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Mark Perry:

My purpose here today is not to argue that Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization or that it does not pose a threat to Israel -- I have no intention of attempting to convince people of something to which they find abhorrent or cannot accept. Instead, I want to describe the organization as I have found it through almost three years of discussions and dinners. The current crisis in the Middle East demands, I believe, a clear-eyed view of Hezbollah shorn of slogans and easy labels -- and one that differentiates it from other quite dissimilar, albeit Islamist, organizations.

As a co-Director of Conflicts Forum, I was one of the organizers of two meetings between Hezbollah officials and former American policymakers. Those meetings took place in March and July of 2005. The discussions were detailed and sometimes even uncomfortable, reviewing -- as they did -- the long and often painful relationship between the US and Hezbollah. Additionally, the founder of Conflicts Forum -- Alastair Crooke -- and I had many other meetings with Hezbollah leaders, dating from March of 2005 until just four weeks ago. Those meetings have given us an insight into the workings of Hezbollah, and its history, that I think are unique, perhaps even illuminating.

Stated simply, Hezbollah is the Shia Party of God -- an organization that represents Lebanon’s Shia community. The Shia comprise 40 percent of Lebanon’s population, outnumbering both Sunnis and Christians. Recent figures place Hezbollah’s official strength at somewhere near 100,000 members. The numbers belie Hezbollah’s real strength -- which is quite extensive inside of Lebanon, including among a large portion of the Christian community, which has historically been one of its antagonists.

Hezbollah has a budget of $100 million, a vast portion of which, but not all of which, is paid to them by Iran, their closest strategic ally. There is good reason for this alliance: Hezbollah was the successor organization to the “Islamic Resistance,” which operated in Lebanon during the Civil War. Hezbollah officials say that their organization emerged from this group in the summer of 1982, but was not fully operational until 1985. The initial Hezbollah cadre -- members of the “Islamic Resistance” -- were trained by a 1500 member contingent of Iran's Revolutionary Guard in the Bekaa Valley beginning in the summer of 1982. Hezbollah still regards Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as its ultimate leader and pictures of him can be seen throughout south Beirut, prominently displayed next to picture of Ayatollah Khomeini as well as Hezbollah General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah.

Hezbollah operates an extensive network of social programs -- some of which I have visited: elementary and secondary schools, orphanages, medical clinics, hospitals, family counseling centers, job training programs, technical colleagues, labor support groups, and business counsels. I worked in a community organization on the near North side of Chicago in the early 1970s and the social network of South Beirut is uncannily reminiscent of the types of community organizations that I visited there -- many of them organized by my old teacher, Saul Alinsky. It would not be too far-fetched to compare Hezbollah’s social services and political organizations to those operated by Mayor Richard Daley’s Democratic Party -- Chicago’s machine. Hezbollah’s “reach” into its community is extensive: with party officials looking after the equivalent of precinct captains and ward bosses on the neighborhood level. The purpose of such an organization is not to impose control, but to cultivate loyalty -- which it has done quite successfully. Is there a family in need? Hezbollah knows of the family and will provide relief. Is there a young man causing trouble -- he can be disciplined and brought into the community. Is there a father without a job? Hezbollah will provide one.

One of our taxi drivers extolled Hezbollah in a journey we made during our last visit to their headquarters. His brother had died fighting Israel in the late 1980s. “My family has been taken care of for life,” he said. “We are a family of a martyr. My father receives full health benefits, my mother is a part of a women’s group and my education has been free. Each month we receive a check and a note from Hezbollah celebrating the sacrifice of my brother. The Lebanese government could never provide such things.”

Hezbollah, as we all know, operates a militia. We were never exposed to this militia, never saw them train, and never met their commanders. But our discussions with Hezbollah leaders convinced us that the Hezbollah militia is extremely well trained, extremely well-disciplined and is organized much like a modern army -- with pay grade advancements predicated on merit and seniority. Prior to the current crisis, I was telling reporters in Washington and at the major networks that it was our opinion that Hezbollah maintained perhaps the fourth or fifth strongest military organization in the region. Which is why I have scoffed at US and Israeli statements calling on the Lebanese Army to take control of the Shia south and disarm Hezbollah -- they simply could not do so. It is my opinion, again based on a simple but I believe correct hunch, that Hezbollah could defeat the Syrian Army in the field. The prowess of Hezbollah as a fighting force is now being understood. There is simply no guarantee -- and I think it highly unlikely -- that the current Israeli offensive will successfully defeat Hezbollah or even push them back from the border. Which may explain why Israel is now considering other alternatives to continuing this fight. Again, I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

There is no question that Hezbollah receives its weapons from Iran -- light and heavy arms, heavy military vehicles, anti-tank rockets, short and intermediate range missiles, and anti-tank and anti-personnel mines. There is no question that Hezbollah’s leaders view Israel as an intransigent enemy that needs to be defeated. There is no question, either, that Hezbollah has supported and even endorsed Hamas suicide bombings in the past. Even so, and despite this endorsement, there is no evidence that Hezbollah has been responsible for any of the suicide bombings in Israel and such evidence as there is has been firmly discounted by both American and European intelligence services -- though bruted about by Fatah leaders who wish to conflate Hamas with their Shia cousins.

