Lebanon and Hezbollah in the wake of empire: The expanding impact of the war on Iran

First published in Tempest.

The US-Israel war on Iran has already destabilized the wider region. The impacts are being strongly felt in Lebanon, now being subject to a new offensive by Israel. Neither in Iran nor in Lebanon, nor anywhere else, are the United States and its Israeli ally seeking democracy or the well-being of local populations. Rather, they seek to impose, through barbaric violence, a new regional order dominated by Washington and Tel Aviv. This latest Israeli war is part of a long history of aggression against Lebanon, but it is also part of a political context marked by a desire for regional hegemony by Washington and Tel Aviv.

In response to the assassination of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by Israel and the U.S., Hezbollah’s military fired missiles and drones at an Israeli missile defense site, south of the city of Haifa. Following these events, the Israeli occupation army (IOA) is now expanding its war and occupation in Lebanon and targeting Hezbollah, the Iranian ally.

Despite the so-called ceasefire that has been in place since November 2024, the IOA has been launching near-daily attacks in Lebanon, killing hundreds, kidnapping dozens, and injuring thousands more. This is all in keeping with the more than 15,000 ceasefire violations by the IOA, both on land, in the air and at sea.

In addition, Tel Aviv has continued to occupy at least five areas in Lebanon following its attacks in 2024 and it has blocked any reconstruction since then, especially of several border villages that it leveled to the ground. In many respects, the Israeli war against Lebanon never truly ended even if it was experienced differently in different regions.

Recently, more than one million people were displaced between March 2 and 23, 2026, of whom only 125,000 were accommodated in reception centers. More than 1,030 were killed, including more than 110 children and nearly 40 rescuers, and about 2,870 injured.

Following Hezbollah’s military operation on March 2nd, the IOA bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs once again, as well as towns and villages in the south and Beqaa Valley. It then launched a new ground offensive in southern Lebanon to expand its “security buffer zone” along the border. Direct military clashes are taking place between Hezbollah fighters and IOA forces in the south, while Hezbollah has launched long-range ballistic missiles from north of the Litani River. At the same time, the IOA has issued large-scale evacuation orders, effectively causing massive, forced displacements of people in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, and the entire area south of the Litani River, representing approximately 14% of Lebanese territory. The inhabitants of the southern city of Tyre were ordered to leave the city immediately; the bridges connecting the south bank of the river to the rest of the country have been systematically destroyed. Israel seems determined to occupy this region of Lebanon and to transform it into a no man’s land and “buffer zone”.

Hezbollah, where to now?

Hezbollah’s military operation undoubtedly provided Israel with a pretext for the current war, which was long planned, offering it a new opportunity to achieve its ongoing objective: to significantly weaken Hezbollah on all levels (political, economic, and military) including by seeking its disarmament. Israel has been targeting Hezbollah members (both civilian and military) and institutions. This includes its targeting of civilian entities such as Qard al-Hassan’s financial institution, and members of the Quds Force, the elite unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), part of the Iranian state, residing in Lebanon and overseeing a broad range of Hezbollah’s activities. Israel has also been massively targeting areas with significant Shiite populations to widen both the gap between the party and its popular base, and more broadly the gap between the Lebanese population as a whole and Hezbollah.

At the same time, the Israeli government is seeking to pressure the Lebanese state to continue the Hezbollah disarmament process and obtain further concessions from Beirut, particularly by deepening efforts to normalize relations between the two states. In this context, the Lebanese government has taken a series of measures, including: i) declaring Hezbollah’s military activities “illegal” and prohibiting them; ii) calling on the Lebanese army to implement the arms monopoly plan as soon as possible and by “ all possible means“; iii) prohibiting any potential military activity by the IIRGC; iv) imposing visa requirements on Iranians entering the country and withdrawing accreditation from the Iranian ambassador ⁠and declared him ⁠persona non grata, and demanding his departure from Lebanon. The Lebanese Minister of Information also requested official media outlets stop using the term “resistance” when referring to Hezbollah, etc.

These measures are part of the political strategy adopted by the Lebanese president and government since the beginning of 2025, which, under pressure from Western and regional powers, has aimed to increase pressure on Hezbollah through the disarmament process and by seeking to weaken the informal financial networks and channels linked to the party.

