Published 17 Jan 08

Hezbollah's Billion Petrodollars

by Walid Phares, Ph.D.
World Defense Review columnist

A few weeks ago, articles published around the world reported that Hezbollah is undergoing two major changes. Both portend greater violence from the Iranian-sponsored global terrorist network.

The first change is a shift in leadership responsibilities. A report published initially in the Saudi-owned Sharq al Awsat said the office of Ayatollah Khomenei appointed deputy secretary general Sheikh Naim Qassim as the new supreme commander of Hezbollah forces and the personal representative of the Ayatollah in Lebanon. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, according to this report, remains as secretary general of the organization. Sources said this change in control and command is because of "differences in opinions" between Narsrallah and Qassim.

The Hezbollah media arm rushed to deny the veracity of this shift. But observers with direct knowledge of the organization's inside structure said Khamenei indeed ordered changes in Hezbollah's structures, but not because of differences between its leaders. They said it was in preparation for a potential massive move by Hezbollah to seize more power in Lebanon, and before a possible clash with the Lebanese government and the United Nations over the disarmament process.

Sources believe the assassination of Brigadier General Francois Hajj, director of operations in the Lebanese Army, was another preemptive measure ordered by the Pasdaran command in Lebanon. Hajj was slated to become the next commander of the Lebanese Army. The latter was to deploy across Lebanon and eventually begin the collection of weapons. Hence, believe the observers, a Syro-Iranian order was issued to preempt and eliminate a man who could have become the military commander to force Hezbollah to disarm. This would have been compared to the al Qaeda elimination of Masoud Shah in September 2001 just before the 9/11 strikes. Hence, the concerns that the assassination and the reshuffling within the organization may be a prelude to dramatic move by the Iranian funded terror group. Which lead to the other important information revealed by al Sharq al Awsat and published in the leading Lebanese newspaper al Nahar.

The second major change for Hezbollah according to these reports is a huge increase in annual budget funded by Tehran. Hezbollah's funding was elevated from $400 million US to $1 billion. This ballistic leap would enable the organization to crush any opponent inside Lebanon and engage in worldwide operations against Western democracies and Arab moderates. According to experts in Lebanon, the $400 million figure was enough to pay for hundreds of social centers and thousands of salaries, enough to insure a full control over the Shia community, its representatives in Parliament, and to buy significant influence inside the Sunni, Druze and particularly Christian community. One hundred million dollars alone, could pay for the activities of movements opposed to the Cedars Revolution and the democratically elected government of Seniora.

Hezbollah obtained support in the Christian districts and launched media outlets across the country. Another thirty million can put enormous pressures on soldiers and officers of the various sectors of defense and security. In return the government branches and the military have been deprived from solid financial support coming from outside the country. Those who rose against the Syrian occupation were mostly from the deprived and oppressed segments of civil society. And those who dared opposing Hezbollah's domination of the country lacked the basic means of NGOs. The confrontation was totally unbalanced. Iran was pouring 400 million of Petrodollars to roll back the Cedars Revolution while the latter was highly praised overseas but wasn't a recipient of freedom funds.

But if $400 million can buy Hezbollah a magic place under Lebanon's sun, what would a $1 billion do? Observers in Lebanon say: "anything anywhere." Indeed the Moguls of the so-called "resistance" have been able to create alternative TV and radio stations, launch multiple dailies, pay for a nonstop sit-in across downtown Beirut, and more importantly leap to hyper international power. Over the past year the Iranian-funded hydra is said to have hired PR companies from Beirut to major capitals to wage the mother of all war of ideas not just against the vulnerable Cedars Revolution in Lebanon but also in defense of Ahmedinijad's nuclear strategy. Indeed, stories filed out of Tehran can't be credible. But reports and analysis sprayed from dozens of apparently neutral web sites or forwarded from credible journalistic sources can do devastation in the West. And what better launching pad than Beirut, cultural capital of the Arab world, to use? All that the Iranian funded organization has to do is to "double" if not "triple" the income of any person of interest in any sector of choice: media, academia, military, consulting, intelligence, etc., both in Lebanon but also around the world, including if needed in the United States.

One billion dollars spent on Hezbollah in Lebanon can have ripple effects as far as Detroit and Argentina. There is no native force in Lebanon that can match this tidal wave nor even one tenth of it. This is Iran's Petro power deployed on the Eastern Mediterranean not a local social movement building orphanages. A month ago as I was participating in a crossfire program on al Jazeera facing off with a coordinator of Iranian propaganda in the Arab world, I was asked why the US maintains a Navy in the Middle East. "Where are Iran's fleets?" he asked. I replied that the Iranian regime maintains land fleets. "Hezbollah's 30,000 rockets and its millions of dollars are an Iranian fleet," I answered.

— Dr. Walid Phares is Director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington, D.C., and a visiting scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy in Brussels. His most recent books are Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against the West (2006) and The War of Ideas: Terrorist Strategies against the West (2007), both available at www.walidphares.com.
    Dr. Phares holds degrees in law and political science from Saint Joseph University and the Lebanese University in Beirut, a Masters in international law from the Universite de Lyons in France and a Ph.D. in international relations and strategic studies from the University of Miami.
    He has taught and lectured at numerous universities worldwide, practiced law in Beirut, and served as publisher of Sawt el-Mashreq and Mashrek International. He has taught Middle East political issues, ethnic and religious conflict, and comparative politics at Florida Atlantic University until 2006. He has been teaching Jihadi strategies at the National Defense University since 2007.
    Dr. Phares has written eight books on the Middle East and published hundreds of articles in newspapers and scholarly publications such as Global Affairs, Middle East Quarterly, the Journal of South Asian and Middle East Studies and the Journal of International Security. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, BBC, al Jazeera, al Hurra, al Arabiya, as well as on many radio broadcasts.
    Aside from serving on the boards of several national and international think tanks and human rights associations, Dr. Phares has testified before the US Senate Subcommittees on the Middle East and South East Asia, the House Committees on International Relations and Homeland Security and regularly conducts congressional and State Department as well as European Parliament and UN Security Council briefings.

Visit Dr. Phares on the web at walidphares.com and defenddemocracy.org.

© 2008 Walid Phares

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