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linked to Bashar ai-Assad's regime.'lfBashargoes down, we're next,'' a commandersaid

'"rhe bodies of the tvvo young fighters l_ from Hezbollah were already in the ground when the

memorial service began . They'd been killed days before, and their

smiling portraits hovered above an out door stage in their village, Sohmor, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. The stage was framed by huge banners, portraying Has san Nasrallah, Hezbollah's secretarygeneral, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader.In the portraits, the two fighters-Ali Hussein al-Khishen and Ali Mustafa Alaeddine-looked barely their age, nineteen. Khishen had chubby cheeks and aboyish smile; Alaed dine's countenance was sterner and more knowing. "You are the proof of martyr dom!" one of the posters said.

The mourners, thousands of them, shuffled to their seats, the black-dad women drifting to the back. The atmo sphere was not sombre but upbeat, unde feated, like a football stadium before kickoff. Boys in blue shirts and white ker chiefs Mahdi Scouts-poured coffee from ornate decanters and handed out bottles of water. A Hezbollah brass band bleated out what sounded like a Sousa march. Khishen and Alaeddine were being celebrated in death.

At the time of the service, late last year,Hezbollah had spent months denying that its men were crossing the border into Syria to fight for Bashar al-Assad's mur derous regime. Yet evidence was mount ing that theywere.The daybefore the fu neral, Syrian rebels announced that they had killed a Hezbollah commander and at least tvvo of his men.Hezbollah acknowl edged that the commander, Ali Hussein Nassif, had died, but refused to disclose where or how, saying only that he had been "performing hisjihad duties."

Like the fallen commander, the two dead fighters in Sohmor had been killed under murky circumstances. Hezbollah said that the two had died at an ammu nition depot inside Lebanon, in an acci dental explosion, four days before. But the service in Sohmor was a thikra usbu', an Islamic ceremony held seven days after death.At the burial, the bodies of Khishen and Alaedd ine had been kept insidetheir caskets, invisible even to their families.

The crowd stirred as guardsbegan appearing on rooftops, clutching soft violin

2 caseswith thebuttsof machine gunspok-

ing out.Then a bearded man in a black

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turban walked onto the stage with his hands clasped, like a cleric. It was Hashem Safieddine, the head ofHezbol lah's Executive Council. The audience grew silent.

"Don't cry, Sohmor," Safieddine be gan. "You can't have dignity without young blood ."He didn't sayhow Khishen and Alaeddine had been killed, and he made no mention of an ammunition depot. Instead, he told the people that their sons had died for a noble cause, and that Hezbollah was built on sacrifices such as these. Then he talked about Syria. 'We are more sure every day that the challenges we face from Israel, America, and the Arab countries are huge-and that the Arab countries are spending money to destroy Syria and Hezbollah," he said.

Safieddine wasn't exaggerating: afterdecades ofbelligerence, Hezbollah is sur rounded by existential threats. In

an Arab world dominated by SunniMuslims, Hez bollah agitates on

behalf of Shiite iden tity-forming, alongwith Syria and Iran, a column of resistance sometimes called the Shiite

Axis. For thirty years, Syria has offered protection and facilitated a pipe line of

money and arms from Iran. With Syrian and Iranian help, Hezbollah has

become the most powerful force in Leba non. Too strong to be challenged even by the government, it has set up

its own

mini -state and built one of the world's most sophisticated guerrilla armies. Ithas kept up a relendess campaign to confront Israel, even provoking a war in 2006.

Now the civil war in Syria is threaten ingto break the axis.VVlthout Syria,Hez bollah would have no bolster against its Sunni enemies, within Lebanon and throughout the region. \1\lorse, it would be left alone to fuce Israel. In front of the crowd in Sohmor, Safieddine didn't have to elaborate this point.He said only, 'We are aware of what is happening in Syria, and we are courageous and more ready than ever for resistance ."

Back in Beirut, a Hezbollah officer conceded that the explanation for the young martyrs' death-the explosion at the ammunition depot had been con trived.They had been killed in Syria, he said: "There were a lot of bodies coming back." Itwas something that no one was permitted to discuss, for obvious reasons: Hezbollah could not afford to anger Sun nis, but neither could it allow its allies inSyria to±au. "IfBashar goes down," aHezbollah commander told me, "we're next."

e Hezbollah commander , who

_l called himself Dani (a pseudonym required to maintain his safety), met me in aprivate home around the corner from "the secure area," a cluster of buildings that serves as Hezbollah's headquarters in

the southern Beirut neighborhood of Al Ghobeiry. Dani walked inwearingjeans, a tight black T-shirt, trail shoes, and a Quicksilver cap;his hair was short and his fair-skinned face was shaved clean.I was struck by his appearance, so unlike the cliche of an Islamic militant, and Dani did not fail to notice. "We're not all bearded fanatics, you know," he said. Dani,·who is about forty years old, looked more like a good-natured auto mechanic, which he is, most of the time. One of eleven siblings, he is married and has two children of his ovm.

Dani grew·up in a village within sight of the Israeli border, but, as he remembe.rs it, his family had no anti-Israeli feelings. His father traded wheat and olives and often crossed over to buy and sell in the Is raeli port of Haifa. "My dad had a lot of Je\vish friends back then;'Dani said. "He didn't think a lot about occupation."

Throughout Dani's childhood, the Palestine Liberation Organization was based in Lebanon. A Sunni-dominated group, it treated the Shiites harshly, and was an increasingly unwekomed pres ence. Then, in 1982, the Israel Defense Forces poured across the border,in a huge military operation aimed atdestroying theP.L.O ., and soldiers made their way toDani's village.At first, the villagers, like many Lebanese, welcomed the Israelis, whom they hoped would rid them of theP.L.O. "I ate the candy they threw us," Dani said.But itwasn't longbefore Israeli soldiers began to sweep the region's Shi ite villages for weapons, detaining men with no connection to the P.L.O. Soon Dani needed written permission from the Israelis to move in and out oftown. 'They made us prisoners inour own country;•he said.

