Which party, which Lebanon, which Iran?

The scenes coming from Lebanon are painful. Frightening and horrifying. Corpses lying under the rubble and houses burned or abandoned. A million displaced people. A record number in the country's history. Some are sleeping on the ground in the heart of the capital and others are sleeping in their cars because they cannot find a roof. Deadly metallic creatures are sweeping the entire map. Carrying the smell of death to all sides, along with the smell of anxiety and panic.

The average Lebanese feels injustice, misery and isolation. He has no number to call. There is no president in the palace to bet on his vote or role. Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati is doing what he can. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri does not have a mandate to formulate a sufficient formula to convince the American mediator to rein in the Israeli killing machine. The citizen cannot contact Hezbollah, which possesses a missile arsenal that he believed was sufficient for deterrence.

There are those who talk about “ten days that shook Lebanon and its foundations.” It began with the explosion of communications devices on the 17th of this month and ended on the 27th with the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. The party suffered what resembled a fracture in its spine. It suffered an unprecedented blow that struck its leaders and military machine and exposed it in an exposed country.

It is not simple for Benjamin Netanyahu to make a decision as big as assassinating Nasrallah, knowing that he is the number one player in Lebanon and a prominent regional player in the “Axis of Resistance” led by Iran. He knows that this assassination is no less dangerous than the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani. What is more dangerous than all of this is that Netanyahu considers that assassinating Nasrallah was necessary to bring about a change in the balances that he and his companion Soleimani tried to establish in the Middle East. The scale of the Israeli strikes in Lebanon showed that Israel launched a coup against the position of the “Axis of Resistance” in the region, which is a coup against the entire Iranian project. It is also not simple for Biden and Harris to say that the assassination “brought a measure of justice to the victims” of the Hezbollah leader.

A bit of the past helps us understand the dangers of the present. It was 1982. The Israeli prime minister’s name was Menachem Begin and his defense minister’s name was Ariel Sharon. We went to the headquarters of the leading player in Lebanon that day, whose name was Yasser Arafat. We asked him about the Israeli threats and he replied: “If Sharon commits the folly of attacking Lebanon, he must prepare to receive a flood of refugees from the settlements in the Galilee.”

The PLO used Katyusha rockets against the Galilee to remind the world, including Israel, of its cause and that there would be no security for the Hebrew state without the Palestinians obtaining their rights. Compared to Hezbollah’s arsenal, the PLO’s arsenal was very modest. Weeks later, Israel launched Operation Peace for the Galilee, which Sharon transformed into a siege of Beirut that ended with Arafat and the PLO’s forces leaving Lebanon. Israel believed that it could not live with its border with Lebanon becoming an Israeli-Palestinian border.

Today's story is different. Hezbollah is Lebanese and its forces are from its environment, but Israel exploited the "support war" it launched in the wake of the "Al-Aqsa Flood" to conclude that its border with Lebanon had become an Israeli-Iranian border. The Netanyahu government considered that Yahya Sinwar had carried out something similar to what Hezbollah had threatened to do, namely storming the Galilee. Israel decided to drop what it considered an Israeli-Iranian border in southern Lebanon, perhaps betting that any direct Iranian involvement in the battle would lead to an Iranian-American confrontation that would justify placing Iranian nuclear facilities on the list of targets.

The Lebanese scenes are catastrophic. An entire country is under fire. The country is exposed and the party is exposed. The series of raids does not stop, and with it the series of assassinations. The war has revealed a huge imbalance in the balance of power. The Israeli military machine is employing its enormous technological advances in a merciless operation.

Just two weeks ago, it would have been impossible for any observer to imagine scenes like this. The impression was that Hezbollah was a compact force that was difficult to penetrate deeply, although breakthroughs were expected on its margins. No armed faction had ever been subjected to what Hezbollah was being subjected to. Hamas, surrounded in Gaza, had not been subjected to anything similar, despite the widespread destruction that had befallen it and the Strip.

Who can get Lebanon out of this hell? And what is the price? Can Hezbollah agree to remove the southern Lebanese front from the confrontation with Israel after all that has happened to it? What is its other option? And where does Iran stand? Did it have a chance to intervene on the day after the first of the ten terrible days? Is it unable or unwilling?

Many questions will be asked when the firestorm stops. How will Hezbollah read the earthquake that targeted it and its environment? What will be the relationship of its new leadership with Iran in the absence of Nasrallah, who was recognized as a partner or something close to it? What will be the party’s relations within the “Lebanese house,” especially if the ceasefire requires a serious implementation of Resolution 1701 and a serious role for the Lebanese army alongside UNIFIL there?

Many questions. How will the party rebuild itself and define its role in light of the balance of power and lessons? The features of the party after the storm will necessarily affect the features of Lebanon, the restoration of its institutions, the reassembly of the stones of its unity, and the drawing of its regional position. What about the unity of the arenas? What kind of Iran will we see after the storm subsides, and with what regional role in Lebanon and beyond? And what kind of Syria will we see if it succeeds in its attempt to stay out of the storm, benefiting from the Russian cushion and restoring some of its Arab relations?

*Quoted from Asharq Al-Awsat