{"id":13366,"date":"2012-10-20T13:33:27","date_gmt":"2012-10-20T20:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=13366"},"modified":"2012-10-20T13:35:27","modified_gmt":"2012-10-20T20:35:27","slug":"hedging-bets-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=13366","title":{"rendered":"Hedging bets in Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hezbollah Hedges Its Bets on Assad<\/strong>
\nBy Giorgio Cafiero – 19 October, 2012 – FPIF<\/p>\n

When the Arab Awakening began last year, Hezbollah’s leadership expressed solidarity with revolutionary movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain. However, this support was not extended to those demanding political reform in neighboring Syria.<\/p>\n

This double standard must be understood in the context of Damascus’ relationship with Lebanon’s Shiite \u201cParty of God.\u201d As Bashar Al-Assad’s regime has been a vital strategic ally of Hezbollah that provides it with logistical, economic, and military support, the prospects of regime change in Damascus gravely alarm Hezbollah.<\/p>\n

In a tone of jubilation, some of Hezbollah’s adversaries have asserted that the Arab Awakening will constitute the Shiite organization\u2019s demise. These voices, however, underestimate Hezbollah’s legitimacy among Lebanon’s largest sect as a provider of social services and a force of resistance against Israel and the United States.<\/p>\n

The Party of God will not disappear even if the Assad regime does. Nonetheless, if the Ba’athist order in Damascus falls, Hezbollah will be compelled to operate in a more challenging environment, both domestically and regionally.<\/p>\n

However, a post-Assad order in Damascus will likely continue to maintain cooperative ties with Hezbollah to ensure Syria’s strategic posture vis-\u00e0-vis Israel. Randa Slim, a Lebanese scholar at the Middle East Institute, summarized this point: “Irrespective of the makeup of the new Syrian regime, absent a peace agreement between Syria and Israel, this new Syrian regime will have to rely on Hezbollah’s military arsenal as an important component of its deterrent strategy.”<\/p>\n

Sectarian Spillover<\/p>\n

Lebanon has long been susceptible to political turmoil in the broader Levant. Numerous events in recent years\u2014including Saddam Hussein’s ouster in 2003, Rafik Al-Hariri’s assassination in 2005, the Hezbollah-Israel war of 2006, the Lebanese Army\u2019s bloody confrontation with Fatah al-Islam militants in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in 2007, and Hezbollah’s incursion into West Beirut in 2008\u2014inflamed Lebanon\u2019s sectarian tensions. Nevertheless, the fragile peace in Lebanon survived each dramatic development. However, analysts have raised concerns about Lebanon returning to civil war if the spillover effect from Syria continues or intensifies. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hezbollah Hedges Its Bets on Assad By Giorgio Cafiero – 19 October, 2012 – FPIF When the Arab Awakening began last year, Hezbollah’s leadership expressed solidarity with revolutionary movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain. However, this support was not extended to those demanding political reform in neighboring Syria. This double standard must be more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[3610],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13366"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13371,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13366\/revisions\/13371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}