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Fares Braizat: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk to you today about the Levant and Iran’s role in the Levant from a Jordanian perspective. I do not know if I have much to say after the excellent presentations we have heard in the morning sessions but I will try to add something new and I hope that it will be new, since all of you here are interested in the region and in Iran and you are all almost experts on the issue.

Let me begin with three analytical areas through which we can understand the Jordanian and the Arab-Iranian relationships. One is the sectarian religious identity. A second is the geopolitics and trade. The third is relations with the West. These are three determining factors of Iranian-Arab relations. As much as they apply to the Arab world in general they do apply to Jordanian-Iranian relations.

In terms of religion and sectarian identity, as Iran’s status in the region has evolved so has its brand of Shi’a Islam, now characterized by its sectarian nature more than its previous revolutionary appeal. Although Shi’a Iranian Islam still possesses a certain revolutionary attraction it is distinctly contemporary in nature and has been defined with an anti-Western rhetoric and Iran’s response to current events in the region, including the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hezbollah and the American invasion of Iraq.

Sectarian religious identity serves – this is my assumption here – as a facilitating factor in mobilizing people for political cause. It has evolved as a defensive political Shi’ism and in response to regional and international pressure and instability. The politicized Shi’a sectarian identity emerged in Iraq as a consequence of dismantling the Iraqi state. Then the US acknowledged religious, sectarian and ethnic identities as political identities forming the basis of inclusion and exclusion in the political process in Iraq. That was and is and will remain a mistake, because that undermines the very concept that democracy promotion takes into account – equality before the law and citizenship. We are putting something before the citizenship principle.

The second category is the geopolitical. My colleagues this morning talked about the geographical proximity of Iran to Arab countries and that it is a fate we cannot escape. Iran is there and will stay there and we have to live with that. But there are certain developments that gave the geographical proximity a new meaning. One of them is Iran’s relationship with Iraq after the invasion. Iran took advantage of new realities on the ground. It increased its support to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and also increased support for the military wing of that organization (Badr). It also supported all the new political elites in Iraq and established strong contacts with them while Arab states have remained outside the immediate political intervention inside Iraq. Now there has been some change. Some Arab states are getting engaged, although reservedly. It is better late than never but there is something going on now.

A final point on the security issue. Iran did not only weaponize its allies, it also weaponized and supported other militant groups, including some Al Qaeda factions in Iraq. That was a major concern to Jordan as a political issue.

The third factor is relations with the West as a determining factor of Arab-Iranian relations and the Jordanian-Iranian relationship. That goes in the rejectionist camp, which consists of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. That puts a lot of strain on the way that Jordanian foreign policy functions in the region. In previous Jordanian-Iranian relations we can talk about three major dimensions: history, especially since 1949; the security of the Middle East; and current Jordan-Iran relations.

In history, there was not historical animosity between Jordan and the Iranians. Between 1949 and 1979 there were strong relations between Jordan under King Hussein and Iran under the Shah. There were some agreements signed – a 1960 agreement on cultural and educational exchange; in 1973 another agreement on commercial cooperation; and in 1975 an agreement on tourism. Following that, between 1979 and 1991, strained relations which were characterized by the idea of exporting the Iranian revolution and Iran supporting underground opposition groups in Jordan – a concern that still exists today in Jordan, especially after the stronger Iranian presence in Iraq.

Between 1991 and 2003 relations were better. In 1991 King Hussein met with Rafsanjani in the Islamic Conference in Senegal. That meeting was a step forward in establishing cultural and tourism between Jordan and Iran. After that, which is the reformist period, under President Rafsanjani and then President Khatami the Iranian government suggested that it would welcome debate or dialogue with other countries. The Jordanian government responded and that resulted in an official visit in 2003 by King Abdullah II to Iran. That was a major step forward but it has not really materialized after the invasion of Iraq. Nothing really major came out of that.

Since 2003 until today – and the election of Ahmadinejad in 2005 brought new limitations on the way Jordan could conduct its foreign policy with Iran. One major issue is the continuing support of Iran to groups that Jordan sees as adversaries in Jordan and the region.

