Disarming Hezbollah
Advancing Regional Stability
Article Summary and Author Biography
Demilitarizing Hezbollah is a daunting proposition, but it is a worthy one. The Obama administration should reconsider its hesitance to join British efforts already underway and suspend its ban on official contact with Hezbollah.
STEVEN SIMON is Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. JONATHAN STEVENSON is Professor of Strategic Studies at the U.S. Naval War College.
Reading List
An annotated Foreign Affairs syllabus on Syrian politics.
Snapshot
Hezbollah will not peacefully disarm soon, and to assert that it may betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of Hezbollah’s nature, Lebanese politics, and regional dynamics.
On November 9, some five months after Lebanon's parliamentary elections, the country's two main political blocs finally formed a governing cabinet. Until then, negotiations between the two -- Prime Minister Saad Hariri's Western-backed coalition and the powerful opposition led by Hezbollah -- had been deadlocked over several issues, including Hezbollah's disarmament. One month after reaching the deal, the government adopted a bill allowing Hezbollah to keep its weapons. The Hezbollah bloc controls 10 out of 30 cabinet seats in the new government, which means that many are pessimistic about Lebanon's future prospects.
Hezbollah is one of the best equipped and most capable militant groups in the world. Its decades-long resistance against Israel served it well, winning it favor among Lebanon's Shia Muslims, who constitute about 40 percent of the population. Although Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000 and Hezbollah has partially transitioned to a political party, Hezbollah leaders remain resolutely anti-Israel for reasons of principle and pragmatism. Meanwhile, its charitable programs and community involvement have further reinforced its domestic credibility.
This situation is not stable. In 2006, for example, even though the Lebanese government never declared war, Hezbollah used its large weapons stockpile to fight Israel for over a month. And in May 2008, when then Prime Minister Fouad Siniora moved to shut down Hezbollah's communications network, the group responded by seizing much of Beirut, which triggered fears of renewed civil war. To end the confrontation, Hezbollah was granted veto power in the Lebanese cabinet. Hezbollah leaders no doubt understood this as affirming their right to keep their weapons. The absence of further discussions on disarmament in the cabinet has only strengthened this view. But as long as it is robustly armed, Hezbollah not only poses a threat to Israel but also to Lebanon...
