Michael Young
For months, detractors of Lebanon’s government and army have accused both, perhaps unfairly, of pussyfooting on Hezbollah’s disarmament. It’s now apparent that the party had many more weapons and resources than initially believed, and its combatants continued to receive salary payments from Iran. In other words, had the armed forces tried to forcibly seize the party’s arsenal, it would have faced major resistance, made insurmountable had the Shiite community rallied to Hezbollah’s side, which would certainly have been the case.
As Israel advances toward the Litani River, it’s only a matter of time before Hezbollah will be forced to regroup in the area between the Litani and the Awwali River at the entrance of Sidon. The Lebanese army, which understandably has sought to avoid armed clashes with Hezbollah in the past, will have no excuse if it fails to act in a proactive way to secure this area first. The armed forces’ commander, Rudolph Haykal, who to his credit is someone risk averse, should not let this quality mutate into fatal passivity. There is much the army can do, while avoiding a head-on battle with Hezbollah.
Some Arab diplomats believe the war in Lebanon will go on for another two months, lasting a month longer than the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran. They also argue that within this timeframe, Hezbollah will gradually run down its supplies of weapons, which the party cannot adequately replace because its resupply line through Syria has been significantly reduced. If that assessment is correct, we can see that Hezbollah’s primary purpose in this war is to buy Iran time to secure a satisfactory outcome for itself.
It’s no secret that Haykal and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam did not see eye to eye when the government took the decision almost a month ago to declare Hezbollah’s military and security activities illegal. The army commander allegedly told the president that he did not have the means to implement the decision because, among other things, his units were underpaid and the state could not financially support the families of dead servicemen. A blunter reason is that the army cannot militarily defeat Hezbollah, and if it tried to do so, it would cause tremendous damage to itself.
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