That brings us to relations in Middle East security – the understanding of Middle East security. In the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hezbollah we witnessed Iranian support to Hezbollah, in which Iran provided Muhajer-4 weapons (unmanned aerial vehicles) to Hezbollah and Fajr-3 missiles. Jordan was concerned that Hezbollah rockets could reach its territory and it made frequent public statements that this is threatening to the security of the country.

As far as the Iraqi situation is concerned, it has become extremely important for Jordan to engage Iran on that front. But it has not really materialized in any concrete steps on the ground. Ahmadinejad could be maybe the first head of a Muslim state to visit Baghdad but he might be the first one to visit while other, especially Arab countries are not making Iraq or Baghdad as a destination for their political activities.

For Jordan, the invasion of Iraq has been a major security problem and it also created a humanitarian situation in which Jordan got itself involved. We have around 700,000 Iraqi refugees in Jordan today. That puts a lot of pressure on basic infrastructure in Jordan, in terms of health, education, water and all that. The level of internal security, the rise of extremism in Iraq also resulted in the November 2005 attacks in Amman. Terrorists crossed the border from Iraq and three hotels in Amman were bombed. The new political system in Iraq has confirmed the likelihood that the Iraqi Shi’a majority government will be naturally inclined to support Shi’a Iran as the region increasingly becomes divided by questions of Shi’a-Sunni sectarian identity.

The inability of the international community to fully address the complexities of reconciliation among Iraqi internal factions, coupled with the lack of involvement of Iraq’s neighbors, has allowed Iran to fill the power vacuum that was left in Iraq – partly, yet significantly. The future of how Iraq plays into the Iranian-Jordanian dynamic will be largely affected by how closely Baghdad allies itself with Tehran. Jordan has not been shy to express its unease with Iran’s involvement in Iraq, a concern King Abdullah highlighted when he coined the now-famous phase “the Shi’a crescent” to describe his concern over rising Iranian influence in the region.

The other factor in the relationship is the non-state actors and Iranian support to non-state actors. For Jordan, relations with Iran have recently concerned Iran’s involvement in internal affairs and the development of Iran’s nuclear program. From a Jordanian perspective, that would embolden Iran and would give its satellite factions in the region a much stronger voice and role in the events that would affect Jordan’s stability. It would be perhaps an unstoppable march of influence.

Hezbollah was a major factor in deciding how Jordan would approach Iran and engage Iranian politics. The statement that was issued when King Abdullah and President Hosni Mubarak said something like “this is adventurism that does not serve Arab interests” created some negative reaction among public opinion in Jordan and the region. Yet it has kept the public perception of Hezbollah as a strong political faction that defends what the public sees as the Arab interest against Israel and the United States.

Recently in an interview in The Daily Telegraph a Jordanian officer was quoted in the United Arab Emirates, while at training that includes Arab air force generals trained by Americans, as saying that “we are training here to offset any potential trouble in the region and that increased our collaboration with our Arab brothers.” This kind of statement is quite unusual. We have not seen statements coming from army generals or air force generals talking about military and political cooperation with the Gulf countries and the Americans.

The last point I would like to mention quickly regards the possibility of a deal between Washington and Iran and where that would leave the Arab states. There are some speculations that an Iranian-American deal would not really take place. To the contrary, there are speculations about a Saudi effort involved in mediating between Washington and Tehran. How accurate that is will remain to be seen but one cannot simply assume that the Americans would sign a deal with the Iranians and leave the Arabs unconsulted in that – especially as they have been allies for a long time and have been consistent in their support for American policies in the region. Thank you for listening.

Trita Parsi: Thank you, Dr. Braizat. I am sure we are going to get back to some of the good points you mentioned in your presentation in the Q&A. Our next speaker is Professor Jouejati, who is here in Washington a professor at the National Defense University. He is also an Adjunct Professor at George Washington University and has acted as an advisor both to the European Union as well as to the Syrian government in various negotiations. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of Utah and an MA in Arab area studies from Georgetown University.