Hezbollah’s leaders have proudly endorsed democratic principles -- and during our discussions with them have capably reviewed, sometimes tediously, the district-by-district campaign that they waged to win nineteen seats in the Lebanese parliament. At times in the past, Hezbollah has, for political reasons, aligned itself with Sunni and Christian parties (even including the Phalange), when it has suited their partisan electoral purposes. Their parliamentary leaders are quite intent on the passage of banking reform laws that would reshape Lebanon’s economic future -- a political program that they have spent months negotiating with their sectarian adversaries. Additionally, we would be blind to not see the changes the organization has undergone from its earliest days: women have become more prominent members of the leadership, and it would be odd indeed to see anyone veiled in South Beirut. In truth, I was sometimes shocked to see young Shia women in the latest fashions -- including very tight jeans.

That said, most but not all young women continue to wear scarves and there are clearly pockets of strong traditional social conservatism among the Shia community. It is still not an accepted practice to shake hands with a woman, and it is considered an oddity to do so. Still, Hezbollah has never banned any books, any television stations, any radio reports, any movies and has not imposed Sharia law. It says it will not: “As Allah gave us the choice to believe, so too he has given us the choice on how to live, and he has given us the choice on who to vote for. This is our belief. It is in the Koran,” Hezbollah Foreign Minister Nawaf Mussawi told us.

Hezbollah is, then, a hybrid organization -- one part social service network, one part political party, one part militia.

With that as background, I think what I would like to do for the rest of this talk is to answer some specific claims made about Hezbollah, common claims that tend to obscure what I would call the “real” Hezbollah. There are five of them:

1. Hezbollah is a global terrorist organization

Hezbollah has not attacked the United States since 1996, when it is said to have been behind the bombing of the Khobar Towers -- a claim that is still very much in doubt. The Saudis have made the claim, pointing to their intelligence that a Saudi Shia group conducted the bombing. Hezbollah scoffs at the report and without much further evidence, which the Saudis have been loath to produce, so should we. Hezbollah was undoubtedly responsible for the bombings of two synagogues in South America and it must answer for those bombings, but it diligently and consistently refused to target civilians during its eighteen-year war with Israel for control of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah seems unmotivated by anti-Semitism, despite its repeated use of the word “Zionist” -- a loaded phrase in their mouths. But we have heard it said, again and again by Hezbollah leaders that their argument is not with Jews, but with Israel. Are they lying? Perhaps.

Hezbollah members in Iraq -- there are some -- have very diligently refrained from attacking any Americans in that country or affiliating themselves with any Iraqi resistance movement. Hezbollah’s leaders repeat, stridently, that they do not wish to make America an enemy and they do not consider America an enemy. They have repeatedly stated that they would welcome an exchange with American officials -- as they believe such exchanges would be useful for resolving past issues and preventing future clashes.

2. Hezbollah is affiliated with al-Qaeda

Hassan Nasrallah hates Osama bin Laden. Hezbollah condemned the 9/11 attacks, a condemnation which it repeats. Of course, Hezbollah leaders could be lying, but the posting of al-Qaeda related internet sites marking Hezbollah leaders for assassination because of their moderation, and their agreement to participate in democratic elections (a decision al-Qaeda views as a bow to the colonialist-Zionist enterprise) marks significant differences between the organizations. Hezbollah is proud of what it calls its “legitimacy” -- the fact that it has a constituency that it must care for. Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah leaders argue, is not a military force and certainly not a political party. Hezbollah is.

