A Political and Military Activities of the Lebanese Hezbollah in 2011-2022 and their Results (Part 1)

Abstract

In the focus of this article is the period of the history of the Lebanese Shia radical paramilitary pro-Iranian organization Hezbollah (“the Party of Allah”), during 2011-2022. It is a the interval of the time between the realization by this organization in the government of its dominant position in the Lebanese parliament and the loss of the parliamentary majority by it. During 2005-2011, Hezbollah overcame the path from actual entry into the Lebanese power structures as the opposition to comprehensive political dominance in the country of cedars. To this end, Hezbollah took a number of steps: the creation and the leadership of a broad multi-party and multi-confessional political bloc – the March 8 Coalition, a successful proving the feasibility of further preserving the paramilitary wing of the organization, the changing its external image and a qualitative expanding the social base, the realizing the possibility of the using the right of veto in the event of a threat making government decisions harmful to her.

During the “peak” of domestic political power, Hezbollah eventually took the control of the Lebanon’s legislative and executive branches, and subjugated the leader of the powerful Sunni opposition, S. al-Hariri. At the same time, in the foreign policy arena, the “Party of Allah” acquired the status of a universally recognized regional actor and turned from a client of Iran into its junior partner. However, despite the above-mentioned advantages of Hezbollah, the political bloc led by it was defeated in the parliamentary elections of 2022. The reasons for Hezbollah’s loss of absolute monopoly on power include the following: the refusal to develop and implement the economic and political transformations, that are vital for Lebanon, the inability to simultaneously take into account the interests of the important domestic political allies, the lack of the benefit for the country of cedars from Hezbollah’s foreign policy successes. Although the “Party of Allah” has largely retained a number of levers of the influence on the politics of the country of cedars, from now on its leadership must reckon with the internal political trends of a Lebanese society.