Ever since the nineteen-twenti es, when the colonial French carved Lebanon from the remnants of the Ottoman Em pire, it has been a political playground for its more powerful neighbors: Israel, Syria, the Palestinians, and Saudi Arabia, each of which has routinely manipulated Leb anese politics through local proxies.Leb anon's vulnerability lies in its intensepo larization, which has bedevilled every government that has tried to run the place. The country was intended by d1e French as a kind of sanctuary for l\1a ronite Catholics. Over time, the Catho lics and other Christians, who were once

"MaybeFm too big toJail, butI'm not too big to have myfeelings hurt."

a majority, clung to povver even as they



were surpassed in numbers by Muslims. Now eighteen officially recognized reli gions and sects thrive among four million people, in a country the size of Connecti cut. Sunnis, Shiites, and Christians pre dominate, but none has a majority. In1975, sectarian tensions, aggravated bythe growing militancy of the P.L.O., ex ploded into a civil war. The war lasted fifteen years, devastated the country, and killed a hundred and twenty thousandpeople.In the midst of the ,var, in 1982,came the Israeli Army.

As Dani looked for a way to resist the invaders, the obvious option, the Leba nese Army, was closed. The Army-in deed, most of the government had all but ceased to exist. Then a new group arose, dedicated to opposing Israe it was knovvn as Hezbollah, from theArabic for "Party of God." The group dates its be ginning to November 11, 1982, when a teen-ager named Ahmad ssir ap proached the Israeli headquarters inTyre and blew himself up. Its true origins aren't sosimple. Hezbollah emerged from acol lection of disparate armed groups, but almost immediately the fighters began receiving training, direction, and money from Iran's Revolutionary Guard. "The Iranians were looking for an opening in Lebanon, and the Israeli invasion gave it to them," David Crist, a historian for theU.S. government and the author of "The Twilight War," an account of the Amer ican-Iranian rivalry since 1979,said."The Iranians' great success is that they took all these disparate groups that were fighting the Israelis and brought them together."

The Iranian regime spent as much as two hundred million dollars a year sup porting Hezbollah, according to a U.S. Defense Department report. For Iran, Hezbollah was an appealing proxy. Like the Iranian regime, it 'vas composed of Shiites, a minority throughout most of the Islamic world and historically its dovvntrodden class. Hezbollah's found ers, adhering to the doctrine of wi/aayat alfoqih, recognized Iran'sGrand Ayatol lahas the leader of the global Islamic rev olution. Bur mostly the Iranians wanted Hezbollah as an advance force to con front Israel. In Hezbollah's first mani festo, published in 1985, its leaders pro claimed their dedication to fighting until Israel was "obliterated ."Paul Salem, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center, in Beirut, said, "Hezbollah is an

Iranian aircraft carrier parked north of Israel. 'You hit us, we hit you.' That is what Hezbollah gets the big bucks and the missiles for."

Among the fighters in the early days was Hassan Nasrallah, a round-faced clericwhose magnetism captivated almost everyone he met. Nasrallah, then in his early twenties, was a son of Karantina "the Qyarantine"-one of the most im poverished neighborhoods in Beirut.His father sold fruit from a pushcart. He was

an avid reader of theology as a boy, and he later attended the fabled Shiite seminar ies ofNajaf, in Iraq, and Qym, in Iran.In 1992, Israeli forces assassinated Abbas al-Musawi, the leader ofHezbollah, by firing a missile at his car. Nasrallah took his place, only months after returning from Iran.

Soon after Hezbollah was founded, Dani, though still a boy, left home and joined ."I vowed never to return to my vil lage until it was liberated," he said. Over the next eighteen years, Hezbollah waged a guerrilla war against Israeli soldiers who occupied southern Lebanon.Dani fought all the time. "Ibecame a soldier," he said. American troops came in to help the Leb anese government, and Hezbollah struck against them as well. According to U.S. officials, two of the bloodiest attacks against Americans in the nineteen-eight ies were carried out by Hezbollah opera tives \vith Iranian support: the suicide at tack on the American Embassy in Beirut, in April of 1983,which killed sixty-three people; and the truck bombing of Ma rine barracks that October,which killed two hundred and forty-one Americans. (Hezbollah has denied involvement in either attack.) In 1985, He:zbollah mili tants kidnapped Colonel William R. Higgins, an American officer overseeing United Nations peacekeepers on the Is raeli border, and tortured him to death. "We were under m ilitary occupation at the time, as far as I see it, and so there fore I don't think thosewere terrorist at tacks," Dani said.

A few days after we first spoke, Dani took me on a tour of southern Lebanon, where warwith Israelfestered for decades. We drove south out of Beirut, along the Mediterranean coast, past Sidon's sea cas tle, the stone fortification built by the Crusaders in the thirteenth century, and through the ancient city ofTyre. "All of this," he said, pointing out the window, "used to be in Israeli hands." Martyrdom posters lined the roadside, along with other indications that Hezbollah was gov erning the place. "Her.t:bollah welcomes the Pope!" one poster said.

We stopped in a village, at a cafe calledAl Bas, where a young man who intro duced himself as Hussein Hodeh was standing behind an espresso machine. When I asked him about the village's al legiances, he shrugged and said, "It's a Hezbollah town." I asked how he knew, and he reached under the counter and un furled ayellow Hezbollah battle flag."fm Her.t:bollah myself," he said, with a laugh. "fm a fighter."

