BEIRUT (AP) – The hard-hit Hezbollah could barely help protect former Syrian President Bashar Assad, a longtime ally, from a swift coup that toppled him. With Assad gone, the Lebanon-based militant group is even weaker.
Hezbollah faced a major crisis during the 14 months of war with Israel. The overthrow of Assad, who had strong ties with Iran, has now crippled his ability to bounce back by cutting off a key arms smuggling route through Syria.
Hezbollah officials are deeply concerned but defiant.
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“What is happening in Syria is a big, dangerous and new change, and knowing why this happened needs to be investigated,” said Hassan Fadlallah, a Lebanese legislator and representative of Hezbollah's political wing, while speaking at the funeral of terrorists killed by Israel. “Whatever happens in Syria, despite its dangers, will not weaken us.”
Analysts say Hezbollah's decline will have far-reaching consequences for Lebanon, where it has been a major political player for decades – and for Iran, which relies on the group as one of the Middle East's most powerful powers. There is also a game changer for Israel, whose enemies on the northern border are now in their most vulnerable position in decades.
Relations with Syria have contributed to the rise and fall of Hezbollah's power
The Assad dynasty, which ruled Syria for 50 years with an iron fist, played a key role in empowering Hezbollah, which was founded in the early 1980s by Iranian advisers who came to Syria. In addition to being a conduit for Iranian weapons, Syria was also a place where Hezbollah trained fighters and developed its own weapons.
As Hezbollah grew in power, it became a force that Assad could rely on for protection in times of crisis. Hezbollah sent thousands of fighters to reinforce Assad's forces when civil war broke out in 2011.
As the insurgents invaded Syria in early December and took the city of Homs – just a few kilometers from the Syrian border town where Hezbollah was based – many expected the military to mount a fierce battle. After all, they did that in 2013, preventing Assad's opponents from going to Damascus.
This time, Hezbollah was confused. Most of its top officials, including longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, were killed in Israeli airstrikes. And months of Israeli bombing destroyed its military infrastructure. With Syria's key allies, Russia and Iran, aside, Hezbollah withdrew, and Assad was quickly ousted.
“The fall of the regime means the end of Iran's weapons in Syria and Lebanon,” said Lt. Col. Fares al-Bayoush, who defected from the Syrian army that fought a civil war with Assad's forces and Hezbollah until 2017, when he moved. Garlic.
Lebanon begins to face the 'new reality' of Hezbollah
In Lebanon, the decline of Hezbollah's power has given the military the opportunity to regain control of what it had relinquished, especially on its southern border. A US-brokered ceasefire between the terror group and Israel says Hezbollah should not have an armed presence on that border and has led to growing calls within Lebanon for the group to be disarmed.
“For Hezbollah, it's over,” said Samir Geagea, head of the Christian Lebanese Forces Party, in a statement on Sunday, hours after the rebels took over Damascus. “Stay with the Lebanese army to end your position as an armed group, and change the political party.”
But Hezbollah's long-standing political ascendancy in Lebanon is also facing a major challenge.
Many in Lebanon are angry with the group. Critics say Hezbollah broke its pledge to use only weapons to defend Lebanon when it began firing rockets into Israel last year, the day after Hamas – another Iran-backed group – attacked Israel.
About 4,000 people were killed in Lebanon during the war with Israel, according to the country's health ministry. All the towns and villages where Hezbollah fighters and their supporters lived have been captured. More than a million people have been displaced, and the country's economy – which was in a bad state before the war – is in a deep hole.
“With the end of the (Syrian) regime, Hezbollah in Lebanon is facing a new reality,” said Firas Maksad, of the Middle East Institute.
Maksad said many Lebanese leaders still do not understand the magnitude of the change that has taken place. Even former allies of Hezbollah in parliament have begun to distance themselves from the group.
Gebran Bassil, a lawyer representing the Free Patriotic Movement, Lebanon's other major Christian group, said Hezbollah's loss of an arms pipeline from Iran could help Lebanon get out of the regional conflict.
“Hezbollah should focus on internal issues and not the wider region,” said Bassil, a former Hezbollah ally.
It may have no choice but to curtail its desires. With the fall of Assad, Iran lost control of the land corridor that ran through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean, giving it an unimpeded supply route to Hezbollah.
“Maybe they can fly in some things and smuggle some things in, but that won't be on the same scale, not even close,” said Aron Lund, a Syria expert at Century International, a New York-based think tank.
For Israel, breaking Iran's regional network has been a major goal, even though it is wary of Islamist militants among the rebels who ousted Assad. The State of Israel on Sunday moved troops into the demilitarized zone with Syria in the Israeli-held Golan Heights in what it called a temporary security measure.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the fall of Assad “a historic day,” saying it was “a direct result of our strong action against Hezbollah and Iran, Assad's main backers.”
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