Murhaf Jouejati: Thank you very much, Trita. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I am very happy to be here. Thank you to the Middle East Institute for having me.

First of all, I have many friends here. Many of you know me and have seen this beard for the first time. I do not want to convey the message that I am trying to get the Ahmadinejad look simply because I am talking about the Syria-Iran strategic alliance. In fact this dovetails nicely with what Trita said at the start about attempts to wean Syria away from Iran. In my presentation I am going to cover this, a presentation I have divided into three: where we are now in terms of the Syria-Iran alliance; how we got there; and finally, where do we go from here?

Syria, as you know, is an ally of Iran and it is in the nexus of the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas alliance that is intended from the Syrian and Iranian perspective to explode what Syria calls the American Project. Of course the United States is allied to Israel and the United States has several Arab partners in this coalition – Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt. Syria, unlike all the states that are represented here, does not fear Iran, does not fear the Iranian nuclear enrichment effort. In fact Syria supports that effort, in part because these efforts – from a Syrian perspective – are consistent with Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which establishes the inalienable right of all the parties to the treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. I dare say even if the Iranian purposes are not peaceful, Syria is not fearful of that – again, because Iran in this case is Syria’s big brother and it is 500 miles away from Syria.

Syria and Iran have a military alliance. They have had a defense pact since June 2006, one that was strengthened by a memorandum of understanding in 2007. The alliance has intensified recently. The new Iranian ambassador, and I believe he has been there for something under a month, is the vice-president for legislative affairs (a very important position).

In addition to the military alliance there is a very intense economic cooperation. In 2006 Iran invested some $800 million in Syria. In accordance with the size of the Syrian economy, this is a big deal. In 2007 Iran invested over $1 billion and it is projected that by the year 2010 there is going to be over $10 billion worth of Iranian investment in Syria. These are in oil refining, construction, the manufacture of cars and trucks and buses, cement works, glass and rubber. Iranian investments thus far represent 66 percent of total Arab investment in Syria and 50 percent of non-Arab investments.

This alliance of course is not about economics. In fact the deputy prime minister for economic affairs in Syria, when asked why Syria was turning to the east, said: well, we would like to turn to the west, but the west has shut its doors to us. Economics is not a factor in this alliance – nor is ideology. As you can guess, Syria and Iran are truly the odd couple. Syria is a very secular regime. Syria perceives itself as the champion of Arab nationalism and these things are anathema to Iran’s theocratic regime.

Nor does sectarian affiliation have a very significant factor. It is said that the Alawis, which are an offshoot of Ismaili Shi’ism, have an affinity to Iran’s Shi’ism. I do not think this is a major factor at all. In fact from a Syrian perspective the statement by King Abdullah of Jordan about the emergence of a Shi’a crescent – the Syrian regime does not identify with this. Shi’is are not a monolith. There are many differences between Iraqi Shi’is and Iranian Shi’is; there are a huge amount of differences between Syrian Alawis and Iraqi Shi’is and Iranian Shi’is. There is even more differences between the Shi’is in the south of Lebanon with the Alawis and the Iraqis and the Iranians. So to say there is the rise of a Shi’ite crescent in the Middle East falls on deaf ears among the Syrian elite.

A case in point: Syria is allied to Hezbollah, which of course is a Shi’ite organization for the most part, but Syria is also allied to Hamas – a very Sunni organization. Here the point is that this affinity is not sectarian-based but is based on Syria’s perceptions of threat that emanate from Israel.