About ten miles from the Israeli bor der, we turned inland, moving across a hilly landscape of limestone bluffs and olive trees. Dani pointed out landmarks. "That bridge--the Israelis used to bomb it all the time;' he said.After a while, we reached Mleeta, a fantastical theme park dedicated to Hezbollah's triumphs, and pulled into a parking lot next to a tour bus. In the nineties and again in 2006, Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah militiamen fought for the ground on which Mleeta sits, and the battlefield has been preserved, in the manner ofNormandy or Gettysburg. The grand opening, in 2010, was attended by a representative of the Lebanese Prime Minister. Dovvn a path from a gift shop that sells Hezbollah T-shirts and coffee mugs adorned with Nasrallah's face, Dani pointed into a wide pit and said, "This is the destroyed Israeli tank." There lay the carcass of an enormous l\1erkava, Israefs finest, its bottom blown out by a bomb and its barrel tied in a knot. It was surrounded by a small sea oflsraeli helmets. "It's all real here, all real," Dani said. "I know-I remember."

We walked past a tunnel nenvork and an array of Katyusha rocket batteries, alongside a group of European tourists snapping photos. Here and there, Dani paused. 'The Israelis were right here," he said. "Sometimes they would advance, sometimeswewould advance. Sometimes

THE NEW YOIU\ER . FEBIVJARY 25, 2013 51

T



the fighting was face to face."Dani spoke with predictable contempt for Israel. "It's a cancer," he said. "'t's a parasite." But he had nothing but admiration for the sol diers he had faced in battle. 'The Israeli fighters are very fierce and very brave. Theyknew every inch of this ground, bet ter than we did. We respect them. We don't take them lightly. That's why we were able to beat them."

Everywhere in l\llleeta there are plac

TAKING A WALK IN THE WOODS AFTER. HAVING TAKENA WALK IN THE WOODS WITH YOU

Now I cannot not seethe blight everywhere

-Maureen N.McLaneards and inscriptions, all \\ th the same theme: before Hezbollah, there was noth ing but humiliation. "From 1948 until the invasion of Lebanon, in 1982, the Israeli enemy imposed on Lebanon and the re gion only one choice," oneof the placards said. "Surrender, defeat, and subjugation." Hezbollah, thesignwent on,"announced the birth ofa different course:Resistance." In 2000, the last Israeli troops withdrew from southern Lebanon.Dani went back to hisvillage, which his relatives had fled. "I was the first one from my family to enter our village," he said.

Nasrallah gave a speech in the Hez bollah stronghold of Bint Jbeil that was triumphant and anti-Zioni st, if not overtly anti-Semitic. 'We must acknowl edge the grace of the fighting, the resist ing and the sacrificing of the people who left their homes, families, and universities," he said.With the Israeli withdrawal, Nasrallah became a hero in Lebanon and throughout the Arab world. "Nasrallah's legitimacy in the Shiite community isal most unquestioned," Salem, of the Carn egie Middle East Center, told me. "He is one of those historic figures, like Nasser in Egypt,whose identity merges \· th the people.He's a messiah figure."

When I asked Dani what Iran and Syria were doing in Lebanon, he went quiet; the subject is taboo in publicand in the press.He would say only, "Assad is our friend; we don't deny that. Ifhe goes down, it's bad for us." On the Syrian civil 'var, Dani held to the Hezbollah line: it 'vas true that Bashar didn't treat his peo plewell 'We recognize this," he said but the real trouble in Syria'vas caused by Western nations that were backing the rebels in order to take pressure off Israel. Yet the prospect of a Sunni majority, even a fundamentalist regime, coming to power in Syria 'vassoalarming that at one point Dani seemed to be siding with Is rael. "You wait and see," Dani told me. "You're going to have Salafists in Syria at-

52 THE NEW YOf\llf:R.FEBRUARY 25, 200

racking the Golan Heights.What areyou going to do then?"

It was clear that Hezbollah's leaders had concluded that any change in Syria was almost certain to wash across the border, and that theywere getting ready. "'fthe Sunnis take over Syria,"Dani told me, "we're going to be fighting them in Beirut."

o better understand the link between Hezbollah and Syria,Ipaid a

dinnersit to the Beirut home ofWalid Joumblatt, the leader of a

tiny religious group, the Druze, and perhaps Leba non'smost nimble and

sophisticated pol itician. Joumblatt is an unprepossessing man-with a bald

head, weary eyes, and a tiny mustache, he looks likealatter-day

Edgar Allan Poe. But,withhis smallbloc of parliamentru.y seats, he has spent his career mo ng from one

faction to an other, making and breaking Lebanese

govemments,Vve dined on 'asscifeer, roasted larks

so small that you don't need to remove the bones, and Joumblatt reached frequently for a decanter of sake. His dining room was filled with books; on a side table sat a copy of "Description of Egypt," Napo leon's attempt to catalogue Egypt's arche ological history.Oscar,Joumblatt's Shar Pei, was underfoot , "My best friend," he said.

As Joumblatt told it, the Syrians had destroyed his family, and afflicted his country for decades. The Syrian Army first rolled across the border in 1976, in theearly parr of the Lebanese civilwar, on the pretext of restoring order. But,as the civil war continued, the troops remained. Led by Hafezal-Assad, and then his son, Bashar,the Syrians dominated Lebanon's society and its economy, extracting bil lions of dollars in tithes, bribes, and drug money. The Assads intervened regularly in Lebanon'sdemocraticpolitical system, often calling on local proxies to carry out

assassinations.Joumblatt's father 'vas the first.InMarch of1977, KamalJoumblatt, then the leader of the Druze, was shot dead as he was driving home. His militia had been resisting the Syrian troops, and the suspicion has al\vays been that Hafez al-Assad ordered the killing.

