Word: hizballah
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...Hizballah...
...opening a second front against the Israelis, Hizballah is showing support for the Palestinians of Gaza, who have been under siege by the Israelis for two weeks since they seized an Israeli captive of their own. Moderate Arab governments like Egypt and Jordan appear unable to ease the plight of the Palestinians, and Hizballah may be helping its main sponsor, Iran, burnish its claims to be standing up to Israel and the U.S. on behalf of the whole region. The movement gained a kind of pan-Arab hero status in 2000, when Israel quit Lebanon and Hizballah was acclaimed...
...Hizballah also has a domestic agenda, which includes hanging onto the private army that gives it disproportionate power in Lebanon. Ever since international pressure forced its ally and enabler, Syria, to retreat from Lebanon last year in the wake of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Hizballah has faced a mounting clamor from the other Lebanese political parties to give up its weapons - in line with U.N. Security Council demands - and confine itself to democratic politics. But the Lebanese government has been powerless to enforce that demand. By picking a fight with Israel and provoking harsh military retribution...
...Syria's departure left a power vacuum in Lebanon that gave Hizballah even greater freedom of action. Before 2000, Syria, which lacks the military strength to go head-to-head with Israel, saw Hizballah's guerrilla war in southern Lebanon as the key leverage behind its own demands that Israel hand back the Golan Heights. It transferred weapons sent from Iran to Hizballah's forward positions along the Israeli border, and created a defensive shield behind which its fighters trained in the Bekaa Valley. But that relationship both enabled and restrained Hizballah, because Israeli or U.S. pressure on and incentives...
...Having created Hizballah in 1982 and maintained close ties with the organization ever since, Iran may also see its interests served by the escalation of violence in Lebanon and Gaza - regardless of whether or not Hizballah actually coordinated its decision with Tehran. Iran's regional influence has grown substantially as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which removed its arch-enemy, Saddam Hussein, and brought to power a Shi'ite coalition government dominated by elements allied with Tehran. Prospects for averting the slide towards civil war in Iraq appear to be grim without active support from Iran, which...