|
Trending Topics
|
The Collapse of Hizbullah's Legitimacy
(Al Arabiya) Makram Rabah - For decades, Hizbullah built its legitimacy on the promise that its weapons exist to deter Israel and protect Lebanon. Yet today, the central premise of this narrative has collapsed. The deterrence that Hizbullah claimed to embody was an illusion. The question of whether Hizbullah will respond to the elimination of its military commander, Ali Tabatabai, misses a more fundamental point: Hizbullah no longer holds the freedom to respond. That decision will be made by Tehran and the Revolutionary Guards. The "Axis of Resistance," stripped of its mythology, is exposed as a fragile and centralized apparatus whose decisions are dictated by Iran's calculations - ones that today are constrained, cautious, and deeply pragmatic. This reality dismantles Hizbullah's core claim that it represents an autonomous Lebanese resistance project. After Oct. 7, Hizbullah opened the northern front not to protect Lebanon but to support Hamas, in a decision coordinated directly with Iran. The result was the very opposite of deterrence. Israel is waging a campaign defined by precision, intelligence dominance, and an unrelenting tempo. It is annihilating Hizbullah's frontline commanders, targeting its infrastructure, and striking within Palestinian refugee camps when necessary - all while denying the group any arena in which it can claim symbolic victory. The battlefield is being shaped by Israeli air superiority, intelligence infiltration, and technological advantage. Hizbullah now finds itself fighting a war it did not design, at a pace it cannot control, and under rules dictated by an adversary that no longer fears its mythology. The writer is an assistant professor at the American University of Beirut.