Walid, then twenty-seven, took over as leader and, barely a month later, found himself sitting next to Assad. "I still had some hair-I was not yet bald-and Hafez looked at me and said, 'How strange, you look like your father,'"Joum blatt told me. "I was hiding my anger. I had to do it for the sake of my commu nity.I had no choice but to fix up a pact with the devil. SoI shook hands with this man. I looked at him. And he did not move--he was knovvn not to move, like a pharaoh ."Joumblatt sighed."Lebanon is not an independent country.We have the sea,we have Israel, and we have Syria."

In the nineteen-eighties, Syria's rela tionship \\ th Hezbollah was strained, and sometimes devolved into street fighting.But when the civil war ended, in 1990, Hafez al-Assad decided to allow Hezbollah to carry on its fight against the Israelis and to use thegroup as alocal ally. For Hezbollah, an alliance, th the Syri ans meant that it could go on building its military ' thout interference from the Lebanese government.

Over the years, growi ng numbers of Lebanese came to regard the Syrians as overbearing and exploitative--an inland relative bullying and mooching off a smaller, more sophisticated cousin . Around 2000, Rafik Hariri, a two-time Lebanese Prime Minister and a charis matic businessman with ties to the Saudi royal family, bega n trying to pull the country out of Syria's orbit. In August, 2004, Hariri sited Damascus, where Bashar al-Assad warned him that his efforts were putting him in grave dan ger. "V.fe will break Lebanon," Bashar said.When Hariri retumed to Lebanon,



according to Joumblatt, who was a close friend of his, "he said, 'Either Bashar is going to kill me or he is going to kill you.' Hevro.s resigned to fatalism. God decides. And it happened." On February 14,2005, Hariri was driving along the Corniche,Beirut's spectacular coastal drive, when a suicide truck bomber crashed into his mo torcade.He and twenty-two others were killed.

For Assad, the murder ofHariri ap

peared to be a routine act of political rna nipulation.But, instead of quashing Leb anese desires for independence, thekilling intensiiied them. Hundreds of thousands of Christians and Sunni Muslims poured into dovmtovvn Beirut to demand an end to the Syrian occupation. (Across tovvn, Hezbollah staged enormous rallies ofShi ites calling for the Syrians to stay.) In April of2005, as outrage overthe assassi nation gre-.v-and as pressure mounted from the United States and the United Nations-Syrian troops departed, ending the occupation after twenty-nine years . "The Syrians came in on the blood of KamalJoumblatt and left on the blood of Rafik Hariri,"Joumblatt said.

Hezbollah, vvith its protector gone, was forced to make an uncomfortable move: itgot into government.The grouph.1.d been fielding candidates for parlia ment since 1992,but only reluctantly, as members insisted that their first duty was to confront Israel. Hezbollah's parlia mentarians have learned to play poli tics-NasralL'lh has dropped the sectar ian language of his predecessors and stopped deploying suicide attacks but they still stand apart.In the national assembly, they typically huddle across the floor from their fellow-Shiites in the Amal Party, whose Westernized mem bers talk freely vvith women and drink alcohol. And they do not speak with out permission from their leaders. (None were vvilling to cooperate vvith tills article.)

After the assassination ofHariri, Leb anon split into two camps: an anti-Syrian faction led by Hariri'sson, Saad; and a col lection of pro-Syrian groups, including Hezbollah. The anti-Syrian faction has taken an increasingly aggressive position toward Hezbollah, demanding that the group give up its weapons and become an ordinary political parry.Hezbollah has re sisted, sometimes violently.The result has been near-perpetual crisis. In 2008, the

Lebanese government, led by the Hariri bloc, voted to outlaw He-. ;bollah's private communications network.

Within hours, Hezbollah gunmen fanned out across western Beirut,

precipitating clashes with Christians and Sunnis that left scores dead.As

the violence raised fears of out right sectarian war, Hezbollah and its al

lies stn1ck a deal that gave them fargreater representation in the government."Hez bollah is in

government to make sure there is no decision to take away their arms,"

Alain Aoun, a member of the Lebanese parliament and a coalition

partner ofHe zbollah, said.'This is their main concern." The Hariri

assassination continues to haunt Hezbollah. Both the Bush and the

Obama Administrations believe that Assad was deeply involved, and that he used Hezbollah to help. In 2005, Leba non detained theheads of four

ofits secu rity agencies-regarded as Syria's close al lies-for their alleged

involvement; they were held for nearly four years and re leased.Then,

inJune of2011, a tribunal backed by the U.N. indicted four mem bers of

Hezbollah.According to the indictment, the Hezbollah operatives

served as spotters as Hariri's car drove along the Corniche. Investigators were evidently led to the men because one of them made a cell-phone call to his

girlfriend during thestakeout.

Hezbollah insists that the tribunal is biased and invalid. In 2011,

,vith Hariri's anti-Syrian fac tion in control of the govern ment, Hezbollah demanded a meeting to

discuss the investi gation. When Hariri refused,

Hezbollah and its allies in the cabinet orchestrated the col lapse of the government. "They vanted a government that was not against them on tills issue," Aoun said. Mter

months of negotiation, Hezbollah's bloc,

which already had a large number of par liamentary seats, controlled a m ority of the cabinet; Hezbollah members were charged ,.vith overseeing the agriculture ministry and the reform of the Lebanese bureaucracy .

