Hezbollah's sectarian discourse: The double standard


On April 17, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah castigated Saudi Arabia for its Decisive Storm military operation against the Houthis in Yemen. That operation was portrayed by Nasrallah as aggression and external interference in Yemen's affairs. While noteworthy, the speech took the confessional parlance when Nasrallah drastically talked about the doctrine of Wahhabism, which he pointed to as a cause of the violence and backwardness that is scattered over the region. It is as if he prescribes the locus of fatigue and the doctrine of Wilayat al Faqih is a universal charter for peace.

Although Hezbollah has been engaged in the Lebanese political system and its ensuing parliaments since 1992, Hezbollah did not nationalize itself and is still hooked into the Iranian agenda according to the Wilayat al Faqih dogma, which the party adopted in the 1980s. Trying to reassure rival parties in Lebanon, Hezbollah released an adjusted charter in 2009 in which it illustrated a new ideology and vision. The party here seemed like an authentic Lebanese party as though its close relationship with Iran and Syria would endure less coherence. Nonetheless, that charter is not worth the paper it is printed on. Reality has revealed that Hezbollah has a commitment to fulfill the sectarian Iranian project in the region more than the national Lebanese project, and it did not take into consideration the uniqueness of Lebanon's status.

The Arab Spring revolutions and its militarization in Syria have been a nudge to show that Hezbollah is a part of the regional project exceeding its national borders. Hezbollah's fighting front transferred to Syria alongside the Bashar Assad regime, the revolutionary guard and the Iraqi Shiite militias. All the past reassuring promises to the Lebanese parties that Hezbollah's weapons would not be used against any entity except Israel vanished, and Lebanon is now paying the price of Hezbollah's interference in Syria. The ongoing clashes on the eastern borders with al-Nusra Front, the internal clashes with the Ahmed al-Assir movement and the crises of army hostages, all of these threats are a sign of the likelihood of the resurgence of sectarian tensions. Nasrallah did not realize that their engagement in Syria would affect Lebanon so drastically. After Hezbollah's interference in Syria and its blatant repercussions, Nasrallah's critiques about the external interferences in other countries do not make sense.

Yemen is another prominent manifestation of Hezbollah's sectarian aligning and the irrationality lining the party's speech. According to this sectarian rule, Hezbollah will be who monopolizes the right to distribute the certifications upon who deserves them. In this way, we can understand why Nasrallah deems that the Iranian-axis's interference in Syria, Iraq and Yemen has been acceptable and justifiable, and that is not in the Saudi's case in Yemen. In the case of Iranian interference, it provides protection for the resistance project against American hegemony and they have a moral duty to justify this interference or expansion. Under this pretext, we hear the oft-repeated pledge to export the "Islamic revolution" to other countries to be commanded by Iran's supreme leader. Of course, the dissemination of revolution is the key mission for the revolutionary guard, and that means violence and using power is an essential element for the followers of the Wilayat al Faqih doctrine. So, it is a flagrant discrepancy when Nasrallah ascribes violence to an assigned doctrine while he adopts a gross expansionist doctrine at the same time.

Hezbollah's skeptical vision surrounding everyone does not support the Iranian project in the region or those who refuse and stand against this project. The divisive culture of "us versus them" will be entrenched amid the sectarian discourse, and the values will be changed to profiteering values where the allegation of one party possessing the absolute right and the others are wrongdoers regardless of their impetus and justification. Here in this kind of discourse the veracity of judgment depends on who performs the action, not on the action itself. The violence, interference and bloodshed are unacceptable; however, according to the two-tiered approach for Hezbollah, these deeds would be justified if the Iranian axis is the performer and denounced if the performers are the others. That is what is already being seen and what we have heard in Nasrallah's last speech. Continuously, the self-contradiction will remain the eminent attribute of the sectarian discourse.