BEIRUT (AP) — A badly hampered Hezbollah was in no position to help defend former Syrian President Bashar Assad, a longtime ally, from the meteoric uprising that toppled him. Now that Assad is gone, the militant group in Lebanon is even weaker.
Hezbollah suffered a severe blow during the fourteen-month war with Israel. The overthrow of Assad, who had strong ties to Iran, has now crippled his ability to recover by cutting off a crucial arms smuggling route through Syria.
Hezbollah officials are deeply concerned, but defiant.
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“What is happening in Syria is a big, dangerous and new change, and to know why this happened needs to be evaluated,” said Hassan Fadlallah, a Lebanese lawmaker representing Hezbollah's political wing, during a speech at a funeral for Israel killed militants. “Whatever happens in Syria, despite its dangers, will not weaken us.”
Analysts say Hezbollah's demise will have major consequences for Lebanon, where the country has been a major political player for decades — and for Iran, which has relied on the group as one of several proxy forces holding sway over the Middle East. Projecting East. It's also a game-changer for Israel, whose arch-enemy on its northern border is now at its most vulnerable point in decades.
Ties with Syria have influenced the rise and fall of Hezbollah's power
The Assad dynasty, which ruled Syria with an iron fist for half a century, played a crucial role in strengthening Hezbollah, which was founded in the early 1980s by Iranian advisers passing through Syria. Syria was not only a conduit for Iranian weapons, but also a place where Hezbollah trained fighters and manufactured its own weapons.
As Hezbollah grew more powerful, it became a force that Assad could rely on for protection in times of crisis. Hezbollah sent thousands of fighters to reinforce Assad's forces when a civil war broke out in 2011.
When insurgents crossed Syria in early December and captured the city of Homs — a stone's throw from a Syrian border town where Hezbollah had a presence — many expected the militants to put up a fierce fight. After all, that's exactly what they did in 2013, stopping Assad's opponents from entering Damascus.
This time Hezbollah was in disarray. Many of the top officials, including former leader Hassan Nasrallah, were killed in Israeli airstrikes. And months of Israeli bombing destroyed much of the military infrastructure. With Syria's key international allies, Russia and Iran, on the sidelines, Hezbollah withdrew and Assad was quickly ousted.
“The fall of the regime marks the end of Iranian weapons in Syria and Lebanon,” said Lt. Col. Fares al-Bayoush, a defector from the Syrian army who fought in the civil war against Assad and Hezbollah forces until 2017, when he moved to Syria. Turkey.
Lebanon is beginning to struggle with the 'new reality' of Hezbollah
In Lebanon, undermining Hezbollah's strength has given the army an opportunity to reassert the control it had ceded, especially along the southern border. A US-brokered ceasefire between the militant group and Israel stipulates that Hezbollah should not have an armed presence along that border, and has led to growing calls in Lebanon for the group's disarmament.
“For Hezbollah, the game is over,” Samir Geagea, leader of the Christian Lebanese Forces Party, said in a statement on Sunday, hours after the rebels captured Damascus. “Join the Lebanese Army to end your status as an armed group and transform yourself into a political party.”
But Hezbollah's long-standing power in the political arena in Lebanon also faces a major challenge.
Many in Lebanon are angry with the group. Critics say Hezbollah violated its promise to use its weapons only to defend Lebanon when it began firing rockets into Israel last year, the day after Hamas – another Iranian-backed group – attacked Israel.
Nearly 4,000 people have been killed in Lebanon during the war with Israel, according to the country's health ministry. Entire towns and villages where Hezbollah militants and their supporters lived have been razed to the ground. More than 1 million people have been displaced and the country's economy – which was in poor shape before the war – is in a deep hole.
“With the (Syrian) regime gone, Hezbollah in Lebanon is facing a whole new reality,” said Firas Maksad of the Middle East Institute.
Maksad said many Lebanese leaders have not yet understood the magnitude of the change that has taken place. Even some former Hezbollah allies in parliament have begun to distance themselves from the group.
Gebran Bassil, a lawmaker representing the Free Patriotic Movement, Lebanon's other major Christian party, said Hezbollah's loss of an arms pipeline from Iran could help Lebanon extricate itself from the regional conflict.
“Hezbollah should focus on internal affairs and not on the wider region,” said Bassil, a former ally of Hezbollah.
The country may have no choice but to limit its ambitions. With the fall of Assad, Iran has lost control of a land corridor stretching through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean Sea, giving the country an unhindered route to supply Hezbollah.
“They may be able to fly in some things and smuggle some things, but it won't be on the same scale, not even close,” said Aron Lund, a Syria expert at Century International, a New York-based think tank.
For Israel, breaking Iran's regional network has been a key goal, although the country is wary of Islamist militants among the insurgents who toppled Assad. Israel on Sunday moved troops to a demilitarized buffer zone with Syria near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, in what it called a temporary security measure.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the fall of Assad a “historic day” and said it was “the direct result of our strong action against Hezbollah and Iran, Assad's main supporters.”
