Introduction
In May 2021 the Palestinian liberation struggle took center stage in the fight against the Zionist settler-colonial entity (Zionist entity) in Palestine, which is backed by US imperialism and other Western powers. The Sword of Jerusalem, the Palestinian military operation that emanated from Gaza, came on the heels of the Zionist entity’s armed forces and thug-like religious zealots attacking al-Aqsa Mosque and al-Haram Ash-Sharif (the Holy Sanctuary) and evicting Palestinian families from their homes in the Old City to be replaced by Zionist religious zealots. The Sword of Jerusalem, united the Palestinian people in all of Palestine, including those living in 1948-occupied Palestine in their struggle against ethnic cleansing, demographic shifts in favor of the Zionist enemy, oppression, and occupation (Abu Shamalah, 2021; Aljazeera, 2022; Kingsley and Ahmad, 2022; Saleh, 2021).
It was the first time in which the Palestinian Resistance in all of its groups in Gaza launched an attack against the Zionist entity in support of the Palestinians in Jerusalem who organized rallies to protect al-Aqsa Mosque and prevent Palestinian families from being evicted from their homes. The Sword of Jerusalem demonstrated the developing power of the Palestinian Resistance based on two interrelated tracks. The first, points out the integral relationship between the achievements of the Lebanese Resistance and the Palestinian. 1 The second, had to do with the settler-colonial entity’s practices in the West Bank (including Jerusalem) and Gaza ( Pappe, 2019). Regarding the first track, suffice it to note at this point that the liberation of most of South Lebanon from Zionist occupation in 2000 was a qualitative development in the struggle for liberating Arab lands. It was the first time since 1948 that an organized guerilla force had been able to defeat an occupying Zionist army and force it to withdraw. There were no negotiations nor were there any compromise with the Zionists ( El Bacha, 2021; Fonte, 2022). In time, this significant achievement became a valuable lesson for the Palestinian people who had witnessed the complete defeat of the first Intifada when the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) hurried to recognize the settler-colonial entity in Palestine and sign the Oslo Accords on September 13, 1993 ( MILESTONES, 1993–2000). Arafat, the head of the PLO and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) that was established on August 1, 1994, as stipulated by the Oslo Accords, launched a second (armed) Intifada in September 2000 inspired in part by the liberation of South Lebanon. Although the Zionist army under Ariel Sharon invaded the PNA territories, destroyed PNA institutions, demolished the Jenin refugee camp, and defeated the second Intifada, nevertheless, the Intifada prepared the ground for a new phase in the struggle for Palestinian liberation ( Aoudé, 2006: 184; Baroud, 2003). Resistance in Gaza against the Zionist occupation succeeded in compelling the withdrawal of the Zionist army from the territory in 2005. The main fighting force in Gaza had been Hamas, which gained more popularity after the withdrawal of the Zionists to become a competitor of the PLO that was dominated by Fateh (the reverse Arabic acronym of Palestinian National Liberation Movement), led by Arafat since its establishment and whose members dominated the PNA ( Aoudé, 2006: 183–186). Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), previously the Prime Minister of the PNA, succeeded Arafat after the latter’s death on November 11, 2004 ( Schwartz, 2005).
However, Hamas’ success in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, constituted a serious challenge to Abbas, as Hamas was poised to take over the PNA ( Jeffrey, 2006). Here the interrelationship between the first and second tracks is obvious. The Zionist entity quickly declared that it would not work with the PNA while Hamas is in the lead. It also laid siege to Gaza, Hamas’ stronghold. Concurrently, a fight between the Fateh organization, which dominated the PNA and Hamas in Gaza ended with the latter’s takeover of the territory ( Urquart, Black, and Tran, 2007). The price that the Palestinians in Gaza have been paying since the 2007 Hamas success has been horrendous. The Zionist entity’s siege has taken a huge toll on Gaza economically, socially, environmentally, and in multiple other ways ( OCHA, 2022). Furthermore, the Zionist entity subjected Gaza to three main wars in 2008, 2012, and 2014 that devastated the already substandard infrastructure and deteriorated the subhuman living standards that the Zionist entity had pushed Gaza into. In fact, a fourth war occurred when on August 5, 2022, the Zionist entity launched air strikes on Gaza and assassinated two main military leaders of Islamic Jihad ( ANERA, 2022).
