Prolonged conflict in the region makes Hizbollah battle weary

Five years from Arab revolutions Hizbollah, like all major players in the region’s current conflicts, is choosing its strategic interests over popular demands, writes Jesse Rosenfeld

Hizbollah fighters take position in Sujoud village in south Lebanon. Ali Hashisho / Reuters

Hizbollah martyr posters are increasingly taking up wall space in Beirut’s working-class, Shia-majority suburb of Dahyia, while the public funeral processions for the movement’s fighters killed in Syria have become a regular occurrence. Since Hizbollah’s intervention to prop up Syrian president Bashar Al Assad in 2012, the armed resistance movement has transformed into a key force in the region’s proxy wars.

Over the five years since the Arab revolts shook the world, the group transformed as it has played a prominent role in the increasingly sectarian wars that devoured the revolutionary spirit.

When Tunisian street protests forced the corrupt and authoritarian Ben Ali regime to flee into exile, Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah praised the people. It was the same person who encouraged the protesters in Egypt’s Tahrir Square, who forced out president Hosni Mubarak

As the uprising in Libya turned into a civil war and Nato intervened, Hizbollah sided with the rebels. However, when Syrians took to the streets with their demands that echoed across the Arab world, Hizbollah changed its tune and backed its allies in the regime.

Since then the militia has played a central role in the conflict that turned into a civil war and in which takfiri groups fill the vacuum and regional and global powers fight through proxies.

The cost has been staggering: over 250,000 people have been killed while it created the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War.

Over the last month, I met several Hizbollah fighters in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and Dahiya neighbourhood. Some are reservists who have grown cynical about the war and refused to fight; others are field commanders who boast of receiving heavy Russian weapons and acknowledge that Russia, Hizbollah, Mr Al Assad and Iran are completely interdependent.

The commanders claim that Hizbollah has received long-range tactical missiles, laser-guided rockets and anti-tank weapons directly from Russia.

“We are strategic allies in the Middle East right now – the Russians are our allies and give us weapons,” said one commander who is in charge of five units comprising about 200 fighters.

A special forces unit commander in Syria, who also trains fighters in Lebanon, said that Russia relied on them to guard its weapons depots in Syria, implying the Lebanese guerrillas are more trusted by Russia than are Mr Al Assad’s forces.

The commanders say the Russians rely on their target selection and intelligence for their air campaign, while Hizbollah needs Russian bombs to advance on the ground alongside the Syrian government and Iranian forces.

Beyond the boundaries of the Syrian war, the commanders also said they were directly training Houthi rebels in Yemen and Shia militias in Iraq.

They paint a picture of an organisation that is focused on being a regional force that gains its legitimacy by being an essential ally to its Iranian, Syrian and Russian partners.

Still, when speaking to rank and file reservists who have served several tours of duty in Syria and have grown war weary, it is this approach that is causing their disillusionment.

The three reservists had joined Hizbollah during the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon. They fought off Israel’s assault in 2006, but they said they were no longer willing to die fighting in Syria. They describe the war as a “battle between superpowers” in which they clash with rebels armed and funded by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the West.

“If the Americans, Russians, and the Syrian [government] want a solution, they will find one,” says one Hizbollah reservist, a Sunni, in Bekaa. “It’s a big game in Syria and it’s a misery.”

The fighters talk about their increasing losses across Syria and express extreme frustration with Mr Al Assad’s forces. They also say they are under heavy pressure from their families to stop fighting.

So, after several tours of duty in Syria, they have refused to continue fighting and have lost all family health and social benefits that Hizbollah provided.

This may seem like a desperate move from an organisation whose leadership is determined to prop up its allies’ wars, but it is also indicative of the transformation Syria’s war has had on Hizbollah.

Traditionally the group relied on its popular campaigns of resistance to Israel to gain fighters and support. Now, as the war in Syria drags on while regional commitments increase, the group seems more like a movement that is growing increasingly weary of the conflict yet nurtures the desire to play a pivotal role in the conflicts of the region.

Five years from Arab revolutions Hizbollah, like all major players in the region’s current conflicts, is choosing its strategic interests over popular demands.

Jesse Rosenfeld is a Canadian journalist based in Beirut. He has been reporting from the Middle East since 2007