No, Hezbollah Is Not In Trouble

I linked recently to two articles, one by Hanin Ghaddar and one by Paul Salem, in which both argue that Hezbollah is in a tenuous situation. That view is becoming more and more mainstream in pro-March14 circles.

Nicholas Noe of Foreign Policy magazine, however, begs to differ.

Those who have been peddling the view that Hezbollah is in trouble, according to Noe, are “partisans and/or polemicists and have a stake in shaping the course of the fight.” Instead he thinks Hezbollah is as strong as ever:

This sort of counter factualism ignores the enduring common interests that Resistance Axis members share and will likely continue to share in the coming period as the momentum for a confrontation rather than a settlement apparently builds. Nor is it likely that Hizbullah particularly fears the outbreak of some scenario of “Sunni violence” following an indictment of its members. As in May 2008, the Sunnis of Lebanon have no supply lines, little military training and increasingly less political capital in the country as a whole

Then why is Hezbollah defensive and angry? Noe proposes:

An STL indictment against Hizbullah would, perhaps decisively, push the de-legitimization of Hizbullah forward, especially in Europe where Hizbullah raises money freely (it is not on the EU terror list) and where many of Hizbullah’s Christian allies look for support and succor

Noe makes some good arguments, but in my opinion the jury is still out on the matter.