Dani told me, "The only reasonwe get into politics is because we have to. But we hate politics-we hate it." And yet Hez bollah has found itself charged with such mundane duties as delivering electricity and collecting garbage. "Running a gov-

ernment is not their primary concern," Mohamad Chatah, a senior member of Hariri's party and a former ambassador to the United States, said. "Obviously, their stature comes primarily from the battlefield and their hostility to Israel, but their success in doing other things adds to their support, and they have been gener ally good at doing other stuff. But you have to remember that Lebanese stan dards are not very high."

Hezbollah's emergence as a force inLebanese politics has put the Obama Ad ministration in a difficult spot. Since 1997, the United States government has deemed Hezbollah a terrorist organiza tion, and thus offlimits to American dip lomats. In January of 2011, a new Prime Minister, Najib Mikati,who has Hezbol lahmembers inhis government but is not affiliated with the group, took office. Officials with the Obama Administration have met with him but not with ills Hez bollah partners.

As Hezbollah solidifies its official power, anxiety over assassination still

per meates Lebanon's political class.In April, Samir Geagea, the leader of a Christian party known as Lebanese

Forces, nar rowly survived a sniper attack while stroll ing outside his

house.No one could prove anything, of course, but many people I talked to

assumed that He-Lbollah agents, working with Syrians, carried out the

at tack. In October, GeneralWissam al-Hassan, a senior intelligence official and an ally of theUnited States,was killed by a car bomb in Beirut. Has san had led the investigation into Hezbollah's role in Hari ri's killing, and had recent!y ordered the arrest of a pro-Syrian politician named Michel Sa maha, for trying to smuggle ex plosives into Lebanon at the behest of Syrian intelligence.

'We thlnk Hezbollah did the killing," an Israeli official told me.'They are the only ones with the motive and the technical sophistication."

When I pressedJoumblatt about who might be carrying out the assassinations, he gave me aweary look. "Look,I am not now, morally speaking, someone who is entitled to give lessons," he said. After his father's murder, he became one of the most ruthless commanders in Leba non's civil war, presiding over shelling in

THE Nf.W YOI\.1\ER . FEBIVJARY 25,2013 53



-WI',

"Let's notforget who wears theplumage in thisfomily."

•

Hezbollah fighters were able to build bunkers such as the one Ivisited in Wadi Nairn has never been fully e.xplained. "Hezbollah will not surprise us again;' Ehud Barak, Israel's Defense Minister, has said.

For Nasrallah, the war was both a vic tory and a catastrophe. Shortly after a ceasefire was arranged, he said that he would never have ordered the initial oper ation had he known that itwould lead to war "absolutely not." He was nearly killed himsel£ Halutz told me that Israel had nvice sent jets to attack bunkers where Nasrallah was thought to be hid ing."Thefirst time,we had the right place bur he was very deep underground," he said."The second time, he wasrit there. The third time, we won't miss."

But when the war was over Nasral lah's status was higher than ever. Israeli soldiers returned from the front lines stunned by the prowess of the Hezbollah fighters, who were sometimes equipped

Beirut and sectarian killings."Iwas awar lord.l\1ypeople committed crimes, under my command, sometimes obeying orders, sometimes not obeying orders.Because it was a civil ,var.War is horrible, but civil war is something worse.I am also some one who has a black past."

Now, Joumblatt told me, he, too, was worried about his safety.But, despite hav ing lost his father and his friend Hariri to assassination, he wasn't doing much to protect himself. "I have some guards here," he said."But these people-they have the technology to kill you even inside your own home."

A t Wadi Nairn, three miles from the

.r\.Israeli border, avast Hezbollah bunker complex is hidden in a valley wall,camouflaged by limestone and bush. It's invisible from the road, two hundred feet below, invisible from the air, invisible even to the visitor standing on top of it. The only way to find it is by using aG.P.S. programmed with the precise coordinates.Under a foot of dirt and rub ble is a trap door, and a ladder leading dovm to the main tunnel. Inside, the only sign of lifewas a colony ofblack bats, dan gling silently from the ceiling. Startled by my entry, tl1ey dropped down, then glided up the shaft tmvard the light.

Underneath the limestone, the bunker is supported by walls of reinforced steel. There was a kitchen, a bathroom, and

54- THE NEW YOf\llf:R.FEBRUARY 25, 200

space for twenty people to sleep. Stand ing inside, a hundred feet underground, it was not difficult to imagine a group of Hezbollah fighters sitting out a bom bardment for days, even weeks, the Israe lis unaware of their location or unable to penetrate it.

In July of2006, Nasrallah ordered his men to stage an attack inside Israel. They captured a pair of soldiers, and, for the next thirty-four days, the Israel Defense Forces mounted an enormous response. Israel killed scores of Hezbollah's men and destroyed its headquarters and its supply nehvork. The attacks killed as many as twelve hundred Lebanese civil ians, flattened entire blocks of southern Beirut, and destroyed many of the roads, bridges, and public buildings in southern Lebanon.

Yet Hezbollah mounted a fierce resis tance, from bunkers like the one inVVadi Nairn, where fighters emerged to attack withwire-guided missilesand quickly ran back inside.At the same time, thousands of Hezbollah rockets rained down on Is rael from batter ies hidden in forests, fortified garages, and even people's homes. The result was a bloody draw--a revelat ion to the Israeli Army, accus tomed to dominating wherever it fights. General Dan Halutz, the I.D.F.'schief of staff, resigned during an investigation that identified "grave failings" in hisgen erals' prosecution of the war.Just how

vvith night-vision goggles and sophisti cated eavesdropping equipment , On the first night of the conflict, a Hezbollah missile struck an Israeli destroyer off the coast. Hezbollah fighters destroyed Merkava tanks and killed a hundred and h'Venty-one Israeli soldiers. "This was a strategic, historic victory, without exaggerat ion," Nasrallah said in a tele vised speech. "We emerged victorious, where Arab arrnies had previously been defeated."

