US Deputy Envoy to the Middle East Morgan Ortagus, recently visited Lebanon. During an interview with the LBCI news outlet, Ortagus stressed the importance of disarming Hezbollah. This statement from a senior US diplomat has sparked a new debate about the disarmament of Hezbollah, which has been demanded for a long time. In January this year, the Lebanese parliament elected a new president, former army chief Joseph Aoun. New President in his inaugural speech, clearly said that he wanted the state to have the monopoly of force. He wanted the state to be the one with the weapons. It should be remembered that Hezbollah was the only Lebanese armed group that refused to surrender its weapons following a 1975-1990 civil war, arguing that its arms were necessary to fight against occupying Israeli troops in south Lebanon.
The international community, through the UN Security Council, has demanded multiple times that Hezbollah should disarm. Instead, Hezbollah has continually ignored these demands. They ignored UN Resolution 1701, which called for a zone free of armed personnel besides the army of Lebanon. They ignored UN Resolution 1559 and the Lebanese Taif Agreement, which ended the Lebanese Civil War and called for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias. Hezbollah in the past has clearly shown it has no intention of ever laying down its arms.
But now the time has changed, with the group weakened militarily and economically, critics see this as a unique opportunity to disarm it. More than a year of fighting with Israel has left the Iran-backed Shia group, once renowned as the world’s strongest non-state actor, reeling. The group’s near-total dominance of the Lebanese state for the past two decades has been weakened by the losses it has suffered in the past year of war. Most of Hezbollah’s senior leadership was killed in the fighting, along with thousands of its fighters, and many of its weapon caches were destroyed. Hezbollah has also lost control of key assets such as the Beirut airport and smuggling routes along the Syrian border, both historically key for its cash flow. They no longer have a territorial link between Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, which was crucial for getting arms supplies from Iran. This also hinders their logistics about obtaining weapons, which were stored in Syrian underground tunnels. Moreover, the main backer of Hezbollah, the Iranians, are themselves under immense pressure from the United States right now, and they are not in a position to provide any major assistance to Hezbollah.
As a condition of the ceasefire with Israel, which was agreed in November last year. Hezbollah has withdrawn its weaponry from its historical heartland south of the Litani River, about 18 miles from the Israeli border. The Lebanese army has been active in enforcing the terms of the ceasefire deal. It has been dismantling military assets belonging to the group in south Lebanon and conducting raids in the southern suburbs of Beirut, something unthinkable just six months earlier.
Hezbollah is assessing the ground realities, that’s why the group is in “wait and see mode”, as it recovers from the war and adjusts to a new political reality in Lebanon and the wider region. Many analysts believe that at present, Hezbollah is internally split into two factions. One faction acknowledges the group’s defeat by Israel and is willing to turn their weapons over and integrate into Lebanon as a political party. On the other hand, another faction believes Hezbollah’s sole legitimacy lies in fighting Israel, and that if they stop doing so, they have no right to exist as a movement. But this group, which has been running a state within a state for decades, must realise that it can no longer unilaterally drag Lebanon into foreign conflicts and can’t blackmail the Lebanese state through its large arsenal. But any effort to disarm Hezbollah forcefully can prompt a new conflict in Lebanon. To avoid this kind of situation, the Lebanese top leadership must convince Hezbollah to give up arms and solely be a political force. Any negotiations about Hezbollah’s disarmament are likely to be difficult and long. The central objective should be convincing Hezbollah that disarmament need not amount to the party’s complete demise. One of the options that can be put forward for Hezbollah’s consideration is that its arsenal, believed to still include long-range missiles, be put under the control of the state, while its fighters, estimated to be several thousand, could be integrated into the Lebanese army. Alternatively, a new defense strategy can also be negotiated under which Hezbollah fighters would join a paramilitary force within the Lebanese Army.
Hezbollah will remain an important player in Lebanese politics, but not a hegemon. The old order marked by Iranian influence and Shia ascendancy has crumbled. Lebanon now stands at a crossroads: the chance to reclaim sovereignty and pluralistic politics or the risk of another descent into fragmentation and chaos. Lebanon can sink further into chaos or use Hezbollah’s defeat as a catalyst for change. Hezbollah’s disarmament can also open doors for long-overdue political and economic reforms in Lebanon.
