Last week the Treasury Department leveled sanctions against Hezbollah for providing support to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in his efforts to put down the 17-month-old rebellion meant to topple his regime. Since Hezbollah has already been designated as a foreign terrorist organization, this latest round of sanctions has little practical effect on the Lebanese militia. The purpose of the action, an American official tells NOW Lebanon’s managing editor Hanin Ghaddar, is in “highlighting the true nature of this organization, willing to assist the brutal crackdown of an illegitimate regime against its people.”
In other words, the sanctions are meant to undermine Hezbollah’s carefully constructed self-image of a resistance organization whose sacred weapons are used only to defend Lebanon from Israel. The reality is otherwise. In addition to using the arms of the resistance to assist Assad in his slaughter, the Shiite militia that now controls the Lebanese government previously turned those arms against its neighbors in May 2008. Hezbollah members stand accused of killing former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, and the party is also alleged to be responsible for a series of assassinations and attempted assassinations, stretching from at least 2004 to the present day. For instance, last month the head of Hezbollah’s explosives unit was reportedly behind an assassination attempt on Lebanese MP Butros Harb.