Since its occupation of the West Bank in June 1967, the Zionist entity has violated international law relating to an occupying power. It openly commits ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, illegally seizes large land tracts to build colonies (euphemistically referred to as “settlements”), demolishes houses, engages in collective punishment, arrests or executes Palestinians on the streets, violates Muslim and Christian holy sites, and commits a host of other illegal practices. Given such violations, the Palestinian people resorted to unarmed protests to protect their lands and demand justice. The Zionist entity resorted to violence to stop peaceful popular resistance ( UN Human Rights Council, 2022; United Nations, 2019).
In the midst of Zionist oppression and repression, the integral relationship between the Palestinian and Lebanese Resistance developed further after the US-Zionist entity’s 2006 war on Lebanon. The Lebanese Resistance victory over the settler-colonial military machine in the 33-day war that began on July 12, 2006 gave hope to the Palestinian Resistance forces in Gaza that they, too, could triumph over the Zionist military machine. The wherewithal to do so had to be planned. It is no secret that the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza relied on material support from the Lebanese Resistance that gradually raised the former’s military capabilities despite the closure from the Egyptian side that completed the Israeli siege on Gaza. It is interesting to note that the 2008–09 Zionist attack on Gaza occurred during the Mubarak period while the 2012 attack occurred during the Morsi period and the 2014 attack occurred during the Sisi period. Those facts demonstrate that the Egyptian state had been helpless in stopping (or was unwilling to stop) the Zionist attacks on the Palestinian people in Gaza regardless of who was at the helm in Egypt. Be that as it may, the main point was that the capabilities of the Palestinian Resistance had seen qualitative improvements after each of the aforementioned wars. The Lebanese Resistance transported arms supplied from Syria and Iran and transferred knowhow in manufacturing rockets, air drones, and other technologies into Gaza. This assistance panned out in the Sword of Jerusalem military operation in May 2021, which was a huge qualitative shift in Palestinian military capabilities ( ‘Abd al-Hady, n.d.). The operation was the first initiated by the Palestinian Resistance and ended in achieving the operation’s goals ( Abu Shamalah, 2022). The Sword of Jerusalem, therefore, was the culmination of the integral relationship between the Lebanese and Palestinian Resistance that allowed for the bolstering of the Palestinian popular resistance as it confronted the Zionist entity’s and settlers’ aggression in Jerusalem against Palestinians protecting their religious sites and being subject to evictions from their homes in a flagrant illegal process of ethnic cleansing.
The Sword of Jerusalem constituted a significant development in the struggle for the liberation of Palestine, which had regional (and international) impacts. An analysis of that development, which shows its centrality to the Axis of Resistance in West Asia, requires locating the Palestinian liberation struggle in its regional and international context.
Imperialism in West Asia since 1990
The demise of the Eastern Bloc and the USSR was coterminous with Desert Shield and Desert Storm, which were the US response to Saddam Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait on August 2, 1990 ( MILESTONES: 1989–1992). Iraq’s defeat and the restoration of the Kuwaiti regime bolstered the US position in West Asia. It initiated what president George H. W. Bush termed a New World Order ( Nye, Jr., 1992), culminating in the Madrid Conference of 1991 presumably to bring peace to the “Middle East” between the Arab states and the Zionist entity in Palestine ( ADST, 2015). The Conference constituted the beginning of normalization between the Arab states and the Zionist entity on a large scale. Although the Sadat regime in Egypt signed a peace treaty with the Zionist entity in 1979, all the Arab states isolated Egypt politically from the rest of the Arab world ( Smith, 2010). However, the demise of the USSR meant the absence of a strong rival to the US, which quickly manifested itself in its dominance of the international system. The Oslo Accords were a major achievement of US diplomacy in the Clinton years ( Clinton Digital Library, n.d.). The Accords also were a bonanza for the Zionist entity at the expense of the Palestinian struggle for liberation. The Palestinian bourgeoisie thought that through the PNA they would ultimately achieve statehood over 22 percent of Palestine (seized in the 1967 war) within the configuration of a two-state solution. The hard reality, however, was that the Zionist entity squeezed the Palestinian bourgeoisie within a shrinking geography laying bare, over time, the latter’s treachery to increasing numbers of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian bourgeoisie elected, even before Oslo, to recognize the Zionist entity without receiving, in turn, even a recognition from that entity and the US of their right to a State on 22 percent of geographic Palestine. Oslo was but a concretization of the compromising nature of the bourgeoisie in their pursuit of a mirage, as they sold the Palestinian people down the river. 2 In each of the major wars on Gaza, the PNA had been helpless in protesting Zionist (and US) aggression on Palestinian civilians. It appeared that the PNA’s concern was not to protect Palestinians at least those who live in Palestine, but to end Hamas’ (and other groups) rivalry to its authority. The PNA’s hope was to monopolize the discourse and representation of Palestinian national rights, as it saw them, in international forums including negotiations with the Zionist enemy. The PNA has been willing to collaborate with the Zionist military through security coordination however injurious that collaboration might be to the Palestinian people ( Zilber, 2021).
The PNA’s position had been consonant with the 2002 Arab League’s plan insofar as the two-state solution was concerned. That plan adopted by the Arab states in the Beirut Arab Summit Meeting called for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. It also called for the right of return of the Palestinian people to their lands from which they had been ethnically cleansed in 1948 and where the settler-colonial Zionist state was established on 78 percent of Palestine ( al-bab.com, n.d.). It appeared though that the Arab states did not seriously pursue implementing their plan. In fact, it can be argued that at least some states were unwilling to come out against the Zionist entity’s opposition to the two-state plan and the US support for Zionist expansion of colonies (euphemistically called settlements) on seized Palestinian land on the West Bank (including Jerusalem). Most Arab states have been in the US sphere of influence for decades. For its part, the PLO pursued the Oslo Accords, which in fact were not a peace agreement, but a Declaration of Principles (DOP), with the dream of joining the club of other pro-US Arab states ( United Nations, n.d.). In this way, the Palestinian bourgeoisie thought that they could transform Gaza and other Palestinian areas occupied in 1967 into a vibrant economic area within global capitalism. However, the Zionist entity’s continued ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people dashed those dreams. Despite that, the Palestinian bourgeoisie preferred to live in the Ramallah bubble with the illusion of statehood, pursuing their narrow interests through the PNA in collaboration with the Zionist enemy at the expense of the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian population living in the West Bank. The PNA became (in fact, it was designed to be) an instrument of repression, through its intelligence services and US-trained armed force, against any Palestinian who thought or acted differently ( Bronner, 2009; Zilber, 2021). On multiple occasions they incarcerated Palestinian dissenters, killed them, and informed the Zionist entity about them ( McKernan and Kierszenbaum, 2021). The Zionists either arrested or killed those dissenters. The PNA capitulation to the Zionist entity is best expressed by Abbas description of the security coordination with the Zionist entity as “sacred” ( Eldar, 2019). Unable to pursue any other route to dealing with the Zionist entity, the PNA dug the hole deeper to the point that it could not climb out even if it wanted to.
It might be argued that there still was hope in a two-state solution through pursuing the Oslo Accords and that was corroborated at the Arab Summit Meeting of 2002 ( AFP, 2002). That argument, however, is not supported by facts on the ground, chief among which has been the continued building of colonies and US support of that theft of land and the oppression of the Palestinians living under Zionist occupation.
Be that as it may, 2002 was a significant signpost in the Palestinian struggle. The Zionist military attacked and laid siege of the PNA Ramallah headquarters, reoccupying the West Bank through military operations targeting Palestinian institutions. In essence, Ariel Sharon, the Zionist Prime Minister, whose desecration of the al-Aqsa in 2000, prompted the second Intifada of that year, decided to put an end to al-Aqsa Intifada by brute force. The complete leveling of the Jenin refugee camp and the killing of many civilians was but one of the consequences of the Sharon attack ( Aoudé, 2006:184; Baroud, 2003).
The continued manifestations of the PNA’s impotence in the face of the Zionist entity, especially after Arafat’s death in 2004, contributed significantly to a tilt away from the PNA, PLO, and Fateh towards Hamas. As mentioned earlier, Hamas’s takeover of Gaza obviated the PNA’s monopoly over the Palestinian policies towards the Zionist entity. While the PNA was collaborating with the Zionist entity, the latter was wiping out Gaza’s resistance. Armed resistance was anathema to the PNA collaborators. They had put all of their eggs in the US basket and were conducting security coordination with the enemy of the Palestinian people.