Another thing that helped take the sting out of the Israeli assaults was Ira nian money. At extraordinary expense, south Beirut and southern Lebanon were rebuilt; it is difficult these days to find a building that shows damage from the war. According to a Lebanese security official, the reconstruction was financed largely by Iran, which bypassed theLeb anese government. In the months after the ceasefire, Hezbollah trucks pulled into devastated neighborhoods and handed out Iranian money to Lebanese who'd lost property and kin.The security official said that the Iranians poured be tween two and three billion dollars into the country; the money was transported by air to Syria, he said, and then "they brought American dollars on trucks from Damascus."

As Idrove through southern Lebanonwith Dani, he pointed to freshly paved roads and newly built hospitals. "Iranpaid



for all of this;' he said. "If we had been forced to rely on the Lebanese govern ment, this area would still be in ruins." Iranian money is the crucial means by which Hezbollah militants have ce mented support in the Shiite community. In southern Beirut, I met a man who identified himself as Ahmed Shah, a shop owner and father of tvro who lived a few blocks from Hezbollah's headquarters . For fifteen days in 2006, Shah and his family rode out the Israeli bombardment, feeling the building shake day and night, until they finally decided like hundreds of thousands of other Lebanese--to flee. Shah moved his family to an apartment on the Christian side of the city, which the Israelis spared. VVhen he returned, three weeks later, he found his neighbor hood demolished. "A missile cut my building in half," he said.

Shah was seated at a picnic table, drinking tea Vl th friends. Behind him was his rebuilt apartment, paid for al most entirely by Hezbollah.The day the war ended, Shah said, Hezbollah men began walking through the neighbor hood, surveying thewreckage and hand ing out cash.A few days later, Shah met a group of Hezbollah administrators, who laid down the terms: at a cost of forty thousand dollars, they would re bu ild his apartment, and they would give him five hundred dollars a month to rent an apartment for the next year and a half. The Her, ;bollah administra tors gave Shah ten thousand dollars more to furnish the nev1 place. Shah figured that the Lebanese government paid for perhaps a quarter of the recon struction, but even that money was dis tributed by Her.lbollah .

"Everyone supports Her.lbollah here- it is theonly government we have;' Shah said, as his friends at the table nodded . 'We don't mind that the Iranians are paying for everything."I asked Shah if his allegiance to Hezbollah wasn't cost ing him his neighborhood. Hezbollah started the war, after all. He shrugged."It happened i n 1982, 1985, 1994,1996, 2000, and 2006," he said. "Every few years, this neighborhood is de stroyed, usually by Israel." His friendsnodded again . "It's about that time

aga.m."In late January, the Israelis struck

a convoy in Syria that they said was carry ing anti-aircraft missiles to Hezbollah-

missiles that could make it more difficult for Israeli aircraft to fly unhindered over Lebanon. Shortly after that, a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was killed as he crossed the border into Lebanon; no one claimed responsi bility, but Hezbollah accused Israel.Both Hezbollah and Israelare preparing for the next war--and it prom isesto be far more devastating than the previous one. In 2006, Hezbollah fired an estimated four thousand rockets and missiles into Israel. This time, according to American officials, Hezbollah'sarsenal stands closer to fifty thousand projectiles, many of which have ranges long enough to strike every major city in Israel. The longer ranges have allowed Hezbollah to dis perse its missiles across the country--all but insuring th at an Israeli response would destroy areas far outside southern Lebanon.

Israelis expect that anywar th Hez bollah is likely to be short. Foreign lead ers, from theUnited States and elsewhere, will try to bring fighting to a quick end, which gives both sides an incentive to inflict as much damage as possible before a ceasefire. In Lebanon, I was told re peatedly that Hezbollah could be drawn into war iflsrael attacked Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities.Last year, Nasralla h threatened that, if Israel struck Iran , American targets would be attacked."A decision has been taken to respond, and the response 11be very great," he said in a television interview."American bases in the whole region could be Iranian tar gets....If Israel targets Iran, America bears responsibility."

If Hezbollah joined in such attacks, it would be catastrophic for the state of Lebanon. After the 2006 war, Israel an nounced the Dahiya Doctrine, which an Israeli official explained as "Lebanon is Hezbollah and Hezbollah is Lebanon. Hezbollah shoots at us and we go towar against Lebanon." Some Lebanese be lieve that Hezbollah is ultimately more loyal to the Ayatollah than to its home country. "It's the third time in history that the Persians have been on the shores of the 1vlediterranean," Joumblatt said. "You have a community dominated by Hezbollah, well entrenched in Lebanon, vith a formidable arsenal, and supplies and ammunition and money that are huge. You have to sit and talk 'vith them, but what do you say? They don't decide.

It's Khamenei and Ghassem Soleimani who decide," he said, referring to the Su preme Leader and a powerful Iranian official in the Revolutionary Guard."It's beyond Lebanon."

Halutz, the Israeli commander, be lieves that Hezbollah's leaders would not necessarily respond if israel attacked Iran. "They will wait and see the first results," he said. "If their partners are not success ful, then they ll not join .They ,viJl notbet on a losing horse."VVhen I asked Daniabout this, he said his leaders assumed that they didn't have to waste time won dering whether theywould fight on Iran's behalf. "If the Israelis attack Iran, then they 'vill attack us, too," he said.

