Henri J. Barkey

As diplomats look for a way to end the conflict in Lebanon, the US has proven reticent to support an immediate ceasefire that endorses the status quo ante. What most observers have failed to see in Washington's reluctance is how important it is for the US that Israel defeat Hizballah. In fact, a successful conclusion is far more critical for Washington than it is for Israel.

Of course Israel wants to defeat Hizballah. However, what would satisfy Israel may fall short of Washington's greater strategic goals. Israel would accept a severely weakened Hizballah that retreats north concurrently with the deployment of Lebanese and international forces to the border region. As far as Jerusalem is concerned, a Hizballah that remains armed within Lebanon but far away from Israel then becomes a Lebanese problem. The Lebanese will have to decide if they want Iran and Syria to continue supplying a militia within their own sovereign borders. Israel has amply demonstrated its fury and it is unlikely that a Lebanon-based organization will ever again risk a repeat of recent events.

Why would such an outcome fall short for the US? There are two reasons. The first is what can be called the Hizballah model. It represents the nightmarish metamorphosis of a well-supplied and trained militia. If it can work in Lebanon, the model can be emulated elsewhere around the globe.

Consider for one moment what Hizballah has achieved: it has a parallel state structure in Lebanon complete with its own social services and rudimentary revenue collection system. It conducts its own foreign policy and, as events have demonstrated, its decision-making system is unaccountable to the central government. Worse, it has managed to build up a sophisticated arsenal of missiles and other armaments that intimidates the Lebanese army. Arms by themselves do not make the organization. Clearly, Hizballah fighters have been trained at using weapons that no terrorist organization has hitherto acquired or mastered.

It fired two Chinese-designed Iranian-built Silkworm missiles at an Israeli naval vessel. One of the missiles hit its target while the other sunk a nearby commercial vessel. The Silkworm is a weapon that armies use and it boggles the mind that a militia such as Hizballah not only can acquire it but also use it with a modicum of success.

Hizballah is far more sophisticated and entrenched among a supportive population than al-Qaeda. It is impossible to defeat it without inflicting civilian casualties. Therein lies Hizballah's strength; it calculates that the outside world will relent in the face of civilian casualties.

The Hizballah model can easily be exported to other failed or semi- failed states, ranging from Somalia to Sri Lanka, Iraq and Colombia and perhaps even to Pakistan one day. All you need is an external patron willing to invest resources just as Iran has in this case and a supportive population base. One can easily imagine a scenario of a Venezuela-supported FARC in Colombia initiating action against Bogota's southern neighbor, Ecuador or Peru. The Hizballah model completely emasculates the notion that a state is defined by, among other things, its monopoly over the means of violence.

The second reason why Washington wants Hizballah completely defeated is because of Iran's patronage. Bogged down in Iraq, the US is facing an emboldened Iran ready to challenge it at any moment of its own choosing. For Iran, Hizballah is another strategic tool in an asymmetric conflict with the West. Hizballah extends Iran's reach well beyond the immediate region and the Middle East, but also to far-flung places such as the South American continent where it has an entrenched presence in the tri -border area of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. In Iraq, the Mahdi Army has already modeled itself along Hizballah lines as has Hamas in the Palestinian territories. Any outcome that does not end up with Hizballah's disarmament is another step in the institutionalization of the model under Iranian tutelage.

The US as the sole superpower, which for better or worse also acts as the world's first responder, cannot afford to see the proliferation of Hizballah-like organizations deciding the fate of nations. For the same reasons, it is critical for the international community that UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for Hizballah's disarmament and the reinforcement of Lebanese authority, be implemented fully.

- Published 10/8/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org

Henri J. Barkey is chair of the International Relations Department at Lehigh University and a former member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff.