LEBANON--Hezbollah Coalition
From AICbackground
The “Hezbollah Coalition” is a loose alliance of militias, political parties and social movements dedicated to overthrowing the current government of Lebanon--the so-called “March 14th Coalition”—a coalition of Druze and Sunni political parties. The opponents of this government have rallied around Hezbollah, but include along a fair number of Maronite Christians and most of Lebanon’s Syrian guest workers; this opposition bloc easily accounts for 40-50% of the population of Lebanon. The major factions in the Hezbollah alliance include:
Hezbollah: The “Party of God,” a Shiite political movement supported by Iran and Syria which uses its significant funds to support the impoverished Shiites of southern Lebanon, running their territory as a virtually independent country. Their elite armed wing survived a 2006 confrontation with Israel, emerging as the most popular Islamic movement in the entire Middle East. Their leader, Sheykh Hassan Nasrallah, can bring over a million people into the streets for his rallies, proving that the Shiites have become the most numerous religious sect in Lebanon.
The Free Patriotic Movement: The political party of Maronite general Michel Aoun, who returned from exile in 2005 and quickly became a force in parliament, reenergizing the Maronite community, whose political power had ebbed under the 1990-2005 Syrian Occupation. Aoun allied with Hezbollah in February 2006 to protest the corruption of the March 14th Coalition, which includes a number of Aoun’s personal enemies.
Amal: Amal, the largest Shi'ite Muslim militia in Lebanon, became prominent during the Lebanese Civil War of the 1970s and 1980s. Amal did battle with (largely Sunni Muslim) Palestinian militias based in the refugee camps around Beirut and Tyre. Amal fighters also resisted the "security zone" seized by Israel in southern Lebanon in the early 1980's, up until the Israeli withdrawal in 2000. Though Amal and Hezbollah are both Shi'ite and have been allies in many situations, Amal has been much more suspicious of Iran than has Hezbollah, and Amal's closer alliance with Syria damaged its standing in the wake of the assassination of Rafik Hariri in 2005, an action widely believed to have been Syria's doing.
Goals:
--All three groups want to bring down the current government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. Nasrallah and Hezbollah want to increase Shiite participation in the government, while Michel Aoun wants to remove corrupt officials from power and increase the influence of his own faction. Since December 2006, Nasrallah and Aoun have held massive protests in Beirut, threatening to bring down the government if Siniora does not leave peacefully.
--Nasrallah: You want to increase the overall influence of your mentors, Iran and Syria. This means finding ways to secure more Iranian equipment, gather better intelligence for Tehran, and generally make Hezbollah a greater threat to Israel, which will in turn deter the USA from attacking Iran. This means gaining more influence in government and reducing your enemies’ ability to challenge your policies. You want to increase Hezbollah participation in government to the point where you can veto any proposal which would curtail Hezbollah’s power or influence.
--Aoun: You want to build a wide network of allies across all sects, which will help you strengthen the Maronite community. You will support Hezbollah as long as you think their friendship empowers the Maronites (and your sub-group in particular). You are maneuvering to become the next President of Lebanon, so you want as many allies as possible, which means filling parliament with your supporters.
--Salloukh: You hope to increase your power, and that of Amal, as you ride the wave of Nasrallah's ascendant strength and the recent revision of the power-sharing agreement that gave greater influence to Lebanon's Shi'ite community. Hezbollah is the public face of Shi'ite power in Lebanon, which brings a great deal of influence, but also makes Hezbollah and Sheikh Nasrallah something of a target for the western powers. By playing the political game well, you can increase your influence, possibly acting as a bridge between Hezbollah and the March 14th Coalition.
Challenges:
--The greatest challenge facing this group is the fact that their three representatives have very different motivations, and come from very different groups. As a team, you will find that your personalities, if you play them correctly, will disagree on several key issues:
--Nasrallah: You represent a very powerful and popular movement which is considered a terrorist entity by much of the western world. Great Britain and the United States will not deal with you, and France, the UN and the EU will deal with you only indirectly. Israel will kill you if it gets the chance. You have effectively gained control of southern Lebanon and made yourself a contender for power on the national scale: your challenge now is to transform your movement into a productive political actor, capable of bridging gaps with Lebanon’s other religious communities, unless you want to be responsible for a new civil war.
--Aoun: By allying with Hezbollah you have alienated many of your own former supporters in the Maronite community. You must prove your critics wrong and show that your new alliance is for the good of all Lebanon: this means you will be responsible for reining in Hezbollah’s zeal if tensions rise too high. Likewise, you are allied with groups who want to reassert Syrian and Iranian influence over Lebanese affairs; you have spent your life fighting Syria, and thus you must either abandon your principles completely or force your new allies to become less dependent on foreign backing.
--Salloukh: Representing a small and rather inconsequential country in the Middle East, your ability to directly influence events is limited. However, with the help of others, you can certainly stir things up and potentially even incite destabilizing forces around the region which may keep Israel and their US lackeys off balance. You have little faith in the capacity of Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Jordan (the latter two of whom you consider "sell-outs" for signing peace deals with Israel in the past) to bring about any real change in the region. No, real change will come from Hezbollah/Amal and Hamas and their backers, Syria and Iran. You also see some hope in courting Russia's help in the form of money, arms and their important veto vote as a permanent member of the UN's Security Council.