Even if there is no war, Hezbollah could lose its main link to Iran if the Assad regime falls. Nearly all ofHez bollah's war-making material-m is siles, money, and ammunition-travels through Syria. The group is already scrambling to find new supply lines.Still, the Lebanese security officialsaid that los ing Assad would be a grave blow."Right now, Hezbollah has enough missiles for one more war--a big war--but then all their weapons are gone," he said."\-\Then that happens, if Assad is gone, then life\vill bevel}' hard for Hezbollah. They\\have to change.They\vill have to moder ate their behavior. They \vill have to put away their dreams."

n the opaque world of Lebanese poli tics, one path to understanding lies

in the study of Hassan N asrallah's face. VVhen he vvas younger, Nasrallah gave off the hard stare of a soldier sure

of his aim. As Hezbollah grew, his features softened; he donned \vire-

rimmed glasses and his beard turned gray, giving him the aspect of a

slightly mischievous shopkeeper. Since thewar in 2006, Nasrallah has

lived almost entirely indoors, often in concrete bunkers, venturing out rarely,

lest the Israelis try to kill him.

In October, Nasrallah appeared on Lebanese television, and the uprising in Syria seemed to have changed his face again.Itwas rounder, puffier, paler--the face of a man who is not only hunted but alone. Seated in front of a bright-blue background, hewore fashionable glasses, a trimmed beard, and the black turban that indicates presumed descent from the Holy Prophet. He started by talking about a pilotless drone that Hezbollah

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had sent over Israel. The drone, designed by Iran and assembled by Hezbollah technicians, had made it nearly to Di mona, a city in southern Israel that is believed to contain that country's nuclear facilities, before itwas shot down.Nasral lah broke into a smile. The Israelis, he said, were "perplexed" by Hezbollah's ability to carry off such a sophisticated stunt. "The Lebanese should be proud that they have young men with such brains!" he said.For a moment, Nasrallah seemed his old self Then his smile van ished,and he said he"vanted to talk about reports in the Lebanese press that Hez bollah men were fighting in support of Assad.

The issue ofHezbollah's role inside Syria raises fundamental questions about its identity and purpose.Is it really a "re sistance" organization, dedicated only to fighting Israel? American and Lebanese officials say thatHezbollah fighters are in deed helping the Assad regime in Syria, mainly by advising Syrian fighters.The Hezbollah operatives are working close to the front lines and may be fighting them selves, the American official said. (He added that Iran prefers Hezbollah agents because they speak Arabic, as do the Syr ian fighters.) Most Lebanese I talked to took it forgranted that Hezbollah opera-

rives were helping prop up Assad,for ob vious reasons of self-interest.

Sidingwith theAssad government has already left Nasrallah alone in the Arab world.In2011, an American official told me, he went to Damascus to try to per suade Khaled Meshal, the leader of Hamas, to support the Syrian regime. Hamas had been an ally of Assad's and, like Hezbollah, the recipient of extensive support from Syria and Iran. According to the official, who had knowledge of the meeting, Nasrallah reminded Meshal of their obligation to the Iranian govern ment and pressed him to back Assad. Meshal refused, and shortly thereafter broke publicly with Syria.

In Nasrallah's televised speech, he mentioned Lebanese news reports ofsecret Hezbollah funerals for fighters killed there; he spoke of one report saying that seventy-five ofhis fighters had been killed in a Syrian village called Ribleh. And he mentioned the Free Syrian Army's claim that a Hezbollah commander had been killed inside Syria. Nasrallah spoke glow ingly of the dead: "Dear, chaste holy mar tyrs!" Then he denied it all. The reports were cooked up by enemies, he said.A number of Hezbollah fighters had been killed, but they were actually Lebanese along the Syrian border, who had come

under unprovoked attacks from the reb els. "This has nothing to do with fighting alongside the government;' he said."TT:Us is truly what took place."

The explanation seemed tortured, even ridiculous, but Nasrallah went on, his eyes narrmving and his mouth tight ening. He said that the Lebanese govern ment would not know how to protect its citizens."\Vhat shall we do?" he said. "0 our state, our government, our Lebanese parties, our political leaders, and our po litical and religious authorities!" By the time he brought his speech to an end, every trace of his boyish charm had departed . "Finally, I will say, Let no one bully us. Let no one try us."

fewdays later, Idrove to the tovmof Arsal, on the Syrianborder.AsI ap proached, the civil war came into

full vie\'.r: a fight was on for possession of a border post held by

the Syrian govern ment.A Syrian gunship circled overhead .

Explosions thundered in the distance.

The Masharia mosque, a half mile in side Lebanon, had Hezbollah flags flying, and an ambulance parked outside. Syrian refugees in Arsal told me that Hezbollah members were making regular trips across the border."They pick up their wounded and bring them back here;' one refugee, who was camped nearby \\ th his family, told me.

Not far from the scene of the battle, I met a mid-level commander in the Free Syrian Army, whose nom de guerre is Abu Bakr. He looked exhausted from months of fighting inside Syria, but his beard was neatly trimmed.Over coffee at his home inArsal, Abu Bakr told methat he was a Lebanese Sunni not a Syrian citizen.Hewas fighting out of solidarity\vith his fellow-Sunnis, who were resist ing the Assad regime across the border. He said he felt confident that the rebels would prevail, but that the fighting he'd been in was horrendous."They are being slaughtered," he said of the rebels.

Abu Bakr understood Hezbollah op eratives to be playing a significant role in helping the Assad regime, especially in training the shabiha, Assad's brutal mili tia. He said that he had interrogated Hez bollah prisoners who were captured in side Syria, and that he had regularly tracked fighters as they crossed from Leb anon.A week before we spoke, comrades


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bollah convoy was heading to the border. As soon as the convoy crossed into Syria, Abu Bakr and his men struck. 'We killed nine Hezbollah fighters," he said.

