The Wahabists and Hezbollah

Earlier this week The Guardian newspaper published a picture on its front page depicting a scene from Yarmouk Refugee Camp on the outskirts of Damascus. It reminds all believers of Judgement Day and others of Hollywood’s make believe movies about natural disasters and the end of the world, such as World War Z. The picture showed thousands of people lined up in the streets, for as far as far as the eye could see, as they waited for food to be distributed. In their faces, one could see all the shame, pain and suffering that could possibly be experienced by humankind.

The day before, Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper and other reliable news sources published articles stating that the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad insisted on hosting the chairman of the Iranian Parliamentary Committee for Foreign Policy and National Security, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, in order to discuss what Assad claimed is the impending threat of the Wahabi ideology in the region and the world and the need for countries to unite and confront this threat. Assad believes that it is imperative that countries in the Middle East, primarily Syria’s allies, cooperate and unify their positions on how to confront Wahabism. However, Assad did not clarify who these allies are because he has very few friends in the region these days.

In the last two days, after consistent denial, Hezbollah admitted that Israeli jets attacked one of its bases on the Lebanese-Syrian border. Hezbollah issued a statement confirming that it will address this aggression and violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty at the appropriate time. This scenario serves as a blatant reminder that there is no Lebanese or Syrian sovereignty on any issue concerning Israel. It appears that Israel knows everything, big and small, that occurs in both of these countries and that they have many spies inside of Syria and within Hezbollah’s leadership itself. This reality is further evidenced by the increasing number of assassinations, air raids and number of collaterals that have taken place in Syria and Lebanon. Just as Israel annexed the Golan Heights, it now appears as though it has also annexed Damascus and its surrounding towns. It has power over the country that exceeds the power of the state or the parallel state; so much for resistance and suffering.

I do not wish to argue against the argument that the Wahabi ideology is an impending danger that threatens the entire world because placing it as such within the context of this article would imply that Wahabism is an influential and attractive ideology that has the ability to take over the world and overpower all other opposing ideologies. Anyone who chooses to argue for or against a particular ideology must be up for the challenge that comes with confrontation. I must express my sincere apology for not seeing the validity of Dr Assad and Mr Boroujerdi’s argument that we need to cooperate on this historically significant mission. Not to mention the arguments of Buthaina Shaaban, Luna Al-Chebl and Bashar Ja’afari, as arguing against any of these individuals can actually be interpreted as a form of praise.

One cannot argue that Syria is regrettably overwhelmed with a large number of catastrophes and unfortunate situations. The first is the Syrian regime and its backers, followed by the plethora of extremist organisations that have combined narrow-mindedness with viciousness of practice, all of which do not please God or His Prophet. Yet, as the Guardian’s photo and many other witnesses had shown, any organisation, by contrast, that manages to defend the Syrian people from the terror of this inhumane regime is in turn portrayed as a saviour.

No person who is trapped in a burning building is going to ask about the religious or political affiliations of the person coming to save them, nor will the victim investigate the person’s background to find out the extent of his Wahabism.

Hezbollah’s experiences in Lebanon have shown that a large number of Lebanese citizens and Arabs, many of whom are Shiites, do not agree with the organisations’ ideology and its doctrine of the Guardianship of the Jurist (Wilayat al Faqih). Hezbollah is well aware, more than anyone else, that they have no place in Lebanon. Many people disagree with Hezbollah’s activities within Lebanon and many of these disagreements were overlooked due to its resistance role against the Israeli occupation of Lebanon.

At the same time, Hezbollah lost most of its credibility outside its narrow Shiite circle when it embroiled itself in the Syrian scenario, in a Machiavellian fashion. In this way, Hezbollah became a partner in the Syrian regime’s crimes and due to this, it lost all of its moral credibility as a supporter of the resistance to defend the honour of the Islamic world. Hezbollah’s leadership apparently believes that if this adventure succeeds in preventing the collapse of the regime, people will forget its connivance in humiliating the Syrians and degrading their dignity. This is the same delusional belief that entangled the United States in Iraq and Vietnam before that. But there are certain crimes that cannot be washed away by the sea, especially of these wrongs evoke greater ones. Even if the isolate regime in Syria succeeds in destroying what remains of it that does not means its transformation into a majority government. It will continue until its inevitable collapse to practice repression and suffer from isolation.

In the world of politics, issues are very often relative, but this is not always the case. The international community has agreed on certain red lines under the crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing, which can neither be forgotten nor forgiven with the passage of time. The war criminals are still being pursued and prosecuted until today, not to mention those of the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Cambodia. When it comes to the Syrian case, there is a consensus that the regime has perpetrated grave crimes which are unforgivable. The whole world, including Hezbollah, has witnessed the killing and starving of innocents in the Yarmouk refugee camp. The regime and its allies partake in these crimes not because these individuals are Wahabis, but because they do not care who they kill, as long as they achieve their goals. Any alternative would be considered suitable when it is compared to a regime such as this one.

In this regard, Bashar Al-Assad’s classification of Wahabism as the biggest threat to his regime can be considered a free advertisement for the extremist organisations. There is no doubt that the first step that needs to be taken in order to combat extremism is to get rid of the Assad regime mainly because the practices of extremist Shiite groups in a country where the majority of people are Sunni will strengthen the popular support for the only organizations that seem capable of confronting these practices.

I can ascertain, above all, that these supposed Wahabi organisations have been infiltrated by the Syrian intelligence; if they were not manufactured by it. It is easy enough for us to believe that this would be the case especially when it was revealed a few days ago that the group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) had imposed the jizya (a per capita tax levied on non-Muslims in and Islamic state when certain criteria are met) on the Christians in Al Riqa. This is the same propaganda that Bashar has been using to scare Syrian Christians. If this group were to carefully examine those who are most extreme among its leadership, they would discover that in reality they are Bashar’s men acting on his orders. They are driven in the direction of the scenarios publicised by the official Syrian media. In effect, they are mere actors in another Syrian soap opera produced by the intelligence. Getting rid of the producer will eventually end the role of the actors.

This is a translation of the Arabic text published in Al Quds Al Arabi on 28 February, 2014

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.