Lebanon: Zionist Occupation, Tai’f, and Liberating the South
A whole slew of regional events concomitant with these dynamics occurred. The liberation struggle of the South of Lebanon was very troubling for the US. The 1982 Zionist invasion of Lebanon as a continuation of the 1978 occupation ushered in a new kind of resistance, especially after the evacuation of the PLO fighters from the country. The assassination of president-elect Bachir Gemayel who the Zionists imposed on Lebanon, demonstrated the Resistance’s opposition to the political consequences of the Zionist occupation and the alliance of the Phalange Party and its military arm, the Lebanese Forces, with the US-Zionist axis. The political goal of the US-Zionist invasion was accomplished by the May 17, 1983 Agreement between the Zionist entity and the newly elected Lebanese president Amin Gemayel, Bachir’s brother. The articles of the agreement sought to transform Lebanon into a satellite of the Zionist entity ( Odeh, 1985: 204–208).
This temporary victory was ultimately defeated by an alliance of forces opposed to Zionist occupation and the US plan to install the Zionist entity as its top dog in the region. Amin Gemayel was forced to scrap the May 17 Agreement and the Zionist entity was forced to withdraw its military forces from the capital, Beirut ( Odeh, 1985: 201). The Zionists later withdrew from the Biqa’ and Mountains region in 1985 ( Kamm, 1985). Those retreats constituted a major defeat not only to the Zionists, but also to their Lebanese allies. The Zionist forces retreated to the South of Lebanon, which they occupied in 1978 and expanded it through the 1982 military invasion. They remained there until their withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 ( Curtius, 1985).
The nascent Lebanese Resistance movement in all of its groups continued with its military operations against the Zionist enemy to liberate the South. The organized resistance against the Zionists in the South was initiated by the Lebanese Communist Party that formed the Lebanese National Resistance Front (Jabhat al-Muqawama al-Wataniyya al-Lubnania—“Jammoul”). The Social National Syrian Party and the Amal Movement (the acronym for the Lebanese Resistance Battalions) also fought against the Zionist enemy to liberate the South. The Zionist enemy, however, created what was known as the South Lebanese Army (SLA) made up of right-wing Lebanese army personnel and other individuals and aided the Zionist enemy in controlling the South ( Kassir, 1985).
It is important to note that the fastest growing Lebanese military group fighting the Zionist occupation was the Islamic Resistance Movement formed in 1982. The group came to be known as Hezbollah in 1985. Multiple elements contributed to its rapid growth including material assistance from Iran even though it was engaged in a war with Iraq under Saddam Hussein since September 1980. 3 Other significant elements in this growth was the ideological commitment of the fighters based on Shi’i Islamic teachings and the neglect by the Lebanese State that the Shi’a experienced. The Zionist occupation of the South compounded the extreme repression that the Shi’a experienced throughout their history ( Robinson, n.d.).
The direct Zionist dominance of Lebanese politics manifested itself first through the election of Bachir Gemayel as the new president in 1982, as mentioned previously, and later through the May 17 Agreement that president Amin Gemayel had signed. Those watersheds in contemporary Lebanese history compelled the Shi’a to continue depending upon themselves in liberating the South, just as they started doing in 1982. State neglect of the South continued after the 1990 Ta’if Agreement that ended the civil war (1975–90) and ushered in the Second Republic ( United Nations, n.d.).