The decision to wait until the convoy had entered Syria was an obvious one, Abu Bakr said. The fear of all Lebanese living along the border isthat the war in Syria will spill over. So far, he said, it has not, but, the longer the war goes on, the greater the chances that itwill."Wehope thiswill not happen, but everyone iswor ried about it;' he said.

n a recent Friday morning in Sidon, a crowd of three thousand

Sunnis gathered at the Bilal bin Rabah mosque. They had come to hear

Sheikh Ahmed al-Assir, one of the country's best-known Sunni preachers.

Sidon is a Sunni-major itycity in a region dominated by Hezbol lah.In

recent months, as the Syrian civil war has taken on a sectarian character, Sunni-Shiite tensionshave risen in Sidon, and Assir's sermons have

become in flamed.He is a striking figure: tall and thin,with an enormous

wiry beard, which he sometimes sets off with black wrap

around sunglasses.Assir began by telling his

listeners what was happening to Sunnis in Syria. "Just watch your television," he said . "Children are being killed, mothers are crying, destruction is everywhere. Our people and our mosques are being de stroyed in Syria.

'We should sympathize with the Syr ian revolt on the basis of our religion," Assir said."For forty years, the Sunnis in Syria have been stepped on and humili ated.Ask yourself \Nhat am I doing?We are asking you to support the Muslims of Syria." Assir moved to a more delicate subject. "You know, Hassan Nasrallah says he is not involved in Syria," he told the crowd. "And he is a liar! They rape women. They are slaughtering our chil dren." Hezbollah's attempts to hide its role in Syriawere preposterous, Assir said. "It is too big."

Assir ended his sermon by turning toLebanon. The struggle engulfing Syria was coming home, he said; the Sunnis of Lebanon have been oppressed no less than the Sunnis of Syria. Already,

Assir said, Shiites under Hezbollah's leadership have persecuted the Sunnis

of Sidon, de priving them of municipal services and jobs, turning their

neighborhoods into

garbage dumps, attacking them and kill ing them without provocation. As the Sunnis rose against Assad, Assir said, so they will rise against Hezbollah . "\Nho has enslaved us in Lebanon for years? Who has been blackmailing us? Who killed Rafi.k Hariri?" he asked. "Thesame criminal!"

Since the civil war ended, in 1990, the Lebanese political system has relied on an exquisite balance among the main groups, and on a measure of self-re straint on the part of each. Hezbollah, with the help of its Iranian and Syrian benefactors, has pushed and sometimes broken the limits of the Lebanese sys tem. The question for the future may be whether He?.bollah can restrain itself if it is threatened with a diminishment of its power.

The situation could come to a headduring parliamentary elections in June, and many Lebanese predict that voters will return Saad Hariri's anti-Syrian group to power. "If they win, and the Assad government is gone, then I imag ine they will try to disarm Hezbollah," Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Lebanese writer close to Hezbollah's leaders, said. "Hez bollah would be forced to defend itself."\IVhen I asked Dani what the conse quences might be, he didn't hesitate: "There would be civilwar."

In the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, sectarian violence has

broken out between Sunnis and an enclave of Alawi tes, killing dozens

of people, but the fighting has not spread. For the moment, Joumblatt told

me, a civil war isnot likely, if only because Hezbollah is too strongto be

clu1.1lenged."Itwould be suicidal to go to war with Hezbollah," he

said.Joumb latt believes that Hezbollah will one day transform

itself entirely into a political party, but not anytime soon. ''The calcu

lation is that, once Bashar is gone, then Hezbollah will be weakened.

But I don't see it. They might be weakened, but, at the same time, they

are still here, withtheir fifty thousand missiles. It took theBritish twenty years to persuade theI.R.A. to decommission its weapons.Here I think it will take centuries."

Still, there are signs that Hezbollah, squeezed by thewar in Syria, isbeginning to cede some power. After join ing the government, in 2011, Hezbollah deputies consented to fund the U.N. tribunal in vestigating Hariri's murder-the same

tribunal that had indicted Hezbollah's operatives. Hezbollah has stood by while the new Prime Minister cultivated a rela tionship with the United States. The group has shovm remarkable flexibility in negotiations over the drafting of a new electoral law, which could transform the composition of the Lebanese parliament. And, in September, Nasrallah agreed for the first time to allow the Lebanese Army to enter southern Beirut to restore order. ''Domestically, they are being very com pliant;'Basem Shabb, a Christian mem ber of parliament,said. "He-Lbollah's ab solute dom ination of Lebanon is not what it used to be. And it vvill only get harder."

ani got out of his car and lookedacross the border into Israel.

The line benveen Lebanon and Israel is among the most surreal international boundaries in theworld.The implacabil ityof the dispute is sutpassed only by each country's need for space. And so, in place of rows of barbed wire and minefields, there is a single chain-link fence on the Israeli side and an occasional cementwall on the Lebanese. From where Dani stood, the Israeli soldiers were close enough to talk to. Israeli homes are a hundred yards away. A long paved road runs along the length of the border, con necting a row of villages. One of them is the village that Dani fled as a young man in 1982, when the Israeli Army swept across the border.

Dani and I watched the Israeli soldiers on the other side; one of them, shirtless, was climbing a ladder to fix a break in the fence. On our side,agroup of U.N. peace keepers from Fiji posed for pictures. A scrawlof graffiti paid tribute to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister: "Bibi We Love You."

"My father used to cross right here," Dani said.

I asked Dani ifHe-Lbollah's dream of pushing Israel into the sea wasn't dead, or waning fast. He shook his head.Hezbol lah, I reminded him, was now governing Lebanon. Itwas evolving into something other than an armed group dedicated to destroying Israel. The Assad regime was collapsing, along with Hezbollah's supply lines. Perhaps, I suggested, Hezbollah's moment had passed. Dani's eyes stayedfixed on Israel. "Next time, we're goingacross," he said. +

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