Michael J. Totten reported a conversation with Lebanon expert Tony Badran (who blogs as “Anton Efendi at Across the Bay) about the current situation in Lebanon. Totten brings up several points in his piece, but two are especially striking. The first is Badran’s estimation that Hezb Allah has basically taken away the gains that were made by the Shia community in Lebanon, at the very least on the material level. The second is that a new moderate and modern Shia leadership is needed.

The first point is troubling because Hezb Allah was able to rise because the Shia had become disaffected with their traditional leadership and had been unable to effectively protect themselves and advance their own interests in Lebanon. Historically, the Lebanese Shia (along with their co-religionists elsewhere in the Arab world) were at the absolute bottom of the Lebanese socio-economic ladder. The Shia didn’t enter Lebanese politics until the time of Sheikh Musa es-Sadr (the Iranian-born cleric of Tyre), or the early to mid-1960’s. Even though the Shias were the largest Muslim sect in Lebanon, they were economically depressed and their communal leadership backwards at best, and so the Shia were never able to gain the political or social clout as their Christian counterparts the Maronites, who were without a doubt the most influential sect in Lebanon’s colonial and immediate post-colonial history until recently. Hezb Allah gave the Shia what they never had: a strong and bold leadership, a large and well trained militia, a vast network of social services that the state was unable (or unwilling) to provide, and a well established and threatening patron. All of this was backed up by Hezb Allah’s founders and head hancos in Iran. With one of the region’s most powerful states standing behind them, Hezb Allah was able to build the ultimate “resistance” force against Israeli occupation and aggression from other Lebanese sects. The Iranians offered to be the vanguards of the oppressed peoples of the world. And the vanguard came in the shame of Hezb Allah. As Totten notes, “Hezb Allah was the Shia’s revenge”.

But what now? The suburbs south of Beirut, where the Shia underclass and the poorest of the Lebanese have lived for decades in squalor have been bombed hollow. South Lebanon, the point of origin for many, if not most, Lebanese Shia is being razed as I write this, its villages “evacuated” and its children maimed. The infrastructure that was the salvation of post-Civil War Lebanon is being ripped apart — “cut into pieces” to use the words of Fouad Siniora — by Israeli precision bombs. The biggest losers in this conflict will not be the Christians or Sunnis who have the personal and communal capital to rebuild their properties and communities. The Shia will end up suffering the most, especially if Hezb Allah is totally wiped out as the Israelis aim to do. The military wing of Hezb Allah will be disbanded or liquidated, and at best Hezb Allah will be left a political organization with an even smaller potential for militancy or mini-state building than any of the other post-militia Lebanese political parties. The teeth of the Shia will be taken away.

But Hezb Allah doesn’t much seem to care. The Party of God is, I believe, winning its fight against the Israelis. I doubt that the IDF will be able to root out Hezb Allah, and I do not see a moral or strategic victory for Israel at this present time. What I see is a very dangerous situation in which Hezb Allah has mastered the strategic end of the War of the Flea. They have forced Israel to do everything that makes the Jewish State the chosen enemy of millions Arabs and Muslims throughout the world, kill hundreds of Lebanese civilians in what seem to be wanton attacks on civilian targets without regard to who happens to be in the way. Israel????????s strategy is doing anything but crushing Hezb Allah; it????????s crushing Lebanon.

On top of that, Hezb Allah has also mastered the art of propaganda, and Iran has aided the party to this end. With such a huge investment in Lebanon, Iran is not about to let Hezb Allah fall by the way side of Arab public opinion. The militant group is key to the achievement of Iranian regional supremacy. Hassan Nasrallah is rock star in many parts of the Arab world. Arabs cheer him and his army on as they watch the IDF pound tiny Lebanese villages. Protests against Israeli attacks have taken place across the Muslim world. Hezb Allah and Iran are winning the propaganda war.

We must ask ourselves though, does this really mean anything positive for the Shias? The Shias face tremendous prejudice in Lebanon and the Muslim world as a whole, but it would seem that the Arab world is worshiping them in the personage of Nasrallah, as a Shia is today the first Arab in decade with the ability to hit Tel Aviv. The Lebanese Shia have taken on the role of a black American basketball player in the Middle East. While Sunni Arab masses adore Hezb Allah for their scoring capabilities, it is unlikely that many of these same Arabs would allow their daughters to marry a Hezb Allahi fighter, or would even allow him to pray in their mosque. Shias still live in the poorest areas of Lebanon and other Arab societies. The chanting crowds and fiery imams who have never seen a war play the role of Iago, cheering the Moor to his doom. As the public face of the Shias, which has sadly become the yellow flag of Hezb Allah, gains more and more adoration from the “Arab Street”, day by day the quality of life for the average Shia declines. No Shia-Sunni divide is being bridged by this war, Shias are just being used for cannon fodder by angry masses and the Iranian regime.

Desperation forces extremism on communities, encouraging group-think and radicalism. This is part of why Hezb Allah exists. It feeds off of the desperation of its constituents. The Lebanese will need to adjust to bring the Shias into wider society so that Badran’s other point, that a totally new and modern Shia leadership is needed, can occur. The Lebanese can no longer keep the Shia’s depravity a secret, they cannot keep the bigotry of sectarianism and hope to build a stable, modern and prosperous state. Totten quotes Badran as having stated in an email that (all spelling is original)

“The development of moderate Shiite alternatives is necessary(there was a recent meeting of Shiite intellectuals, writers, and independents and they are starting to realize all of this and they called for the full integration of the Shiites into the state), and that Jumblat is fully aware of the dangers of the Shiites feeling disempowered again, which is why he is reaching out to them now, and stressing how they are “partners” and stressing how Berri (who now is the moderate alternative in comparison) is “a pillar of the Taef accords” (i.e. an integral part of the current republic), etc. Ghassan Tueni is calling for the same thing, even going to do away with the sectarian system, etc. So there is awareness on the part of the leadership of the dangers of the Shiites suffering the kind of disillusionment that the Christians did in the 90s under the Syrians.”

The Shias themselves can only do 50% of the work to modernize their communal leadership. They must disavow Iran. They must put down their arms. The other half must be done by the other Lebanese. The crisis in the Middle East is due in no small part to the petty sectarian bigotry of the Lebanese themselves. Many blame the Lebanese for not forcibly disarming Hezb Allah. This position is irrational and shows a lack of knowledge about the nature of the Lebanese military. If one wishes to find the fault of Lebanon in this conflict, it is not that its people elected Hezb Allahis to parliament, nor that its state apparatus for being unequipped to disarm the strongest Arab fighting force in recent memory, but rather it is the utter unwillingness of much of Lebanese political classes and population to throw aside their uncouth and bigoted opinions of one another for the sake of their country. All too often the Lebanese forget that even the Shia too are Lebanese and that without the largest component of their nation, they cannot have democracy, development or civilization. Reality hurts and is often denied by those who wish to maintain an unfair and unjust status quo. If anyone wants to change the situation for the better, they must up to reality, set aside their own hatred and treat the Shia like human beings before they expect them to lay down their arms. When the Israelis are gone they, and the Lebanese, will have to make it possible for the Shias to recognize that their future is with Lebanon in toto, not with Iran, not with Syria and not in perpetual conflict. They must establish trust, and if they do not, there will be little hope of avoiding another war just like this one in the future.