The alliance between Syria and Iran is interests-driven. It is truly a marriage of convenience. For Iran, Syria gives it the reach into the Arab-Israeli conflict. For Syria, Iran is the big brother on the block – a block that is a very threatening environment to the Syrians. Syria is after all surrounded by US power. To the north, although recently the relationship between Syria and Turkey has warmed tremendously, still Turkey is a very powerful member of NATO and an ally of the United States. Next door in Iraq there are 163,000 US troops. To the south of Syria is Jordan, which is the greatest supporter of the United States in the Arab world. To the southwest is Israel, which Syria does not regard in very kind terms. To the west there is Lebanon, which is a very threatening environment, especially now that Syria has been ejected from there. There is of course the Sixth Fleet of the United States that is very firmly anchored in the Mediterranean. So Syria feels surrounded and to make matters worse, Syria is the victim of US economic sanctions. The US withdrew its ambassador and the US is calling publicly for a change in Syria’s behavior, although very few in the Syrian elite buy this. They are convinced that what Washington wants is a regime change. To buttress that argument they point to at least two offices of the Syrian opposition here in Washington.

So Syria feels threatened and it has revived that strategic alliance which is not new. How we got to here is since the early 1980s, at the outset of the Islamic revolution in Iran and the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqi invasion of Iran – at the time Hafez Asad viewed that war as the wrong war at the wrong time against the wrong enemy in the wrong place. The threat from Asad’s perspective – Asad who sits 40 miles away from Israel – is not Iran, especially an Iran that now has escaped the Pax Americana, the American order, with the overthrow of the Shah; with Khomeini, who gave the Israeli embassy to the Palestinians; a Khomeini who had torn apart the CENTO treaty with the United States. This Iran was no threat to the Arabs; we should embrace the Islamic revolution in Iran not on ideological grounds but on the grounds that Egypt, which had just concluded its separate treaty with Israel, which had just exited the Arab camp, which had left a huge power vacuum facing the Israelis – it was Iran who was going to fill this.

In addition to this strategic perspective – whether Asad was right or wrong is irrelevant – there are of course the idiosyncrasies of Hafez Asad. Yes, he did have a socioeconomic-based sympathy with the poor rural folks – the tobacco farmers of the south of Lebanon. Yes, Imam Musa Sadr of Lebanon had pronounced Alawis a sect within Islam so that Asad could and should be viewed as the Muslim president of Syria. You recall at the time the Muslim Brotherhood, in that constitution of 1972, had pronounced Alawis heretics and therefore Hafez Asad was not fit to rule this Muslim country. Well, Musa Sadr saved him by this fatwa. Imam Khomeini saved the Asad regime when he declared the Muslim Brotherhood – at the time in the late 1970s and early 1980s the Syrian regime and the Muslim Brotherhood were on the verge of civil war, and here is Khomeini, the grand master of Islam, declaring the Muslim Brotherhood as merely puppets of the United States.

So as a result it is natural that Asad would look to Iran for strength. This alliance however, although it is the most enduring alliance in the Middle East – dating back to the early 1980s – this alliance was never free of problems. Remember the turf wars in Lebanon between Amal, the surrogate of Syria, and Hezbollah, the surrogate of Iran. Remember the Syrians being opposed to the kidnappings of Americans and others in Lebanon and succeeding in many instances in releasing them. Remember that Hafez Asad was totally opposed to the TWA hijacking and had been able to successfully release the hostages.

There were many problematics with Iran. Syria at the time was trying to show the United States that it is and could be the stabilizer of Lebanon. But the alliance then under the days of Hafez Asad I think was one of equals. Today it looks to me more like a patron-client relationship, and I do not say this to diminish Syria. But certainly Syria is the junior in this partnership. Young Asad is not his dad, he is not the strategic thinker that his dad was, and the Syrian elite now faces an existential threat.

Where do we go from here? I think despite the fact that this is a strategic alliance it can end. We saw some of this – Syria came to Annapolis despite the advice of Iran. Syria is trying to signal the United States, I believe, that it could and would do away with its alliance with Iran if it were able to resume talks with Israel, if it were able to have ironclad guarantees that it is going to recover the Golan Heights.

I look forward to your questions.

Trita Parsi: Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Professor Judith Harik from the Matn University in Beirut. She is recognized as a leading expert on Hezbollah and the Lebanese civil war. She taught at the American University in Beirut until 2003 when she became president of Matn University. She holds a PhD and an MA from the University of Iowa and a degree from Drew University.