In this context, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have also called for direct negotiations with Israel, but this has been rejected outright by Tel Aviv, which seeks to continue its war against Lebanon and Hezbollah. The infamous “Dahiyah Doctrine,” developed during the 2006 Israeli war against Lebanon, is again being deployed to destroy civilian infrastructure on a large scale and to pressure a hostile government or armed group into attacking Israel to provide political grounds for Israeli military action. The “Dahiyah Doctrine” has been implemented repeatedly in Gaza and is now being applied again in the very places where it originated.

Finally, the IOA is also taking advantage of this situation to attack other political actors perceived as hostile to Lebanon. This is evidenced by the assassination of members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, as well as the targeting of members of Jamaa Islamiyah and the bombing of its offices in Sidon. Similarly, the Israeli occupation forces have targeted members of the Lebanese army, killing soldiers.

More broadly, the IOA’s war against Lebanon reflects U.S. and Israeli ambitions in the post-October 7, 2023 context of their genocidal war against the Palestinians. This is consistent with previous imperial wars against Lebanon and Iran, and the expansion of the occupation in Syria, all aimed at imposing, through lethal military force, a regional political order subservient to the interests of Washington and its ally Tel Aviv.

And in order to achieve the objectives mentioned above, the Israeli war against Lebanon threatens to be protracted, particularly with the green light and essential support of the United States, even after a potential future ceasefire with Iran, should one be concluded.

Hezbollah and Iran

The current dynamics in Lebanon are intimately tied to the historic relationship between Hezbollah and Iran and the war unleashed by the U.S. and Israel. Hezbollah’s future and its financial and military capabilities are closely tied to the fate of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Along with providing its Lebanese partner crucial military support and armaments, Iran has helped fund salaries for Hezbollah’s civilian and military personnel, and has also supported the party’s provision of social services to its popular base. This is how Hezbollah became the biggest employer in Lebanon after the state. At the same time, Iranian advisors have been historically integrated into Hezbollah’s decision making organizational structures, including its Jihad Council (military) and its Shura Council (political).

Hezbollah congratulated Iran on the election of its new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, appointed by the Assembly of Experts following the death of his father on February 28, 2026. Hezbollah affirmed that the party would remain loyal to his leadership, “just as we were loyal to the martyred leader, Imam Khamenei, and to the founding Imam, Khomeini.”

Thus, in addition to reacting to the ongoing attacks by the IOA, Hezbollah’s military operations launched on March 2 against Israel is an integral part of the Iranian regime’s response to the attacks by Israel and the U.S. The opening of a new front in Lebanon served IRGC’s strategy and interests in regionalizing the war in order to increase the cost of the conflict, both militarily and economically, for its opponents. Moreover, the increased collaboration between the IRGC and Hezbollah was reflected in Operation “Eaten Straw,” carried out by the armed wing of the Lebanese movement in mid-March in coordination with Iran, with approximately 200 rockets and 20 drones launched against Israeli territory.

This broader Iranian strategy includes its bombing campaign against Israel with strikes against oil infrastructure and U.S. installations located in the Gulf monarchies. And it is why Iran closed the straits of Hormuz, a strategic passage for nearly 20% of global maritime oil traffic. This has forced many companies to use alternative, more expensive and longer routes. As of late March 2026, oil prices futures sit close to $100 dollars a barrel, about a thirty percent increase since the start of the war. This has a potentially catastrophic impact on the global economy and political impact on the leadership in the U.S. and Israel.

Hezbollah’s organizational unity and its relationship to the state of Lebanon

Behind the façade of unity that Hezbollah is presenting in the face of Israel’s attacks, it is likely that there have been differences of opinion and orientation internally. This has been brewing since the 2024 war.

Hezbollah’s leadership and organizational structure have been shaken by the assassinations of former Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and many of the party’s political and military leadership. The new Secretary General, Naim Qassem, does not enjoy the same political influence and popularity as his predecessor.

Coupled with the geopolitical threats — including the fall of Syria’s Assad regime in December 2024 — the political stressors have all inevitably led to differences in perspective and strategy within the party. In this context, Hezbollah’s dependency on the IRGC has only deepened, especially within Hezbollah’s military wing.

Meanwhile, some sectors of Hezbollah’s military wing may have believed that such a military initiative against Israel and the outbreak of war could derail the government’s efforts to advance the party’s disarmament, while simultaneously banking on Iran’s strategy of a protracted, regional war with an outcome potentially beneficial to its networks of influence in the region, including Hezbollah.