3. Hezbollah is a tool of Iran/and is a tool of Syria

Iran continues to supply arms to Hezbollah, but it is a mistake to believe that everything that Hezbollah does is approved beforehand by the mullahs in Tehran. The relationship is friendly, but Hezbollah dictates its own policies. The relationship is consultative. It is easy to suppose from this distance that the US and its allies are facing a united intransigent enemy, of one mind and one goal, all dictated by a council in Tehran headed by a holocaust denier. It is just not that simple. Yes, it is true -- Hezbollah military paraders carry banners of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, but Hezbollah’s leadership has shown considerable suppleness in handling its own policies. Additionally, I would note: in the recent past Iran’s foreign minister has repeatedly urged Hezbollah to carefully refrain from any provocation of Israel that would lead to an Israeli invasion -- an imprecation that, it would seem, has been either purposely or, as I would argue, inadvertently been abrogated. There is no evidence whatsoever that Iran ordered the recent kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers -- and my bet is none will emerge. Indeed, an Israeli military officer told me yesterday that the IDF would conduct an investigation of the abductions in order to determine who was responsible for sending a squad of Israeli soldiers, uncovered and unarmed, so close to the Lebanese border. My hunch, frankly, is that the abduction even took Sayad Nasrallah by surprise, his protests notwithstanding. This was an opportunistic abduction -- which has been tried before, and failed. This time, unfortunately, it succeeded.

4. Hezbollah is in league with Hamas in its opposition to Israel

This is a myth -- a myth that I have seen with my own eyes. There is now and there has been tension between the two organizations. Conflicts Forum brought the two organizations together for an informal meeting with some of our Board of Advisors in March of 2005, but thought better of it thereafter. There was a palpable tension in the room and, in one instance, a well-known Hezbollah communications figure derided Conflicts Forum for “affiliating yourselves with these people.” Hamas and Hezbollah leaders politely consult with each other from time to time but from our own experience, it would be odd indeed to assume that they coordinate their activities. Evidence may emerge that Hezbollah conducted its recent operation as a show of solidarity with Hamas and coordinated the attack with them, but don't bet on it. Hamas leaders were, without any doubt, taken by surprise by the Hezbollah abduction and, in my view, a careful reading of their statements at the time shows they did not welcome it. The view that Hezbollah taught Hamas activists the art of suicide bombing is now widely accepted -- to the point where it must even be conceded. But, I would note, Hezbollah leaders have a certain intangible distaste for Hamas' tactics (there has not been a suicide attack conducted by Hamas since August of 2004) and has been quite intent to distance themselves from them. There is even a slight, but perceptible older-younger brother attitude between the two organizations, with all that implies. The last Hezbollah suicide operation was in 1995 -- and it targeted an Israeli tank. There is no evidence there has been any since.

5. Hezbollah seeks the destruction of the State of Israel

So Hezbollah has stated and continues to state. In our conversations with Hezbollah this aspiration has been stated automatically, but with a kind of shrugging realism. In fact, Hezbollah leaders have said that they would accept any resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would be approved by the Palestinians. “This is the one issue that needs to be resolved,” we were told, “but it is not ours to resolve.” Hezbollah's realistic approach to the Israeli issue, as they call it, can be gleaned from their arguments in opposition to their disarmament: “Someday,” we were told by a very senior official, “someday, we may have to sit with our enemies and talk to them. We might even have to negotiate with them, sit across the table from them and even perhaps smile at them. This is why we have our arms -- because we want them to know, at that moment, that if they get up from the table and walk away there will be a price to pay.”

Hezbollah is many things -- certainly militant, often intransigent, certainly inflammatory; their leaders speeches are quite a spectacle. It is not how we would do business. But they are not stupid. They know that Israel is in the region to stay and so are they. We should make the same calculation.

For the last two years, and more, Conflicts Forum has been arguing that the United States and its allies should talk with the leaders of Hezbollah. We have made our arguments publicly. Now, we are told, our arguments have proven vain -- we have been shown by certain evidence that Hezbollah is not moderate, is not amenable to change and cannot be reasoned with. On the contrary. The United States and its allies are now paying the price for their non-engagement. Hezbollah will not be destroyed, it will not be defeated, and it will not be disarmed. If anything, the current Israeli attempt to do so is the result of one of the most massive intelligence failures in our, and Israel's, history. The result of our non-engagement in this instance outstrips the massive intelligence failures that we have suffered over the last six years -- in assuming that Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction, in assuming that Hamas would never win the Palestinian elections. But this intelligence failure -- one that could have been set aright if American officials had simply decided to have a cup of coffee in Beirut (not a negotiation, a discussion) -- could have more serious consequences. The current crisis could set the region alight. And so it is, today, that I hold that the greatest threat to the survival of Israel, and it is a real threat, comes not from Hezbollah, but from our ignorance.

Frederic Hof:

Let me begin by sharing with you my understanding of what Hezbollah is, because it means different things to different people.

