What we heard on the tongues of Bashar al-Assad and Luna al-Shibl in the leaked videos about the nature of Hezbollah’s fighting in Syria is not the sole indication of the strange, uncanny relationship between comrades-in-arms and partners in Syrian blood. Al-Shibl was likely killed in this context. Yet other signs preceded the leakage of the videos, including accounts known to Shiite Lebanese people, who heard stories from Hezbollah fighters among their relatives who had taken part in the war in Syria.
Stories upon stories about the defeated Syrian regime’s army, to the point that we listeners began asking ourselves about the nature of that horrific mission: fighting alongside a regime that the fighters themselves described as being so bad and so filthy.
That aside, the Syrian officers’ accounts of Hezbollah and its Iraqi and Afghan groups were no less damning. In a leaked document from one of the security branches, reviewed by Daraj, a Syrian officer complains to his superior about acts of looting and “thuggery” committed by Lebanese and Iraqi elements in the city of Deir ez-Zor, and points to his inability to confront them or “protect the people from them.”
In Damascus, you hear from everyone, everyone, endless stories about Hezbollah checkpoints in the city and their practices, about the occupation-like nature of their presence, and about the “Shiification” of Damascus not through proselytization, but through invasion: buying up real estate, inflating shrines, and expanding the security presence around the Umayyad Mosque.
The leakage of the videos, especially the scene in which Assad and al-Shibl mock Hezbollah’s competence compared to that of Russian soldiers, offers a new occasion to reflect on the future of the relationship between the Shiite community in Lebanon and the majorities and minorities of this Mashreq, a relationship Hezbollah has cast aside. The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria exposed the horrific role the party played in the Syrian tragedy. Not only has it failed to reconsider the mercenary nature of that role, but it also continues to regard it as a “sacred mission,” much as it views its missions in southern Lebanon, in Gaza, and elsewhere. In the eulogy delivered by the party for its chief of staff, Haitham Tabbatabai, its secretary-general, Naim Qassem, listed the man’s merits, among them his two years of fighting in Syria.
So, the mission remains “sacred,” and it appears the party is not about to review it. Even if it has grown accustomed to this possibility, it is not prepared to take the accountability steps that such a review would require. The decision to fight in Syria was Iranian, and revisiting or criticizing it would mean subjecting an Iranian decision to scrutiny and accountability, something no subordinate actor has ever dared to do vis-à-vis a dominant patron.
Thus, the Lebanese Shiite community is trapped in this deadlock, one of several deadlocks in which Hezbollah has placed it. Continuing to live within the Mashreq amid instability of such severity will be a grueling task, and developments are moving toward entrenching the grievance of the Syrian majority, indeed, toward turning that grievance into the very core of power in Syria.
Lebanon will not protect its Shiites from the repercussions of Hezbollah’s mission in Syria. What reinforces this assessment is that the party itself is not seeking to forge a relationship with its components that entails asking for protection. In Lebanon, the party continues to do what it did in Syria, and more than half of the Lebanese feel that what the party offers them is no different from what it offered Syrians.
Many have wondered about the nature of the reactions of many Lebanese Shiites to the Bashar–Luna videos, and about fighting to protect a regime that harbors contempt for those who rushed to defend it. Among those close to the party, some have begun saying they objected to the Syrian mission from the outset. Who, after all, knows why Hezbollah went to fight in Syria?
The only answer is that the party did not go to fight in Syria by a decision of its Lebanese leadership. It was part of the Iranian arms fighting there, and to this day it remains an Iranian arm fighting in Lebanon. There is no way to mend the rupture with the Mashreq except through the emergence of an option other than Hezbollah, an option that is not available today.
