Ana Maria Luca and Nadine Elali

“Syria and Iran support Hezbollah with weapons and money. The people here fear the Resistance’s fate if the Syrian regime falls,” Hassan, a 20-year-old engineering student, told NOW Lebanon. “The Syrian opposition said ‘no’ to Hezbollah, but Hezbollah is not responsible for the Syrian regime’s mistakes,” he added.

For the people in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh, if the Syrian regime falls, Hezbollah also falls. But they say they are not alarmed by the recent reports in the local and Western media about the Party of God being pressured into waging a war against Israel in order to divert international attention from the embattled regime in Damascus.

“There has been a little tension, due to the Israeli national drills last week, the planes flying over Lebanon. But I don’t think Hezbollah wants a war with Israel right now,” a local journalist told NOW Lebanon on the condition of anonymity. She said that with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon indictment issued and the revelation of CIA spies within the party, Hezbollah is not thinking of getting involved in a war against the Jewish State.

“The Syrians might want this to happen, but Iran doesn’t seem interested in a war with Israel right now. The Syrians might be pulling the strings on [Hezbollah’s] internal political moves in Lebanon, but when it comes to a decision of war with Israel, they can’t overpass the Iranians,” she said, pointing out that the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon recently visited Fatima Gate, the former border passage between Lebanon and Israel. “That was a clear message that without their consent, nothing can happen on this front.”

However, support for Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria is visible on the streets of southern Lebanese villages. Kafar Tibnit, a few kilometers from Nabatieh, has two pro-Assad monuments. “This is the old one,” said Ali, a 20-year-old business student. “The new one is what you want to see. They just inaugurated it on Sunday.”

The new monument further up the hill was erected in commemoration of former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad’s death in 2000 and is made up of a plaque telling visitors they’re on the new “Hafez al-Assad Avenue” in Kafar Tibnit; portraits of the late Syrian president and his son, Bashar; as well as a banner reading “The Baath Party will always rule Syria, and the Resistance, Palestine and Iraq will always support it.” According to the local press, Hezbollah MP Mohammad Raad, as well as former Baath Party MP Fayez Choukour and Amal MP Hani Kobeissy, were present at Sunday’s event.

But there are some signs that the uprising in Syria is shifting things for Hezbollah. French newspaper Le Figaro reported last week that Hezbollah was transferring the weapons it has stored in Syria over fears the Assad regime would fall. The Israeli army announced that it deployed an Iron Dome rocket interceptor near the major northern city of Haifa on Tuesday highlighting its possible use in any future hostilities with Lebanese guerillas.

Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, did not refer to any war in his latest speech. He only spoke about three CIA agents infiltrating Hezbollah’s ranks. “None of those accused is a high-ranking official or a religious figure, as some rumors said. None of them is part of my entourage. None of them has information that may harm the Resistance because they were not in positions that would help them obtain such information,” Nasrallah said in his speech.

But the local journalist in Nabatieh says that the presence of the CIA spies has made it very risky for the Resistance to engage in a war with Israel. “Their positions, their bases are at risk now. It will cost them a lot to cancel their plans, to move their weapons. Not just the ones from Syria, but also the ones within Lebanon. No matter what they say, some of these spies might have acquired sensitive information.”
 
However, people in town do talk about war, Ali said. “We fear that if Assad falls, the new regime is going to be against Hezbollah, maybe even against the Shia community. There are rumors that some Hezbollah fighters died in Syria and were brought to Lebanon at the beginning of June and buried in secret.”

His friend, Hassan, shook his head in disagreement and said that most Hezbollah supporters are confused, just like him. “To be frank, I think Lebanon is afraid of Syria no matter who is in charge in Damascus. People here see what happens in Syria as a conspiracy against the Resistance, and the Assad regime was smart enough to play on that and made Hezbollah its shield in Lebanon. Assad is playing his cards here,” he said. “But why would Hezbollah, who right now controls the Lebanese government, risk a war? It would make them fail politically.”