My Interview with Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah (leader of Hizbullah in Lebanon) (June 2004)
I began by asking a long question about the position of the party toward Iraq. I expressed my puzzlement at the very vague and ambiguous position of the party vis-à-vis developments in Iraq, where it is not known whether it supports or opposes resistance, whether it accepted or rejected the now defunct puppet governing council. I mentioned that the party’s relations (friendship) with the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (which was represented in the puppet council) add to the confusion, and wondered how the party feels toward Ayatollah Sistani. I ended my question by asking, what can be translated as “What is the matter”? Nasrallah, laughed, and said: “The matter is…” He then paused and said: “Recently, somebody mentioned your name. And I said: Dr. As`ad has an American style. We Arabs begin an interview or a meeting with 30 minutes inquiries about health and family, while Dr. As`ad begins immediately with a 3-part question.” He then explained to me the party’s position. In sum: the party is not far off from the position of Ayatollah Sistani without being opposed to Muqtada As-Sadr either, although I got the impression that Party of God people do not find As-Sadr to be politically mature. He expressed strong fears and concerns about elements of the resistance in Iraq. He said that he cannot be expected to support a resistance (as Arab masses expect him to do) that does not announce itself to the world, and that does not have a declared agenda. He then talked extensively about the Wahhabi network very active in Iraq, and that it has a strong sectarian agenda. (I found that many Arabs do not believe that there is a Wahhabi network in Iraq, and think that this was invented by the Americans for propaganda reasons—I even read that in the comments’ section of this site). Nasrallah believes that Saddam’s Ba`thists and even Wahhabis are willing to negotiate with the Americans all in order to prevent a rise in Shi`ite power. The Party seemed very concerned about the Wahhabi fanatical network and believes that the network will strike at Shi`ite targets in the Arab world, outside of Iraq, very soon. I asked Nasrallah why he does not talk about the Wahhabi fanatical network publicly. He said that he cannot do that because it will inflame Sunni-Shi`ite tensions or even conflicts. I got the impression that Hizbullah believes that Iraqis should chart their own course of struggle, without intervention from the outside. He said that Sistani is not a politically active cleric (that “he is not a Khomeini”), and that under the circumstances has conducted himself very well. He said that in fact, Sistani was expected to act less critically of the US occupation, and told me of the principled rejection by Sistani of meetings with any American official since the beginning of the occupation. Nasrallah also rejected the notion that Sistani is a coward; a belief often expressed in Arab media and public. He also talked about the depth of Shi`ite suffering under Saddam, and that families are discovering that many of their members, whom they had long assumed were in jail, had been murdered by Saddam’s regime. He told me that probably a million Iraqi Shi`ites were killed in the 1991 uprising (that figure sounds too high, I think). He said that Iraqi Shi`ites have strong fears of Saddam’s people, many of whom are still active. He also strongly condemned the methods of the “resistance” (i.e. car bombings): he said that they seem to be willing to kill 90 Iraqi civilians in order to kill one US soldier. I asked him whether the party’s position was shaped by Iranian or Syrian pressures, and he said no. I was also surprised that the party did not sever ties with the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq; but that it merely expressed disagreements with them regarding their participation in the puppet governing council. I left the interview with the strong feeling that the party is watching developments in Iraq with extreme caution, not out of fear of the Americans, but out of concern for the potential sectarian conflict that may emerge from Iraq. I asked Nasrallah about domestic developments, particularly the very strong showing of the party in the recent municipal elections, where they swept in Biqa`, the southern suburbs, and the South (with the exception of Tyre where Amal won). But the party, in my opinion, is not strong in handling the Lebanese domestic agenda. It does not seem to have fashioned a program for social and economic reform, and benefits a great deal from 1) Nasrallah’s strong popularity and influence; 2) from its role in leading the resistance against Israeli occupation of Lebanon; 3) from the corruption and incompetence of its main Shi`ite rival in Lebanon, the Amal movement. But those factors are transitory and the hedonistic Lebanese society can never reconcile itself to the ultimate religious agenda of Hizbullah. The party seems to be aware of that, and for that reason, it rarely if ever now speaks about an Islamic republic in Lebanon. It also has broadened its alliances, and often runs with communist candidates against the Amal movement. But Hizbullah’s influence may in fact grow if Syria were to pull out of Lebanon, as the Amal movement has very weak support in the country, and benefits greatly from serving as a client of the Syrian government. But the Party, perhaps due to its very close relations with Syria, has been quite inactive in dealing with the deep socio-economic problems caused by pro-Globalization agenda of prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Hizbullah's bloc in parliament does not constitute an impressive force of opposition, despite its size. That is why I believe that the left in Lebanon has a chance to emerge and champion the cause of the poor and the oppressed, but they have been mostly either asleep, or on the payroll of the prime minister. What troubles me most about the Arab left is that they seem to have fatalistically accepted the rise of Islamic fundamentalism as if it is the verdict of providence. I believe, on the other hand, that the rise of Islamic fundamentalism should spur Arab leftists to organize and act in order to present a secular and progressive alternative to movements that ultimately will fail in delivering the solutions to the pressing problems faced by the people. I did not get to interview Anis Naqqash, who was out of the country. I was interested in his analysis of the Iraq situation.