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Hizballah officials have not discussed the chain-of-command
issue. In early February, however, after Iranian Supreme Leader
Ali Khamenei broke a longstanding taboo and spoke openly
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about his regime's support for Hizballah, Nasrallah commented
on the organization's relationship with Tehran. In discussing
whether Hizballah would attack Israel in response to a strike on
Iranian nuclear facilities, he said that Tehran had not made such
a request and "would not ask anything of Hizballah." And if
Khamenei were to ask, he said, Hizballah leaders would "sit
down, think, and decide what to do." Nasrallah's statement
seems to suggest that calmer heads could prevail following an
attack on Iran. As one article in the Hizballah-friendly Lebanese
daily al-Safir noted last week, however, the key question is not
what Iran asks of the organization, but what the group's "duty" is
as "resisters in this battle." The answer is that Hizballah's
spiritual obligations to Iran and the Supreme Leader are
enormous. As Nasrallah deputy Naim Qassam once wrote, "The
ultimate command in this Islamic path emanates from the Jurist-
Theologian," that is, Khamenei. In deciding how to respond to a
strike against its Iranian patrons, however, the militia would
consider factors beyond the spiritual realm.
Material Costs
Over the past three decades, Hizballah has acquired significant
material assets in Lebanon, including a massive arsenal and
miles of sophisticated underground tunnel and bunker systems.
These assets could be depleted or destroyed if the group opened
a new conflict with Israel. In its thirty-four-day war against
Israel in 2006 -- which the group sparked in July by launching a
cross-border kidnapping operation -- Hizballah used and lost
much of its arsenal and infrastructure, requiring years of
rebuilding. Although the militia clearly took pride in its 2006
performance, famously describing it as a "divine victory,"
Nasrallah also expressed regret at the escalation. "If I had
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known...that the operation would lead to such a war," he said in
August of that year, "would I do it? I say no, absolutely not."
Such sentiments reflect the significant downsides associated
with this "victory." The war was extremely costly -- physical
damage to Lebanon alone exceeded $6 billion, with Shiite areas
being hit the hardest. And in addition to providing no strategic
gain to Hizballah, the fighting ended with much of the
organization's stocks exhausted, along with its tunnel systems
destroyed and marginally more difficult to rebuild given the
augmented presence of UN troops per Security Council
Resolution 1701. With Iranian and Syrian support, Hizballah
rebuilt and retrenched, and the group now holds unprecedented
quantities of even more advanced equipment that could carry it
through several more rounds with Israel. Yet it is also aware that
rearming in the future could prove challenging, particularly if
Bashar al-Assad's embattled regime in Syria is toppled. The
nominally secular Alawite regime in Damascus has been a
strategic ally of theocratic Iran for more than thirty years, but if
it should fall, it would undoubtedly be replaced by a Sunni
regime that is unfriendly to the Shiite leadership in Tehran and
Hizballah. Losing Damascus as a supplier and leading
transshipment hub for Iranian weapons would likely compel
Hizballah to rearm by sea, a more time-consuming and risky
endeavor. Further complicating matters, Assad's fall could
reinvigorate implementation of Resolution 1701's maritime
interdiction component.
Symbolic Costs
For years, Hizballah carefully cultivated its image as the
defender of Lebanon and the leader of regional "resistance"
against Israel. After the 2006 war, Nasrallah -- a Shiite --
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became the most popular leader in the largely Sunni Arab world.
Since then, however, a series of miscues has undermined the
group's image in the region.
First came the 2008 armed takeover of Beirut in which
Hizballah turned its weapons on the Lebanese people. Then the
organization was implicated in the 2005 murder of former
Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, the leader of the country's Sunni
community. More recently, Nasrallah's frequent and
impassioned apologia on behalf of the atrocity-perpetrating
Assad regime have gutted what remained of the organization's
popularity abroad. Although there is little Hizballah can do
about its diminished stature in the region, the militia requires
continued support at home. Notwithstanding Nasrallah's oft-
quoted claim that "we are going to win because [the Israelis]
love life and we love death," most of his constituents do not
want to die. Consider the aftermath of Hizballah military chief
Imad Mughniyah's 2008 assassination in Damascus. Days
afterward, Nasrallah made a fiery speech in which he threatened