While Secretary General Qassem and other party officials have publicly supported Hezbollah’s role in the current war, others have reflected potential disagreements within the movement. Although the vast majority within Hezbollah’s leadership are united against the Lebanese government’s disarmament process, there are different approaches to how to respond tactically, with some arguing for greater or lesser collaboration with the Lebanese government. Such differences can also be seen in response to a variety of pressures facing Hezbollah.

For instance, Hezbollah’s former minister Mustafa Bayram posted a tweet (that was later deleted) accusing Tel Aviv of orchestrating a rocket attack on March 2 — that Hezbollah had actually fired — in order to justify its planned attacks on Lebanon.

It’s also alleged that Hezbollah officials Mohammad Fneish and Mohammad Raad had guaranteed the leader of Amal (another predominantly Shia political party in Lebanon) and one of its leaders, Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, that Hezbollah would not engage in the current regional war.

However, the Israeli war and the Lebanese government’s political targeting of Hezbollah have significantly homogenized and radicalized the discourse and behavior of the party’s leaders and members. In addition to viewing this war as being undertaken against an existential enemy that has never ceased its hostility towards the Lebanese people and the party, some Hezbollah leaders have significantly hardened their rhetoric toward the Lebanese government.

For example, Hezbollah’s Vice President of Political Council, Mahmoud Comati, stated:

“We are capable of shaking the country and overthrowing the government. Our patience has its limits… The Vichy government arrested and executed resistance fighters, then it was overthrown and its traitors executed. God willing, we will not go that far… A direct confrontation with the current political power seems inevitable after the war, whatever the outcome. The Lebanese government is no longer fit to govern the country, and its positions only serve the Israeli enemy. A confrontation is therefore imminent, and the traitors will pay for their treachery.”

Similarly, Wafiq Safa, who was until recently the head of Hezbollah’s Liaison and Coordination Unit, stated that “we will force the government to backtrack on the decision to ban the party’s military activities after the war, regardless of the method.”

In this context, Hezbollah had initially faced criticism from sectors of its popular base over its attack on Israel. This comes from people who are tired of the latest war and the destruction and displacement it is bringing. Given the weakening of Hezbollah’s military capabilities since 2024, many strongly doubted its ability to either have a real impact on the dynamics of the war against Iran and/or to limit the violence and destruction of the Israeli occupation army IOA in Lebanon.

The severe weakening of the party’s military capabilities was intensified with the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime in December 2024. Previously, Syria had facilitated the transit of money and weapons. It had even become a source of capital accumulation through the trafficking of contraband, including of illicit drugs such as the stimulant Captagon, and other revenue streams. However, the new Syrian government, in an effort to demonstrate its allegiance to the United States, has implemented significantly stricter controls and has reinforced its military presence along the borders since the beginning of the Israeli military offensive. This political context has favored the election in Lebanon of a president and government more favorable to Western interests, and more hostile to Hezbollah and its armament.

However, at the military level, Hezbollah restructured itself during this period with new leadership and a focus on local weapons production. It possesses a significant number of rockets and drones, including long-range ballistic missiles. The movement therefore still maintains military infrastructure and weapons stockpiles, and a force of approximately 30,000 to 40,000 fighters.

This military restructuring, however, has not succeeded in breaking Hezbollah’s significant and increasing isolation, both politically and territorially. The party is indeed under pressure from all sides, whether from the constant Israeli threat, U.S. pressure on the Lebanese government and the army, financial sanctions, the change of power in Syria, and even within the country where large segments of society are calling for its total disarmament.

Whilst calls to ban the party by Hezbollah’s traditional enemies like the Lebanese Armed Forces are unsurprising, seeing their close ally Amal endorse the government’s decision to ban the party’s security and military operations, is a major blow. It demonstrates accumulated and growing tensions that Hezbollah has with the other Shia political party.

However, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s call for the Lebanese army to immediately disarm Hezbollah faces significant challenges, particularly as it risks undermining the unity of the army, which is more than a third Shiite. The Lebanese army’s commander-in-chief, Rodolphe Haykal, has reportedly stated his opposition to the use of force against Hezbollah, fearing a bloodbath and division within the army. Following these statements, the United States suspended its coordination with the Lebanese army, in an effort to increase pressure to obtain the dismissal of Haykal, which has so far been rejected by Lebanese President Aoun.

