August 04, 2006

Mailbag

A reader dissents, re: the Pape piece:

Hello, I really enjoy reading your blog and I appreciate your thoughful analysis. I am writing to correct not mistakes that you made, but ones that Robert Pape seems incapable to acknowledge and that are spreading too quickly. While I agree with his broader point on the Lebanon war, his analysis of Hezbollah is factually wrong (and the thesis of his book is very ably taken apart by Scott Atran in this Washington Quarterly piece) and does not relate in any way to his conclusion (again, one with which I fully agree). While Hezbollah first emerged from a small group of Amal dissidents in 1982 (they opposed Amal's ambivalence vis-a-vis the Israeli occupation) that were coopted and supported by Iran later that year, Hezbollah never functioned as an umbrella organization for groups opposed to Israel. In fact, Hezbollah fought hard against leftist, pan-Arab and Palestinian groups resisting Israel, and succeeded in eliminating them and in becoming the only resistance force in the country. By monopolizing the struggle against Israel, Hezbollah gained special status (the Taef agreement that served as the post-war framework recognized Hezbollah and only Hezbollah as the legitimate resistance group) and once it entered Lebanese politics, used the political process to protect and legitimize its weapons. To compare Hezbollah's organization to "the multidimensional American civil-rights movement of the 1960’s" is laughable. Hezbollah has a very tight organizational structure (see Magnus Ranstorp's writings and ICG reports) and decisions are always taken at its very top. There is no room for initiative on political or military issues (there is arguably more of it when it comes to its social activities). That's why Hezbollah has been so disciplined over the years. This is no grass-roots operation with multiple "groups with a variety of religious and secular aims." What is true though (but Pape never mentions that in his op-ed) is that many Shia fighters, formerly members of leftist groups, joined Hezbollah in the 1980s. Why? Because Hezbollah became the best vehicle of Shia identity and assertiveness, sometimes that goes against the core of Pape's argument. Pape has a point when he notes that suicide bombers were not only Islamic fundamentalists. But the flaw in his argument is that he limits himself to "suicide bombers" while the Shia notion of martyrdom is larger than this. It includes fighters who died in what one would call "suicide missions," or missions undertaken with the certainty that those involved in the attack will die. Martyrs are not only those who blow up their car or their belt, but also those who undertake these suicidal missions.

Yes, the analogy to the 60s civil-rights movement did seem rather overwrought, I'll grant you....