The Second Republic reconfigured the consociational political system by stripping the president (who can only be a Maronite Christian) from most of his powers that the Office enjoyed before Ta’if. Those powers, according to the Taif Agreement, reside in the Council of Ministers, but in practice those powers reside in the Office of the Prime Minister who can only be a Sunni Muslim. While Ta’if kept the Parliament’s presidency for the Shi’a, the Shi’a working class, farmers, and small landowners remained neglected, oppressed, and, for those in the South, occupied. In fact, Prime Minister Rafic al-Hariri, who was also a Saudi national and close to the Saudi royal family, began to implement a plan that would privilege the development of real estate projects, the financial sector, and tourism ( Fanak.com, 2010). Al-Hariri was confident that peace between the Zionist enemy and the Arabs was on the horizon and thought that Lebanon would benefit economically from peace with the Zionists ( US Department of State, 2001). The Lebanese capitalists from the different religious sects benefited hugely under al-Hariri. The financial pillar for the plan was the pegging of the Lebanese currency to the dollar under a formula of roughly $1=1,500 Lebanese Lira ( Brennan, 2019). It was obvious that the US had succeeded in consolidating its interests in the region. It was clear in this regional milieu why the Lebanese State would not bother to liberate the South and why it would prepare the economic and financial ground in the country to take full advantage of peace with the Zionist enemy even at the expense of losing a huge part of Lebanon to that enemy. It should be borne in mind that the Zionist invasions (1978 and 1982) of Lebanon occurred during the Lebanese civil war. While Ta’if ended the war, Lebanese popular resistance against the Zionist enemy continued and Hezbollah pursued the fight until the liberation of most of the South on May 25, 2000. But Ta’if did not end the divisions among the Lebanese because the right-wing parties, especially the Lebanese Forces and the Phalangist Party who collaborated with the Zionist enemy during the civil war and the occupation of the South, continued to perceive their interests even to this day as tied to the US and the Zionist entity. The right-wing forces have demanded that Hezbollah surrender its weapons to the Lebanese State under the pretext that the State should have monopoly over arms in the country since arms outside the control of the State would constitute aggression against State sovereignty ( Associated Press, 2022a). Right-wing amnesia about Lebanon’s history and their collaboration with the Zionist enemy allow them to claim they are defending State sovereignty. The demand that Hezbollah surrender its weapons appears to stem from other considerations, which would be in the interest of the Zionist enemy that is intent on occupying more Arab lands. It is clear that the right-wing parties that have worked in concert with the enemies of Lebanon in the past are still collaborating with them.
A Rush of Regional and International Events
The tempo of events in West Asia reached a crescendo with several more consecutive developments. As is usually the case, regional and international events intermingled to produce a specific outcome. It should be recalled that the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran was a momentous development in world politics. First, it eliminated a major bulwark of imperialism in the Gulf region and bolstered the Palestinian Resistance Movement whose main military presence was in Lebanon. Consequently, the US sought to nip the Iranian revolution in the bud. The first Gulf War between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Iran, which lasted from September 1980 to 1988, achieved a double whammy for the imperialists. It was a classic dual-containment of two neighboring states that in effect destroyed each other ( Haass, 1996). The first Gulf War contained the seeds for Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 that led to Desert Storm (the first US Gulf War) and Iraq’s defeat in 1991. After Desert Storm Iraq was subjected to sanctions lasting 12 years, which devastated the Iraqi economy beyond the devastation of the Iraq–Iran war and Desert Storm ( Gordon, 2020).
The 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US prompted the invasion of Afghanistan and the ouster of the Taliban from power. The 2003 invasion of Iraq and the toppling of the Saddam regime poured more US and NATO troops into West Asia, including Afghanistan. In addition to already existing US bases and installations, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq supersaturated the presence of troops and bases in the region. Furthermore, the US became an occupying power with heightened regional influence. US unilateralism garbed by a coalition of invading forces (primarily NATO countries) was quite evident.
A critical point in this connection was that contrary to what the US would like the world to believe, those invasions were already planned by the neoconservatives who came to power with president George W. Bush in January 2001 ( Barry, 2003; Feffer, 2003; Mahajan, 2003).
Despite its temporary successes in occupying both Afghanistan and Iraq, the US still faced several hurdles. Syria constituted a strategic depth and base of support for both the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements. That problem had to be dealt with. The ultimatum and the list of demands that Colin Powell presented to president Bashar al-Assad were completely rejected. Powell, for instance, demanded that Syria evict all Palestinian guerilla groups from the country, enter a peace agreement with the Zionist entity, and sever relations with Iran ( Campbell and Whitaker, 2003).
Another major hurdle that the US had to deal with was the ascendancy of Hezbollah after the liberation of the South of Lebanon. It is significant to recall that virtually all the neocons in the Bush W. administration were Zionists and, therefore, committed to the Zionist entity’s interests. It was incumbent upon the US to deal a severe blow to Hezbollah. The assassination of Rafic al-Hariri on February 14, 2005 mobilized a majority of the Lebanese against Hezbollah and the Syrian presence in the country, although that presence, beginning in 1976, occurred with US consent to prevent the Palestinian and the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) from overrunning the Lebanese right-wing strongholds and control the country. The US consent to keep Syria in Lebanon was to maintain the “peace” after the civil war, which ended in 1990. US thinking was that the Saudis would have influence in Lebanon through the Premiership of Rafic al-Hariri and the Syrians would ensure political stability by managing the various sectarian groups and parties ( Odeh, 1985: 173–186).
The withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon was a US success. It was a different matter, however, when the US tried to figure out a way to crush Hezbollah. Hezbollah, after all, was rooted in its environment and enjoyed huge support across religious confessional lines after the liberation of the South. That support was concretized by the strategic understanding between the Free Patriotic Trend (overwhelmingly Maronite Christian membership) and Hezbollah in February 2006 in the Mar Mikhael Agreement ( Reuters, 2021a; Voltaire Network, 2006). The US thought that the only way to destroy Hezbollah was to have the Zionist entity attack Lebanon. However, contrary to what the US and the Lebanese right wing expected, the July 12 war resulted in the defeat of the Zionist settler-colonial military machine and the US.
After its strategic defeat, the US continued to work through those Lebanese parties allied with it or with the Zionist entity, and the Saudis. Fouad Siniora was the Prime Minister during the July war and in May 2008 when he had demanded that Hezbollah relinquish its secret military communications network. On May 5 Siniora even mobilized armed people on the streets and created an intimidating scene in Beirut. However, on May 7 Hezbollah swiftly crushed that armed display by its opponents ( Simpson, 2008). The Doha Agreement concocted a semblance of a “solution” among the various Lebanese parties and ruling elites after the Siniora debacle ( United Nations, 2008).
Concomitant with those developments in Syria and Lebanon, the Taliban quickly regrouped to resist US (and NATO) occupation. Their resistance reached a significant level by 2006 (CFR, 2021). They entered Kabul on August 15, 2021, as the US withdrew after 20 years of failed occupation ( Congressional Research Service, 2021). Similarly, Iraqis organized to resist US occupation ( Zangana, 2007). Consequently, the two main initial US successes were transformed into additional hurdles for US geopolitical strategy.
The Zionist entity’s attacks on Gaza engendered higher levels of animosity between the US and the Zionist entity, on the one hand, and the peoples of West Asia and North Africa, on the other. In this connection, Obama’s ascendency to the US presidency was initially presented to the peoples of the world in a softer face. Obama’s main move was the June 4, 2009 speech to the “Muslim world” at Cairo University ( Obama, 2009a). While the Egyptian ruling class praised the speech as a fresh US outlook on relations with the “Muslim world,” the thrust of the speech was a lecture regarding how the “Muslim world” must behave in the international community. The lecture, therefore, showed the chauvinistic attitude and behavior of the US towards the Other. Obama also declared that his main priority was to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq ( Obama, 2009b). It is significant to note, however, that the US under George W. Bush moved closer to the Muslim Brothers (MB) across the “Muslim world” and praised the “Turkish Model,” as ideal for implementation in the “Muslim world” ( AFP/ABC, 2004). The US was attracted to that model believing that modernization and religion had been successfully combined and that the model would definitely bring peace and security to the region making it even friendlier to the US. In his April 6, 2009 speech to the Turkish Parliament, Obama delivered a similar message ( Olney, 2009).
A New Stage: The Arab Uprisings and Beyond
The Arab uprisings (the so-called Arab Spring) that began in Tunisia in December 2010 followed on January 25, 2011 in Egypt and spread to multiple countries, led to the political ascendancy of the Muslim Brothers. In Tunisia, the Ennahda Movement (Muslim Brothers) became very influential and sometimes the “first among equals” within a right-wing coalition with two secular parties ( Abouaoun, 2019; Yerkes and Mbarek, 2021). Ghannouchi, Ennahda’s leader, was the Parliament’s president until president, Kais Saied, elected in 2019, dissolved the parliament ostensibly to strip Ennahda and its allies from their power ( Reuters, 2021b).
In Egypt the MB won the presidency in 2012 after a transition period dominated by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) ( Aoudé, 2013). The MB were the most organized force socially and politically. Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s MB president was toppled on July 3, 2013 by his defense minister, Abd el-Fattah al-Sisi, who is currently Egypt’s president.
The uprisings in both Tunisia and Egypt were initially genuine, but later were captured by SCAF and/or the MB ( Aoudé, 2013).
