Wow! Is Hezbollah Amped Or What?

The Secretary General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, did a fine imitation of a rooster in full flush on al-Manar TV in Beruit last week. Of course, the man did have something to crow about--victory.

While the Lebanese Army stood around with its collective thumb up an anatomically improbable location, its commander waited the call---

No. He wasn't waiting for a call to arms. That came. He declined.

Michel Sleiman, the reluctant general became Michel Sleiman, eager president. That was the call he wanted. He got it.

From Hezbollah. Nasrallah characterised Sleiman as "our ally" in his speech and further declared (no doubt accurately) that the Lebanese National Army "will never be used to disarm us."

Between that statement and the fact that the agreement worked out in Doha gives Hezbollah the effective veto in the new government, Nasrallah has the strings of the puppets in his hands. Not a bad few days light work for a militia which no doubt had some kind of fun killing Sunnis and Druze or for negotiators who labored in the upscale surroundings of Qutar with the full support of both Syria and Iran.

From the reaction of George W. Bush (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=aNbQ4atY9pn8&refer=africa) one would get the idea that somehow democracy had triumphed in Lebanon. If the current Decider Guy really believes that, Nasrallah doesn't agree.

In his speech, the Hezbollah jefe maintained that his organisation had defeated the democracy movement in Lebanon and the government it had produced. He extended that undoubtedly accurate observation with another. By the success of the armed (can we say, "terrorist?") action and the Munich Conference in Doha, Nasrallah decreed Hezbollah had shown Washington that it could not move ahead with its "freedom and democracy" strategy anywhere in the Mideast and particularly in Lebanon.

The Geek ain't going to argue with that proposition.

Of course, the Geek has long held that the neocon ninny notion of imposing democracy in the frightfully infertile soils of the Mideast was a non-starter since assorted neos first muttered about the need for doing such nearly twenty years ago. History shows that efforts to impose democracy are exercises in futility compared to which masturbation with steel wool is both productive and enjoyable.

Nasrallah offered an alternative model to the "peace and democracy" strategy. It is one that he is certain will prove to be as successful elsewhere in the Mideast as it has just been in Lebanon.

He urged Hamas and Islamic Jihad to continue using "terror operations" on the Hezbollah model against both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. He also stated flatly that Hezbollah will support armed action against what he termed the "political process" in Iraq.

The phrasing "political process" is vague but implies to the Geek that Nasrallah means supporting actions directed against the current regime in Baghdad as well as the US and Allied forces. This could make for some interesting complications concerning Hezbollah's relations with Iran as both Iran and the current Iraqi government are Shia in affiliation.

Perhaps that is why the General Secretary moved quickly to add that Hezbollah was proud to be under the Vilayet e-Faqih of Iran. Nothing like a strong declaration of loyalty to the Khomeinist version of Islamism/jihadism to pour preemptive oil on the waves.

The affirmation of faith must be taken in conjunction with the challenge Nasrallah heaved to the West generally and both the US and Israel in particular when he stated that Hezbollah would fight any external intervention and that it had showed the way of successful "confrontationism."

The Geek has seen too much both directly as a practitioner and vicariously as a historian to be of an alarmist nature. Nonetheless, he is of the view that Hezbollah is a greater threat over the near- or mid-term than al-Qaeda.

If nothing else, the Hezbollah victory in Lebanon makes the possibility of an Israeli-Syrian rapprochement move from the "slim" category to the "essentially no-chance-in-hell" level. It also may serve to embolden the mullahocracy in Iran at a critical time when the mullahs are running out of viable options to deal with the combination of economic collapse, social unrest and external pressure.

Hezbollah saw its opportunity and took it. Successfully. One can only hope that Tehran (or Qom) doesn't see the Lebanese model as a guide for for Iran.