As Lebanese President Michel Sleiman visits Washington, the movement that last year launched a coup against the democratically-elected government is fine-tuning its image. Adopting terminology and analysis that appears more leftist than Islamic, Hezbollah’s new manifesto marks a shift in discourse, but its underlying strategy remains the same, Rafid Fadhil Ali writes:
The content of Hezbollah’s discourse has clearly changed from the radical Shiite rhetoric of the 1980s to that used by a classical revolutionary movement. However, the main aspects of the group’s regional and international strategy have changed little. In Lebanon, the party has chosen to stress its increasing military and political power and make it part of its doctrine.
The Project for Middle East Democracy has a useful round-up of items on Lebanon, noting that President Barack Obama used the occasion of Sleiman’s trip to affirm that the U.S. will “do everything we can to encourage a strong, independent and democratic Lebanon”.
It also highlights a recent report by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies that links Hezbollah’s “state within a state” to the country’s political stalemate.
Despite the Doha Agreement that defuse the sectarian crisis of May 2008, “developments in the past year indicate that the parallel power structure still exists, especially given Hezbollah’s superior military capabilities as an opposition power,” the report notes.
[...] Michael Allen relays an article by Rafid Fadhil Ali that argues Hezbollah has downplayed its “radical Shiite rhetoric” [...]