Judith Harik: Thank you very much. Thanks to the Middle East Institute for inviting me. I am going to talk about Iran’s foreign policy in Lebanon today and its future relationship with Hezbollah.

Iran’s foreign policy in Lebanon is less important than its interest in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf states, where the issues addressed revolve around national security. In Lebanon on the other hand, ending regional isolation and showcasing Iran’s growing power are Tehran’s two main foreign policy objectives. As in Palestine/Israel, these goals are achieved by supporting an organization struggling to recoup Arab land occupied by Israel – Hezbollah.

Lebanon provided Iran fertile ground for implementation of this policy since a significant Shi’a community had been traumatized by Israeli attacks and politically mobilized since the 1960s. Within that community there was also an important Islamic current that could be tapped to confront Israel. The policy developed by Iranian leaders for Lebanon is therefore evidenced by action on two fronts: one, the provision of financial and economic resources by Iran to the Lebanese Shi’ite community, especially during periods of emergency; two, support for Hezbollah in the resistance against Israel.

In the first instance Iran has brought institutional, developmental, economic and financial resources to the Shi’ite community that have made a substantial improvement in the living standards of this neglected group. In addition during and after periods of military conflict Tehran provides emergency assistance aimed at rehabilitation and reconstruction. As the level of destruction wreaked on Lebanon was so extensive in the summer war of 2006, for the first time Iran sent a mission headed by an engineer (Hossam Khoshnevis [phonetic]) that would take up residence in Lebanon so as to quickly implement and manage reconstruction and rehabilitation of a wide range of institutions and infrastructure. According to Khoshnevis [phonetic], the projects he directs include among others: work on 330 damaged or destroyed schools serving an estimated 700,000 students; repairs to 20 hospitals and infirmaries; and nearly 700 kilometers (550 miles) of road and highway rehabilitation. These projects, it was understood and underlined, are carried out in Christian, Sunni and Shi’ite communities subjected to Israeli bombardment

It is important to note however that neither professionals nor staff employed by Hezbollah – that is, by their reconstruction organization Jihad al-Binaa – have any involvement in the Islamic Republic’s programs. In return for the benefits these programs convey, identification with Iran and the Shi’ite community is further enhanced.

In the second case, support of Hezbollah, over the past 25 years Iran has offered Hezbollah training, equipment and financial resources necessary for the fielding of an effective resistance operation against Israeli occupation. In the early 1980s it was a contingent of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards that had come to the Baalbek area of the Bekaa Valley that commenced the recruitment and training of Hezbollah’s cadres. This direct intervention by the Revolutionary Guards however was phased out after 1987 and by 1989 it ended. Since then rumors have circulated about the presence of this organization during the major clashes between Hezbollah and the Israelis in the 1990s. They resurfaced during the summer war of 2006 when there were reports that officers of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard were directing Hezbollah operations in the battle zone. Anthony Cordesman, senior military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, made it his business to address these rumors on a trip to Israel after the war. In his preliminary report on the war he wrote, “One key point is that no serving Israeli official, intelligence officer or other military officer felt that the Hezbollah acted under the direction of Iran or Syria in the war theater. Hezbollah’s independence of action during Israel’s massive land, air and sea attacks would therefore seem to indicate that its military forces had outgrown the Revolutionary Guard’s tutelage and that these forces have become an Arab army in their own right. At any rate, to my knowledge there have been no facts brought to light that members of the Revolutionary Guards have visited Lebanon before, during or after the summer war.” [note: end of quote not specified]

However, the word is that Hezbollah engineers began preparing the ground – perhaps literally – south and north of the Litani River for a future confrontation with Israel that is believed to be inevitable. They began this immediately after the ceasefire came into effect in August 2006.

