{"id":105130,"date":"2023-06-15T17:05:06","date_gmt":"2023-06-15T15:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=105130"},"modified":"2023-06-15T07:01:59","modified_gmt":"2023-06-15T05:01:59","slug":"22-00-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=105130","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Inflection Point\u2019: Hezbollah Benefits from Saudi Repositioning In Shifting Middle East, Analysts Say"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>\u2018Inflection Point\u2019: Hezbollah Benefits from Saudi Repositioning In Shifting Middle East, Analysts Say<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Andrew Bernard<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Lebanon\u2019s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addresses his supporters via a screen during a rally commemorating late Hezbollah commander Mustafa Badreddine who was killed in an attack in Syria, in Beirut suburbs, Lebanon May 20, 2022. REUTERS\/Aziz Taher<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Over the past few months Saudi Arabia has upended diplomacy in the Middle East, making moves to reduce tensions with Iran, extricate itself from nine years of war in Yemen, and welcoming Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad back into the Arab fold. As the US pushes for Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel, one country where the Saudi\u2019s could make further moves is Lebanon, which is increasingly dominated by the Hezbollah terrorist group dedicated to confronting Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a major shift in the Saudi position, in line with American preferences,\u201d Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told\u00a0The Algemeiner<\/i>. \u201cBut there\u2019s no money yet that has gone there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One early indication of Saudi Arabia\u2019s new approach to the region will be the succession battle over Lebanon\u2019s presidency. Hezbollah and its allies in the Lebanese parliament on Wednesday thwarted efforts to elect a new president for the 12th time, deepening that country\u2019s political crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lebanon\u2019s largest Christian parties had united behind International Monetary Fund economist Jihad Azour for the office, which must be held by a Maronite Christian, while Hezbollah and its allies backed Suleiman Frangieh, the scion of a powerful Lebanese political family and a personal friend of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. The pro-Hezbollah faction used parliamentary procedures on Wednesday to halt the election proceedings.<\/span><\/p>\n

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FDD\u2019s Badran on Tuesday predicted additional deadlock.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis guy is not going to become president, full stop,\u201d Badran said. \u201cHe is being put forward as a blocking option so that they can then negotiate on a figure who is not the guy that Hezbollah is pushing as its lead candidate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As Israel Watches, Hezbollah Sees Opportunity<\/strong><\/h5>\n

One actor potentially taking advantage of the chaos in Lebanon is Russia, which has become increasingly reliant on Iran for support in the invasion of Ukraine and which the Treasury Department says is now cooperating with Hezbollah in a partnership to evade US sanctions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Matthew Levitt, a former US Treasury official now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who co-wrote\u00a0a report<\/a>\u00a0in May on the \u201cnascent alliance\u201d between Hezbollah and Russia, told\u00a0The Algemeiner<\/i>\u00a0this was a \u201cpowerful opportunity\u201d for the terrorist group.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Russians are involved not just with anybody, but with people like Muhammad Qasir, who is Hezbollah\u2019s point person for facilitating money transfers, weapons, technology for Hezbollah from around the world,\u201d Levitt said. \u201cThat\u2019s a sign of just how deeply they\u2019re engaged in this. Hezbollah doesn\u2019t need Russia to provide them warplanes, but from small arms to explosives, to potentially providing rockets of different types to Iran, through Iran, for them is a game changer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The potential stakes of that relationship were highlighted in April when 36 rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel, the largest such rocket attack since the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war. While Israel exclusively blamed a Lebanon-based contingent of Hamas for the rocket fire, an IDF spokesman said that the IDF believed Hezbollah was also aware of the attack.<\/span><\/p>\n

In May, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah continued to saber rattle in his response to a warning from the head of Israel\u2019s military intelligence directorate that Nasrallah was on the brink of provoking a war.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou are not the ones to threaten a grand war; we are the ones who rather threaten you with it,\u201d Nasrallah said. \u201cAny mistake might blow up the entire region.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Levitt said Russia\u2019s new relationship with Hezbollah means that Israel may face more complex interactions with Russia given its involvement not just in Syria but now in Lebanon as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael has to balance lots of different things, including its ability to continue carrying out strikes, targeting things like weapons deliveries to Hezbollah in Syria,\u201d Levitt said. \u201cAnd it needs to be able to continue communicating with Russia to deconflict. And Russia wants that relationship too. But it does present an opportunity for Hezbollah to be able to get all the benefits that a state like Russia has to offer\u2026whether it\u2019s actual weapons, whether it\u2019s using Russia to help shape whatever the \u2018new normal\u2019 is going to be in Lebanon, in a way that is less in line with what the United States and the West would like to see, and more in line with what Iran and Syria and now Russia would like to see. So we\u2019re at a bit of an inflection point.\u201d\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

An Iran-Saudi D\u00e9tente?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

One key dynamic in Lebanon\u2019s future is whether Saudi Arabia will re-engage with the country financially and politically in the wake of a March agreement facilitated by China to re-establish relations between Saudi Arabia and Hezbollah\u2019s primary patron, Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

US officials have downplayed the significance of the Beijing negotiations amid concern from analysts and lawmakers that a rapprochement between two of the most powerful countries in the region negotiated by America\u2019s greatest rival might threaten US interests.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t broker or anything,\u201d US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf said of China\u2019s role at\u00a0a Congressional hearing on Tuesday<\/a>. \u201cThey hosted a meeting at which the Iranians and the Saudis worked out an arrangement, essentially d\u00e9tente. It\u2019s not a \u2018reconciliation.\u2019 It\u2019s not a \u2018rapprochement.\u2019 It\u2019s simply a relaxation of tensions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Stephanie Williams, a former UN and State Department official who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, made a similar assessment to\u00a0The Algemeiner<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure that it\u2019s unlocked very much so far,\u201d Williams said of the Saudi-Iranian agreement. \u201cThis is also happening in the context of Syria\u2019s reintegration or normalization within the Arab world. What have the Saudis gotten for this? You can point to [the truce agreement in] Yemen. But it doesn\u2019t seem that Bashar [al-Assad] has been dealt a lesson. He\u2019s not at all recalcitrant in his behavior.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

FDD\u2019s Badran said that despite the Biden administration\u2019s public objections to Arab states normalizing relations with Assad, diplomatic \u201creintegration\u201d between the region\u2019s pro-Iran bloc and Saudi Arabia is effectively Biden administration policy as it continues to pursue a diplomatic solution to Iran\u2019s nuclear program and has shifted the terms of Arab normalization with Israel to include a greater role for the Palestinians. While the Saudis have now aligned with that new reality, they haven\u2019t yet invested in it politically or financially, including in Lebanon, which Saudi Arabia wrote off as an Iranian satrapy when they cut billions of dollars in aid in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese things are question marks,\u201d Badran said. \u201cAnd we have to wait and see how they develop.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2018Inflection Point\u2019: Hezbollah Benefits from Saudi Repositioning In Shifting Middle East, Analysts Say Andrew Bernard Lebanon\u2019s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addresses his supporters via a screen during a rally commemorating late Hezbollah commander Mustafa Badreddine who was killed in an attack in Syria, in Beirut suburbs, Lebanon May 20, 2022. REUTERS\/Aziz Taher Over the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105130"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105163,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105130\/revisions\/105163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}