet campaign over Beirut was a mistake, because it provoked a negative Lebanese nationalist response just when many Lebanese were decrying the Hizb provocations to Israel. When I was teaching in Lebanon in 1979-81, the Israeli jets that daily broke the sound barrier in low overflights of the city would drive my students berserk. Seniors in high school would all get out of their seats and rush to the windows of the classroom and pretend to shoot at the planes. There was nothing I could do to get them to ignore them or stay in their seats. Such overflights, which have been going on frequently of late, do a lot to underline how impotent the Leb gov. is in defending Lebanon's sovereignty in the face Israeli encroachments. They bolster Hizb rhetoric that it is still a necessary deterrent in the eyes of many Lebanese, especially Muslims.

In Syria, the public loves Hizbullah. Even Christians like it for the resistance part. The first word out of everyone's mouth is that Nasrallah gave his son to the fight - something no other Arab leader has done. They also love his pro-Syrian defense. He is the best thing Syria has going for it in Lebanon and the region and is wildly popular among Syrians for that. They see him as smarter, more media savvy, and more strategically minded than their own president.

As for Syria's role in arming Hizb, certainly, Syria used to be the conduit for Iranian arms getting to Hizb. How much of that is still going on, I don't know. Many people say Hizb has all the arms it needs, but we just don't know. I presume that when the Lebanese Army gets control of Lebanon's borders, it will stop the truck convoys that used to go over uncontrolled, much as it has done with the Palestinians, who have tried to smuggle arms across the border. The problem is that Hizb is so important in Lebanon and few Lebanese politicians are willing to cross it or announce in favor of disarmament. Even PM Siniora attacked UN's Larsen for quoting him in his last report to the effect that Siniora wanted to disarm Hizb.

Friends who just drove around the Beqaa valley, told me that there is marijuana still growing in many places and that Hizb troops are much in evidence and that the Lebanese army patrols do nothing to stop them from controlling the region, manning road blocks, and tending to the drug trade.

My hunch is that Hizb has now become a Lebanese problem. Syria will help it as much as it can, which should be easy so long as the Lebanese army considers the hizb militia legitimate. All the same, Lebanon has been making real improvements to border security. Even Hizb must find it hard to have trucks pass without inspection, but that is something the Lebanese government will ultimately determine and not the Syrian government.
Best, Joshua

Addendum by Nick Blanford sent Nov. 29, 05

Hi Josh,
I thought I would comment on your remark about the Syrian arms channel to Hizbullah. Although much of the general weapons were trucked across the border via the privileged "military" crossing at Masnaa, Hizbullah also received arms via a remote border crossing along the Zabadani-Serghaya-Nabi Sheet road. The area east of Nabi Sheet in the Bekaa is a Hizbullah-controlled zone and includes the small villages of Yanta and Yahfoufa set in a stunningly beautiful valley. I was up there in June nosing around to see how far one could drive along the road before being stopped. The road ends at Yahfoufa beside the ruins of an old Ottoman railway station. The border is about another kilometer or so. I was invited into the house of a Hizbullah guy for coffee and he told me that if I had arrived at night I would have been stopped by armed Hizbullah men who patrol the area. If Hizb really possesses all those long-range rockets we hear so much about, this is where they will have stashed the rockets away, in caves and bunkers dug into the mountainside. The Lebanese government has no jurisdiction to speak of in this remote area and if the Syrians are willing to continue supplying Hizb with weapons, they will face no impediment along this stretch of the border.
best, Nick