To most of its Lebanese supporters and for most of its members Hezbollah has a purely Lebanese dimension that is of great importance. It is by far the leading political party within Lebanon’s largest sectarian group. It runs a social services network with which the Government of Lebanon chooses not to compete. In a country where sectarian violence is a sad feature of its modern history, Hezbollah's arms have provided Lebanon's Shiites an insurance policy of sorts. In a southern Lebanese community which experienced Israeli occupation and which had substantial fears of an ongoing threat from Israel, Hezbollah seemed to provide a muscular deterrent which the Government of Lebanon could not. While I do not know how many Lebanese Shiites were or are fully invested in Hezbollah’s Shebaa Farms resistance pantomime, I suspect that many saw and perhaps still see it as a box to be checked to validate Hezbollah as a resistance organization as opposed to a mere militia; a validation required to remain armed, something enjoying broad support among Lebanese Shiites for reasons having nothing to do with the Shebaa Farms.

Over the years I’ve become convinced that, for Hassan Nasrallah and his closest colleagues, there is a purpose for Hezbollah’s arms that transcends Lebanon. It is to provide a deterrent – a deterrent that perhaps has been shown in recent days to be useless – for the Islamic Republic of Iran in the events of threats to Iran from Israel and the US. The idea was that Israel and the US would have to consider rockets raining down on northern Israel if either or both made a move against Iran. My point, however, is not that Hassan Nasrallah is an Iranian stooge, spy, agent or employee. He is none of those things. Rather he is a trusted and esteemed colleague of the clerical leadership in Iran. Whether most of his organization’s members know it or not and whether most Lebanese Shiites know it or not, he and his inner circle do what they do first and foremost to defend and project the existence and power of the Islamic Republic of Iran. I think this is an important consideration for diplomats of any country that would consider engaging Nasrallah and his inner circle. While I would not necessarily oppose engagement, I think I would keep in mind that the diplomatic center of gravity is located in Tehran, not in some bunker in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Hezbollah also means something to me personally, and in the interests of fairness and full disclosure I think I should be perfectly open about it, and here I refer to the leadership – not to the thousands of decent Lebanese who have looked to this organization for social services and physical protection.

In the late 1980s when I was serving as an army officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, a friend of mine – Colonel Rich Higgins – was kidnapped by Hezbollah while he was serving as a UN military observer in Lebanon. I was part of a small team in the Pentagon that tried very hard, through many channels, to secure Rich’s release. As it turned out, he had been tortured and killed months before our efforts to free him finally ended. I am one of a small handful of Americans who knows the exact manner of Rich’s death. If I were to describe it to you now – which I will not – I can guarantee that a significant number of people in this room would become physically ill. When my former business partner Rich Armitage described Hezbollah a few years ago as the “A-Team” of international terrorism and suggested that there was a “blood debt” to be paid, he was referring to a leadership cadre that is steeped in blood and brutality. If Nasrallah and his closest associates come to a violent end in the current crisis you will not find me among the mourners.

But let me make a few comments on this current crisis and then I’ll stop talking.

It was an open secret for many months that Hezbollah would try to kidnap Israeli soldiers to trade for prisoners held in Israel. Still, the venue for the actual operation on July 12th was surprising in that it occurred along a part of the blue line where Lebanon has no territorial claim against Israel; where Hezbollah’s “resistance” status would seem not to apply. In other words, it didn’t happen in or anywhere near the so-called Shebaa Farms.

Along with many others I saw a political-demographic aspect to the creation of the Shebaa Farms claim in mid-2000. Until it became clear that the IDF was actually leaving Lebanon, Hezbollah’s insurance policy against a unilateral Israeli withdrawal was its claim to seven former Palestinian villages, which, until 1948, had been inhabited largely by Shiites, who became refugees in Lebanon. In 1999 Hezbollah and Syria obliged the Government of Lebanon to lay claim to the seven villages, which had wound up inside Palestine when Britain and France finalized the 1923 boundary. The problem, however, was that the land on which these villages had stood adjoined parts of Lebanon to which Hezbollah’s constituency would return upon Israel’s withdrawal. Any attempt to “liberate” the seven villages would bring Israeli reprisals down on the heads of Hezbollah’s constituents. Consequently, “seven villages” was dropped in mid-2000 and “Shebaa Farms” – conveniently located next to a non-Shiite sector of southern Lebanon – was invented to serve as Hezbollah’s resistance playground.

