news

We now move into Lebanon again, where Hezbollah have transformed from a religious militia into the most influential political party in the country. Lebanon after the end of the civil war was dominated politically by the Future Movement, which was founded by liberal Saudi-Lebanese Sunni Muslim businessman Rafic Hariri. Hariri was an interesting character, he moved to Saudi Arabia very early after finishing his university studies in Beirut, and even acquired Saudi citizenship and basically lived as a Saudi for a large part of his life, but he caught the “philanthropic” billionaire bug during the civil war as he realised how much power his money would give him in Lebanon. His companies’ re-built large sections of Beirut after the war, but he was an indecisive Prime Minister and his relationship with the Syrians deteriorated quickly in the mid-00s. Lebanon got rid of the Israeli occupation in the south after Hezbollah’s first victory in 2000, but the Syrian Army still had a presence in Lebanon until 2005. Hariri got assassinated in 2005, most likely by members of Hezbollah who were unhappy with how he’s dealing with the Syrians. What followed is the Cedar Revolution, where thousands of Lebanese civilians protested massively against the cancerous presence of the Syrian Army in Lebanon. I must add a personal anecdote here. As an eight-year-old, I was in Beirut with my family on a long summer holiday in the early 00s. We were in a Kaak (basically Lebanese bagels) shop with my uncle and my young cousins, and the streets were suddenly shut down by armoured trucks. It was the first time my diaspora eyes had seen an army on the streets, so I vividly remember literally being glued to the window of the shop watching the Syrian Army raid a nearby shop while my uncle tried to keep everyone inside until they were finished. A few years later, I learned that they were basically extorting the poor guy, and he refused to pay. Such incidents were very common, and the Syrian presence were viewed very negatively in Lebanon, so it wasn’t surprising that people took the assassination of the most popular guy in Lebanon as the last straw. The Syrians left after the Cedar Revolution, but fumbling Lebanon wasn’t the last big mishap by Assad, and more on that later when we examine Syria’s position in the pan-Shia world.

We move into the 2006 War now. I won’t go into the specifics of the war, but the whole mythology of the war is wildly exaggerated in my opinion. Hezbollah defeated Israel, that is certain, but it wasn’t an extremely bloody war for both sides. The number of dead Israeli civilians + IDF soldiers in that war was less than 500, and the number of dead Hezbollah fighters + Lebanese civilians was less than 2000. Israel’s mass bombing of Beirut generated no tangible military advantage and just made people hate them more. The current war has been bloodier on both sides already, and the number of displaced civilians in Israel + Lebanon is already way bigger and more permanent. The real victory was that Hezbollah once again confirmed that they’re the most successful anti-Israel side in history, and with that also confirmed that there is an existential conflict between the Axis of Resistance and Israel. A decisive Israeli victory like 1967 could not happen anymore. Egypt in the leadership of the anti-Israel axis had lacked the ideological discipline and were simply way too incompetent to accomplish a permanent victory over Israel. Arabism as the leading anti-Israel ideology was not radical enough to defeat the crazy settler-colonial state. But the pan-Shia Khomeinism was definitely radical enough to create groups that Israel simply can’t defeat. Hamas can still not be defeated, Hezbollah can’t be defeated, and Ansarallah couldn’t be defeated despite the combined naval power of the West. What 2006 did was confirm that the strongest and most disciplined anti-Israel ideology could be found in the pan-Shia Hezbollah. The psychological victory was enormous, and it couldn’t be achieved without the expertise and the weaponry of Iran, once more confirming the strength and unity of the Axis in the face of Israeli aggression. Hezbollah emerged out of the war as a heroic group across the Arab and Islamic worlds, and Hezbollah was probably the most popular army in the Arab World until the Syrian Civil War, but more on that later when we cover Syria.

We end with a little failure of the pan-Shia revolution. Bahrain had some of the most intense protests during the Arab Spring, with the whole island being crippled by Shia protestors demanding an end of the Bahraini Monarchy and the abdication of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. Bahrain is very special demographically and also occupies a special place in the pan-Shia heart. The majority of the population are Shia Muslim, and a large part of that Shia majority are people with Persian ancestry, but Shias have literally 0% real representation in Bahraini politics. If you visit an Ashura mourning ceremony in Bahrain even today, half of the service will probably be in Persian. Some of the most famous recited poems were written by Bahraini Shias and many of the highly regarded reciters are also Bahraini. Hussein Al Akraf would recite back in 2005 the famous poem of “In you Khomeini, the world taught me how to be free” on the anniversary of Khomeini’s death. A few years later he would recite another famous poem where the chorus were “You oppressed us with how oppressive you were, and you’re always against us in opposition, O government”. The government of Bahrain basically let Shia Bahraini do the religious stuff with all its political undertones freely in order to sort of ease the pressure, but that wildly backfired when the Shias were all charged up with pan-Shia ideology and poured out in the streets with Iranian flags and pictures of Khamenei and Khomeini. The pan-Shia connection into Bahrain is Sheikh Isa Qassim, who also studied under Al Sadr in Iraq and became the highest ranked Shia cleric in Bahrain after his return to Bahrain from Iran in the 90s. The revolution took the famous Pearl Roundabout as HQ, and things quickly snowballed into a situation where either the Royal Family abdicates due to the enormous pressure, or things could snowball into armed conflict very soon if Iran “accidentally” ships some weapons through the sea. The king instead begged some support from Saudi Arabia who were fighting their own Shia insurgency in Awamiya and Qatif in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis completely crushed the uprising through excessive violence and massive arrest campaigns. Influential Khomeinist voices like the previously mentioned Al Akraf and Isa Qassim fled the country, and even mere participators in the protests like football legend Alaa Hubail were arrested and imprisoned for years. Historic Shia mosques were razed and destroyed, thousands were arrested and tortured in prison, and nearly a thousand fled through Iran and had their citizenships revoked. The iconic Pearl Roundabout itself was bulldozed by the government. My commentary on Bahrain is “don’t do protests if you don’t have guns and an implicit threat of violence”.

That's the end of part three, hope you enjoyed reading this. We have one big and two small stories saved up for part four. The big one about Syria's alliance with Iran from the Hafez Al Assad days, then the Syrian Civil War and Iran's entry there. One small story will be about pan-Shia movement's religious business in non-Shia countries such as Nigeria and Egypt. The last story will be about the failures of the movement in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.