As a result of Iran’s two-pronged foreign policy, Tehran has also been able to develop a role for itself in the internal politics of Lebanon – much as Saudi Arabia has done through assistance provided to the Lebanese Sunni community there. Iran’s involvement in Lebanon’s internal politics today however is basically limited to fending off possible sectarian strife between the Sunni and Shi’ite communities when street tensions rise as a result of the political deadlock that has paralyzed the country since the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in February 2005. At present contacts with Iran’s foreign minister and national security advisor are being made by European and Arab officials and especially by Saudi officials to try to facilitate a negotiated solution to Lebanon’s political impasse. In this respect, Tehran has been encouraging its allies in Lebanon to resolve their differences with others in a peaceful manner.

The above discussion indicates that Iran’s foreign policy in Lebanon is relatively limited in terms of what it can do for the Lebanese. However, the Lebanese – and particularly Hezbollah – offer Iran the possibility of developing influence outside its borders, influence that may be utilized as a bargaining chip in the power politics of the Middle East. Looking toward the future, how would that be possible and what would be the reaction of the broader Shi’ite community that is represented mainly by Hezbollah?

To answer this question I recently had a wide-ranging discussion with a very senior Hezbollah leader. Two of the questions I posed may be of particular interest in this conference. The first question focused on the present relationship between Iran and Hezbollah and asked what leverage Iran might have over the latter. The second question asked whether this relationship might evolve or change in the future, particularly if Iran is attacked by the United States.

On the leverage issue the response was that institutional goals of both actors converge on opposition to Israeli occupation and on American policy and material support for that country in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Special congruence was articulated on the issue of Jerusalem as the spiritual capital of Islam. However, when asked who calls the shots, Hezbollah or Iran, the leader’s response was that Hezbollah has broad latitude in its decision-making process and is very much insulated from any dictates from Iran, whether political, social or military. The Hezbollah leader then provided an illustration of his organization’s capacity to call the policy shots as follows: “Many times over the years the Iranians have come to us with military and political initiatives that they believe would serve their country’s interests in Lebanon. But if those initiatives did not serve Lebanon’s interests as we see them, most often we were able to convince them to modify or even abandon those initiatives. In policy discussions, more often than not we influenced them rather than the other way around.” The very senior Hezbollah official emphasized that to this day there has not been a single instance of Hezbollah going along with Iranian requests that were deemed counterproductive to organizational interests or to Lebanon’s interests as determined by party leaders.

When asked if the relationship described might change if Iran threatened to withhold military material or economic support, the senior Hezbollah official’s emphatic response was, “Hezbollah has the capacity to secure military hardware from the same sources that supply Iran.” The economic dimension of Iranian assistance, he said, is also not of major concern since Hezbollah has substantial independent sources of this type of support – from the Lebanese Shi’ite community and expatriates, Iran, and both Sunni and Shi’ite residents of the Gulf. He noted that this broad-based private assistance expanded considerably as a result of Hezbollah’s performance against Israel in the summer war of 2006. He also said that over the years Hezbollah’s various institutions have developed major financial reserves that can be used to bridge any possible gap in support by Iran that might be important to the operation of these institutions or resistance activities. He cited the benevolent loan micro-credit institution Al Khor del Hassan [phonetic], which has thousands of employees, as an example of such institutional largesse.

I just happen to have interviewed in January 2007 Hezbollah’s former social and public services director, Sheikh Hussein Shami [phonetic], who is now director of the micro-credit program. I was briefed on the development functions and dimension of that institution. Shami indicated that the micro-credit program he had been instrumental in creating and developing had grown tremendously since it began in 1984. He emphasized that it had had no support from any country or other association or group of note. According to him this growth was the result of careful planning and the application of sophisticated financial techniques and actuarial science. Shami noted that the organization he heads has accumulated to date a loan fund in excess of $1 billion that is available for micro-credit purposes and that micro-credit is not limited to members of the Shi’ite community. He explained that this money materialized through a simple and very popular system of public participation that grew from 25 individuals in 1984 to 57,000 participants and contributors at the end of 2006.