Moreover, such a decision would need the green light from Amal in order to provide “Shi’a” political cover. However, Amal leader and Speaker of Parliament Berri is still not ready to grant such an approval, especially given it could weaken the Shia community as a whole. It is in this same vein that Berri is currently refusing to appoint a Shiite figure to any potential Lebanese delegation that would negotiate with Israeli officials should the Lebanese government seek direct talks. Berri, like Hezbollah, also believes that any formula for negotiating with Israel while the war continues, would lead to excessive concessions from the Lebanese side.

More broadly, the anger and frustration against Hezbollah among large sections of the Lebanese population, has only grown deeper with recent events. And with this, sectarian tensions within the country have also grown. These have always been exploited by the State of Israel to deepen internal discord in the country. Nonetheless, Hezbollah is the party often seen as a central force responsible for the current instability both nationally and regionally.

The party’s isolation and declining popularity outside the Lebanese Shiite community has intensified over the past two decades due to its domestic policies, including: the events of May 8, 2008; its opposition to the 2019 Lebanese Intifada, and the repression of protesters; and regional policies, particularly its intervention in Syria in support of the Assad regime after the outbreak of the Syrian revolution.

In September 2025, the president of the Nasserist Popular Organization and MP for Saida, Osama Saad, at a ceremony commemorating the 43rd anniversary of the founding of the Lebanese National Resistance Front (whose Arabic acronym is Jammoul), openly criticized, Hezbollah’s “sectarianization of the resistance.” He went on to say that the National Resistance Front had been prevented from fulfilling its role in continuing the struggle for liberation, before asserting that a resistance that was once “national and unifying has become factional.” He added: “This grave error transformed the resistance into a sectarian cause and prevented the Lebanese from recognizing their national responsibility, as if the liberation of the country did not concern the state, its constituent parts, and its people.”

More recently, criticism of Hezbollah’s military operation has also been voiced by the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP), which, while denouncing the colonial state of Israel, stated:

Hezbollah’s response was an error of judgment, both in substance and in form. The Zionist enemy, which needs no pretext to continue its aggression, exploited this operation to intensify its barbaric war against Lebanon.

In various interviews, the Secretary General of the LCP, Hanna Gharib, has also been highly critical of Hezbollah for providing Israel with this pretext to launch this new war. While defending the right to resistance and criticizing the Lebanese state, he stated that resistance should not be sectarian and monopolized by a single religious group, as is currently the case. He argues that such resistance should be national, uniting all religious communities as in the past with the Jammoul, seeking to liberate the working and popular classes, and fighting for democratic and economic change. These are elements ignored by Hezbollah. This criticism had also been developing within a segment of the Lebanese Left, even before the latest Israeli offensive.

What now?

While Hezbollah faces a real existential threat, the Lebanese government is failing to reassure the population, which is threatened with forced displacement and further violence due to relentless Israeli attacks. The desire to disarm Hezbollah — one shared by Israel, regional and Western powers, and a large segment of the Lebanese population — rests on a flawed logic: that state sovereignty can only be restored by consolidating its monopoly on violence. Moreover, foreign funding for the Lebanese army, including from the United States, Qatar, and France, depends largely on its role in disarming Hezbollah, far more than on its ability to constitute an armed force protecting the country from external threats. The government’s decision to withdraw Lebanese armed forces from the south and order them to focus on disarming Hezbollah perfectly illustrates this dynamic.

Hezbollah’s disarmament is also linked to a normalization process with Israel, that the government expects will lead to an influx of financial aid for reconstruction.

This implicitly makes Lebanon’s sovereignty contingent on the acceptance of external terms, with heavy pressure from Washington. This makes any “agreement” with Israel, less an affirmation of sovereignty than a surrender of agency.

Attempts to continue the process of the disarmament of Hezbollah — particularly amidst Israel’s war in the region — without a political or economic transformation of Lebanon, could further increase sectarian tensions and weaken the state. Indeed, the current government has not been seeking to modify the country’s economy, which is built around sectarian patronage, neoliberal rentierism (through privatization processes, the allocation of government contracts, and through the service sectors, particularly finance and banking, trade and real estate, etc.), and elite capture. Hezbollah has actively participated and supported this sectarian and neoliberal political system for more than two decades. At the highest levels of the state it became an integral part of the system, defending the interests of different factions of the Lebanese bourgeoisie.

