Had I known that there was a one in a hundred chance that abducting soldiers would lead to war, I wouldn’t have done it,” Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah said on August 27, 2006, after he realized how much damage he had caused to Lebanon in the Second Lebanon War. Eighteen years have gone by since then, and Nasrallah finds himself between hammer and anvil: between his patron, Iran, which needs to present an “axis of resistance”, a unified front of its proxies in the region, and a Lebanese state that was falling apart regardless of the war.
Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah is a terrorist organization with a country. The Lebanese constitution states that the highest position for the Shia community in the country is speaker of the parliament, a role filled by Amal leader Nabih Berri. The prime minister is a Sunni, Najib Mikati, while the presidency is reserved for a Maronite Christian. The problem is that it is so difficult to reach agreement in Lebanon that the prime minister is temporary and there has been no president for two years, since Michel Aoun stepped down.
This division of powers derives from an out-of-date census. Young, talented, educated Maronites have largely left the country, which has been flooded by countless Sunnis who are not counted as part of Lebanon’s population, some of them Palestinian and some of them Syrian. Finally there are the Shi’ites, many of them poor and uneducated, who constitute the base of Hezbollah, which exploits the whole tangled situation to exercise de facto control over what happens in the country.
That situation is made even more precarious by Lebanon’s severe economic problems. According to the World Bank, in 2006 annual GDP per capita in Lebanon was $6,700. After the Second Lebanon War, the economy grew well, reaching GDP per capital of about $9,000 in the period 2010 to 2012. Since then, it has declined, and in the last few years it has plummeted, from $8,100 in 2019 to $6,300 currently. In other words, Lebanon’s annual GDP per capita is now lower than it was in the period of the Second Lebanon War. To that must be added some 1.5 million Syrian refugees who place a further burden on the economy.
Disabled terrorists demanding allowances
In the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah took a severe blow, with some 700 terrorists killed within a month, which compares with about 500 killed in a year of the Swords of Iron war. There are however several differences that make the story more complicated, chiefly another economic issue. According to the World Bank, between 2012 and 2022, the proportion of the population living below the poverty line more than tripled, from 12% to 44%. The Lebanese pound was the currency that depreciated the most in 2023, according to analysis by Bloomberg, and even before the current escalation, the Sword of Iron war led to about 100,000 Lebanese fleeing northwards from South Lebanon.
Now, on top of the economic challenges that existed before the war, Hezbollah faces a direct challenge: the wounding of thousands of its operatives by the detonating pagers, which will lead to many disabled people demanding welfare payments. Instead of them receiving pay as fighters, they will receive allowances, to ensure that they and their families will not turn from supporters of terrorism into critics of Hezbollah. In addition, Hezbollah’s head of operations and the commander of its Radwan special forces Ibrahim Akil was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Dahiya district of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, on Friday, along with other Hezbollah commanders.
After the killing of veteran Hezbollah commander Fuad Sukr in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut at the end of July, Nasrallah is left with just the commander of the southern front, Ali Karki, and the commander of the Badr unit, Abu Ali Reda, in Hezbollah’s top military echelon. While it’s largely true that in terrorist organizations everyone is replaceable from below, the cumulative blow makes it hard to develop strategy. Nasrallah has acquired a great deal of experience since he replaced the assassinated Abbas al-Musawi in 1992, but for years he has spent much of his time in a bunker and he is not in touch with the situation on the ground in the same way as were Akil and Sukr.
Failure to read Sinwar right
For nearly a year, Nasrallah has broadcast the message that “a ceasefire in Gaza will lead to a ceasefire in Lebanon,” out of implicit belief that that was what would happen. Like others, he failed to read Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar correctly. Sinwar is interested in all-out war in Lebanon, which Nasrallah really doesn’t want, especially when much of Hezbollah’s top command has been eliminated. Nasrallah doesn’t have his finger on the pulse in the way that Sinwar does.
Now, the situation on the Israel-Lebanon border is on the brink of all-out war. Last night, the IDF counted 150 rockets, UAVs and cruise missiles launched at Israel from Lebanon, while the Israel Air Force struck again in Lebanese territory. Hamas, even if it wants to help from Gaza, is unable to do so, and when the Iranians are not succeeding in igniting the Israel-Syria border. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his Russian backers are not keen on such escalation. Lastly, there are the pro-Iranian militias in Iraq, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and, fewer in number, the Zainabiyoun Brigade from Pakistan and the Afghan Shia Fatemiyoun Brigade.
According to a report by the opposition Iran International television channel based in London, in 2022, Hezbollah fighters enjoyed huge pay in Lebanese terms, of $1,300 monthly, while the pay of Houthi, Zainbayoun and Fatemiyoun fighters dropped from $700 in 2018 to $100-200. The Iranians have created a honey-trap for Hezbollah, in which they are the main face of the resistance, but without Iran they will find it very hard to support themselves.
Iran’s aim: Maintaining nuclear program
The regime of the Ayatollahs in Iran, even with a reformist prime minister in Masoud Pezeshkian, is headed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Khamenei has one main goal in the current war: distracting attention from Iran’s nuclear program.
Before the signing of the joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear deal with Iran of 2015, Iran held 8,710 kilograms of low-enriched uranium (3.67%), 195 kilograms of medium-enriched uranium (20%), 19,138 first generation centrifuges, and 1,034 advanced centrifuges. The agreement stipulated that the advanced centrifuges would be disused, the number of first-generation centrifuges would be reduced by 70%, Iran would not hold any medium-enriched uranium, and it would hold a maximum of 300 kilograms of low-enriched uranium for a decade.
Now, six years after US President Trump withdrew from the agreement, according to a report by Reuters based on reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran holds 164.7 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium. The Agency estimates that Iran lacks just two kilograms to reach a theoretical quantity that, if it is enriched to 85-90%, will be sufficient for four nuclear bombs.
In the end, Nasrallah understands that, as far as Khamenei is concerned, the time has come to pay for the all the aid Hezbollah has received from Iran. If he turns his back on Khamenei, he will be left without money, but with Lebanon. If he comes into line with Khamenei, he will be left with money, but Lebanon’s citizens, including many Shi’ites, will not forgive him. Isolated, confused, and battered, Nasrallah finds himself facing the most important decision in Hezbollah’s history.