This information may lead some to believe that Iran’s relationship with Hezbollah can be considered today as more of a partnership cemented by common strategic goals than a state-client relationship, whether in economic and financial fields or in military and political ones. I suggest that the extent of Iran’s leverage over Hezbollah may not be as important as formerly thought.

The question now before us is whether the relative independence described above would prevail and Hezbollah’s behavior would remain the same if a more serious situation confronted the actors – such as an American military action against Iran. When the scenario was posed the Hezbollah leader became considerably more animated. The specific questions raised were: if Iran was attacked, would Hezbollah be asked to enter the battle? If so, would the freedom of action you described be somewhat restricted or would Hezbollah have some leeway in deciding the course of action? The leader’s response to these hypothetical questions provide some compelling information on the subject.

He noted that Hezbollah has factual and specific information from Iran’s leadership that if Iran is attacked at any time by the United States, with or without its allies’ assistance, Iran’s immediate military response would be an attack on Israel and on American bases in the Gulf and the region, including Iraq. I was also told that in this case Hezbollah would then assess the situation and plan its course of action on the basis of how Israel would react in the days following Iran’s attack. Specifically, Hezbollah’s expectation is that such a military development in the region would result in a general conflagration involving other countries and most likely would lead to an Israeli attack on Lebanon and Syria within the following few days. The Hezbollah leader continued by saying, “We are prepared for such an attack on Lebanon and we will present Israel with a new type of warfare that will be a major strategic surprise for their armed forces. The issue of whether we will be called upon to enter the battle by Iran may therefore not be relevant. On the other hand, if we are spared an attack from Israel the decision of whether or not we enter the battle to support the Iranian war effort remains a policy matter to be decided upon by Hezbollah leaders if and when the situation arises.” From this discussion, the notion of a reflexive reaction by Hezbollah in response to a request for military action from Iran is called into question.

But whether we accept Hezbollah official statements of their organization’s relative independence from Iran at face value or not, it is a fact that its leaders have had 25 years to try to build a complex and self-sustaining institution. It can therefore be assumed that reducing however and wherever possible the vulnerability conveyed by reliance on a single external source of material and financial support, such as Iran, would probably be an institutional priority. The degree to which Hezbollah has been or may become successful in this endeavor would therefore certainly have to be factored into any future relationship between Iran and its Lebanese ally, where strategies and tactics to be used in the Lebanese theater are concerned.

I would now like to conclude by summarizing some points and suggesting some recommendations for US analysts and policymakers.

One, when dealing with foreign policy toward Iran it is important for experts to realize that Tehran’s leaders may not have as much leverage over Hezbollah as previously thought. It appears that Iran’s Lebanese ally may thus have to be dealt with as a partner of Iran rather than its client. As such Hezbollah should be considered and addressed directly as Lebanese actors with a Lebanese agenda rather than a simple agent of Iran.

Two, US foreign policymakers should also realize that if a military option is chosen to force Iranian compliance with American demands they are opening up the serious possibility of broader regional conflagration involving Iran’s allies and partners. The fact that Iran has communicated to Hezbollah its clear intent to attack Israel regardless of whether or not that country participates in the initial attack on Iran seems to indicate a clear strategic position taken by Tehran that widening the conflict is in their country’s best interest. In other words, as a byproduct of Iran’s foreign policy in Lebanon, this small country may again be placed in the eye of the storm regardless of what all parties in Lebanon may want.

Third, the space that Hezbollah may well have staked out for itself in the realm of political and military decision-making makes it unclear as to whether the Party of God would indeed enter a conflict initiated by an attack on Iran that had no direct bearing on Lebanon, whose interests it professes to serve. This idea should probably be given some consideration by strategists in deciding America’s political or military options vis-à-vis Iran.

A final observation. Hezbollah’s apparent emergence as a political actor in its own right in the Levant presents US policymakers with the challenge of viewing this organization in a new light and provides opportunities to revisit strategic planning that has rested on the assumption that Hezbollah was a client of Iran’s instead of the partner that it is becoming. Thank you.