Why then did Hezbollah choose a spot well removed from Shebaa Farms and within close range of its constituents to execute this operation? I suspect two key miscalculations came into play: the IDF exercised more care in the Shebaa Farms sector because it had every reason to believe that a Hezbollah operation would occur there; and Hezbollah – seeing that the Shebaa front was distinctly unpromising – noticed vulnerability elsewhere and calculated that Israel’s response would stop well-short of emptying southern Lebanon and wrecking Lebanon’s physical infrastructure.

Why did Hezbollah do it? The desire to grab prisoners was a standing order. I think, however, that ongoing Israeli operations in Gaza gave Hezbollah’s leadership an opportunity to try to transcend a sectarian identification; to break out of the “Shiite box.” I also think there were two other contributing factors rarely noted in the press. Back in late May the IDF seized on some Hezbollah provocation to clear out the organization’s border posts, an operation about which the IDF crowed. Also, there have been occasions over the past few months when Hassan Nasrallah has demonstrated public anger when the main rationale for his arms – the Shebaa Farms – has come under questioning, suggesting he was feeling some pressure. So I think there was almost a “perfect storm” of motivations. Was it spontaneous or planned? I suspect it was very meticulously planned. Was it cleared with Tehran? I suspect it was.

So where do we go from here?

Although I am by nature an optimist – something that may indicate idiocy after some 40 years of involvement in the Middle East – I struggle to see anything good coming out of this crisis.

I cannot dispute Israel’s right to defend itself. Like most reasonable people I believe that Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 was total. I believe that the Shebaa Farms claim was invented to justify Hezbollah’s arms and give Syria an opportunity to continue its failed policy of trying to pressure

Israel on the Golan Heights through Lebanon. In the end though, Hezbollah did not even use its designated playground to violate the border and set in motion Lebanon’s physical destruction.

If I say that I think Israel’s response to Hezbollah’s attacks has caused horrendous human suffering and physical damage in Lebanon while inflicting relatively light losses on the perpetrators, this does not mean that I’m denying the right to self-defense or making some kind of moral equivalency argument.

Neither will I be drawn into a debate about “proportionality.” Here is the problem: Hezbollah’s military center of gravity is embedded in the population within which it resides. Once the choice is made to respond militarily to an armed provocation by a group like this, noncombatants automatically become the biggest losers unless the armed elements obligingly step forward in the open to do battle with a technological superpower.

I think I understand the politics that obliged Israel to respond in the manner it did. But I regret it profoundly while admitting there were no good options. I will regret to my dying day that no concerted diplomatic effort was ever made – starting with the passage of UNSCR 1559 – to try to use the Shebaa Farms controversy to help the Government of Lebanon compromise Hezbollah’s resistance pretensions. If the center of gravity is the population, then the aim must be to strip Hezbollah of its constituency. I don’t think it can be done by dropping bombs on residential areas and civilian infrastructure. But once you opt for a military answer in a case like this that’s where you are. It's not a case of being “disproportionate;” it is the nature of the beast when you set aside imaginative, patient and persistent diplomacy in favor of a military campaign against an organization that hides inside a civilian population.

Now that Israeli officials are openly admitting that this approach cannot kill Hezbollah, and now that an unnamed senior US official has said that Israel has “target packages” but no achievable military strategy, there is no reason, in my view, for the US not to press hard for an immediate ceasefire. I cannot find any way to justify the terrorizing and traumatizing of Israeli and Lebanese children.

I strongly suspect that no matter what the IDF does in the next few days or weeks, Hezbollah will be alive and kicking when this finally winds down. I would hope to see an international force with considerable combat power move into Lebanon to secure the blue line, help Lebanon and Israel reestablish the 1949 armistice with its Israel-Lebanon Mixed Armistice Commission, jump-start the reconstruction of south Lebanon and help Lebanon secure all of borders, airports, sea ports and other points of entry. But an initiative like this is fraught with peril – I helped to write the 1983 Long Commission report on the bombing of the Marine headquarters at Beirut International Airport. If there’s any serious planning going on anywhere I’m not aware of it.

The obstacles to an international force are high and deep. The Lebanese state is institutionally shallow and its army suspect. With much of the country in utter shambles, the old habit of pushing Shiites to the back of the reconstruction line may well assert itself. Syria, unless persuaded to take a more sensible course, may try to help Hezbollah rearm and reconstitute itself to reestablish an annoying presence adjacent to the Golan. Unless an international force hits the ground running with unchallenged combat power and with humanitarian/reconstruction operations in full swing on day one, it could easily be seen within weeks or months as an occupation force.

But first things first: there is no such thing as a premature ceasefire when children’s lives are at stake. The politics are hard, but adults need to take charge without further delay.