This vision of sovereignty, pursued almost exclusively through the expansion of state security forces, obscures two essential realities. First, the Lebanese Armed Forces lack the necessary material and financial resources to independently defend Lebanon’s borders or to fill the void left by Hezbollah. In a context of ongoing economic crisis, marked by rampant inflation and the collapse of the national currency, almost the entire 2025 defense budget is absorbed by salaries and basic operations. A soldier’s actual income ranges from approximately $250 to $400, depending on rank and allowances, which is below the level considered adequate to meet basic needs, given rising prices and the cost of living. This forces many soldiers to seek second jobs. Second, the Lebanese state lacks the legitimacy to maintain a centralized defense strategy. Years of religious patronage, regressive taxation and economic exclusion have undermined its credibility with its own citizens. The government lacks any genuine response regarding the needs of the targeted and displaced populations and has failed to promote any reconstruction plans for destroyed areas.

Hezbollah’s autonomous military capacities and political relationship with Iran are clearly incompatible with a sovereign national defense policy. But the government cannot ignore the Hezbollah popular base when making decisions. After all, the party’s support was greatly shaped by the state’s failures, insecurity, socio-economic marginalization and repeated external attacks and wars, particularly by Israel. And, while Hezbollah’s armament is less and less perceived as a security guarantee for Shi’a populations against Israel, it remains an asset within the national political system. This is even more true now with neighbouring Syria ruled by a new elite considered hostile to the party and to Shi’as more generally. Indeed, Hezbollah’s armed strength has never been used solely for resistance against Israel, but has increasingly been subject to other internal and external considerations, linked to the Iranian project of influence in the region to which the party is connected.

In other words, the Lebanese state must be perceived as legitimate, responsive, and inclusive, capable not only of deterring threats but also of meeting the needs of the working class. The sectarian and neoliberal political system and its institutions lack popular legitimacy. This is especially true in regards to the lack of any guarantees of a genuine democratic space that represents the aspirations of the country’s working class and the provision of social and economic services to large segments of the population.

Furthermore, the frustrations of certain segments of Hezbollah’s popular base still demand a democratic and inclusive political alternative within the country, one capable of rallying them. However, this alternative remains lacking today. In this context, and given the internal and external threats and challenges, as well as the Lebanese state’s inability to respond to their needs, it is not certain that we will observe a dynamic of abandonment of the party’s popular base. Rather we may see an imperative for unity develop, i.e. the call to stand together behind Hezbollah.

While it is critical to oppose the IOA’s war — including through armed resistance, which remains a fundamental right in the face of the occupations and attacks of the colonial state of Israel — the political capacity for such a response is currently weak in Lebanon. A resistance cannot be sustainable and attempt to forge a path to success if it is limited to a single religious sect or group, and if it lacks a political project supporting democracy, social justice, and equality in Lebanon and the wider region.

Similarly, a democratic and social popular resistance cannot tie its fate to an authoritarian Iranian regime that oppresses its working classes and has developed an imperial policy at the regional level, as seen in Syria (where the IRGC, Hezbollah, and pro-Tehran militias intervened in support of the Assad dictatorship), Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen. Again, this critique does not in any way preclude simultaneously denouncing the US-Israeli imperialist wars against Iran and Lebanon, and the genocide against the Palestinians.

As for the Lebanese government’s rhetoric in favor of a “sovereign country” this situation will certainly not contribute to promoting the interests of the country’s working class. The rhetoric of “sovereignty” is founded on the imposition of force by the Lebanese army, supported by external pressure from nations whose interests contradict the needs of the working classes in Lebanon and the region. The Lebanese government’s lack of a plan to dismantle the sectarian and neoliberal political system, and to develop the state’s capacity, whether in terms of social and economic services or the defense of its population, deepens this contradiction.

In other words, it is a matter of linking democratic and social issues, opposing all imperialist and sub-imperialist forces, while promoting political and social transformation from below, through the building of movements in which the working class are the true agents of their own emancipation. Separating these two dynamics can only lead to more suffering for the working class in Lebanon and more broadly in the region. What is needed is a resistance project with a genuine popular base within the working classes, across all faiths and ethnicities at the local and regional level, and one built on defending their common class interests.

Joseph Daher is a Swiss-Syrian academic and activist. He is the author of Syria After the Uprising: The Political Economy of State Resilience (Pluto, 2019) and Hezbollah: The Political Economy of Lebanon’s Party of God (Pluto, 2016), and founder of the blog Syria Freedom Forever. He is also co-founder of the Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists.