How #Hezbollah Can Embrace Reform If Lebanon’s Uprising Doesn’t Overreach – LobeLog
▻https://lobelog.com/how-hezbollah-can-embrace-reform-if-lebanons-uprising-doesnt-overreach
The upheaval in Lebanon could not have happened at a worse time from Hezbollah’s perspective. It is under increasing pressure from the U.S. and Israel; the former is imposing additional sanctions and the latter is conducting air attacks. There are pressing circumstances for a war between the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis and the Israeli-Saudi-U.S. coalition. The future of Syria, where Hezbollah is heavily invested, is still unknown. The fate of the Syrian and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is undetermined. And Iran, Hezbollah’s main external supporter, is under severe U.S. sanctions. As a result, Hezbollah now does not seem to be ready to abandon its regional commitment in return for better representation in an unpredictable future political order at home.
But Hezbollah may have overplayed its hand in threatening the uprising with civil war.The legitimacy of the Lebanese uprising needs no validation. It is a historic awakening for being non-sectarian, non-partisan and very popular.
Nonetheless, the uprising must listen carefully to Hezbollah’s subtle cues for reaching a compromise. The protestors must not forget that they have severe local and regional limitations by being neighbors to Syria and to Israel, two states in a conflict of survival. The presence of over a million Syrian and four hundred thousand Palestinian refugees signifies that whatever takes place in Beirut, if significant, it is bound to have an echo in Damascus and in Tel-Aviv. And often these two capitals squeeze Lebanon hard.