The situation was different in other “Arab Spring” upheavals. In Libya, for instance, the upheaval began with US airstrikes in 2011 against the Qaddafi regime and were followed by NATO strikes with both al-Qaeda and MB fighters on the ground ( Glass, 2019; Turse, Moltke, and Speri, 2018; Associated Press, 2011). Those attacks devastated the country, which is still witnessing wars, chaos, multiple centers of power, and foreign intervention.
Perhaps the most infamous “Arab Spring” upheaval was the one that occurred in Syria on March 15, 2011. The Free Syrian Army comprised MB primarily, was supported by Turkey, Arab Gulf states, the US, and other foreign powers. Foreign occupation, by Turkey in the North West and the US in the North East, still devastates the country. The Turks exert influence upon terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda in Idlib province, while the US harbors terrorists, primarily ISIS, and their families. It also has several military bases and installations east of the Euphrates River.
It should be reiterated that support for the MB originated with the W. Bush administration, which thought that the US could control the “Muslim world” through the MB. President Obama continued with this policy, hence, the US support for and perhaps the initiation of the “Arab Spring.” Be that as it may, the MB project was defeated in Egypt, then Syria when the initial Western attack on the Syrian State in 2011 failed to demolish its state institutions. Even the “Turkish Model” began to show cracks in Turkey itself. Its demise in the region had to do with the rivalry or animosity of regional states among one another. The Saudis and the UAE have been against the MB controlling the West Asia and North Africa regions, as it would also mean marginalizing the regional influence of the two countries ( Kedar, 2021; Cher-Leparrain, 2017; El Yaakoubi, 2020). Consequently, the Saudis and the UAE supported al-Sisi in overthrowing Mohamed Morsi ( Cher-Leparrain, 2017). It took about eleven years to turn the tide against the MB in the two regions. 4
The Trump presidency essentially sealed the fate of the MB and tilted, instead, to the Saudis and the UAE to normalize relations between Arab states and the Zionist entity and to naturalize the latter’s presence in West Asia ( Bishara, 2019). In Syria this shift was more gradual. The US first diversified its options by relying primarily on al-Qaeda and ISIS and less so on the Free Syrian Army (FSA), representing primarily the MB.
Erdoğan’s AKP (Justice and Development Party), essentially with a MB ideology, made Turkey one of the first states to support the FSA and similar groups. It gave them shelter and facilitated their crossing into Syria ( Yüksel, 2019). The multiple failed attempts to destroy the Syrian State due to the steadfastness of the Syrian army and the Iranian and Hezbollah’s support of the regime resulted in a resounding victory against the MB and other terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda beginning in 2012/13. The stalemate that occurred between the Syrian State and the imperialist attack on it was broken on September 30, 2015 by the involvement of the Russian Federation in the war ( Osborn and Stewart, 2015). From the first day, Russian airstrikes against terrorist groups quickly changed the face of the Syrian battlefield and became a counterbalance to the US and Turkish illegal intervention in the country. Furthermore, Gulf states, especially Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and Western powers’ support of terrorist armies in Syria had failed to effect the intended regime change. 5 The Syrian State victory in the battle for the Northern city of Aleppo in 2016 turned the tide in the war against the terrorists. It must be remembered that those Syrian State successes were concomitant with the ISIS takeover of Northern Iraq in 2014 and the country’s fight against it. Thanks to the quick Iranian intervention the fall of Baghdad or the Kurdish region that ISIS directly threatened was prevented ( Wilson Center, 2019). It was essentially the Iraqi armed forces and the Popular Mobilization Forces that eventually defeated ISIS. 6
The discussion about US machinations in the region, be those through Arab state and non-state collaborators, Turkey or the Zionist entity, clearly show that the US plans its strategy for the entire region. Those regional plans are envisioned within the US global geopolitical strategy. Two observations emerge in this context. First, as the sole global dominant power after the demise of the USSR, the US has sought to maintain its dominance in the face of significant challenges to its status regionally and globally. Second, the US has moved gradually over time (especially after the fiascos in the war in Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, and Iraq) to use proxies to a great extent to realize its strategic goals. In fact, the use of proxies had been evident after the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, even when US and NATO troops operated in huge numbers in those two war theaters. US proxies were called “private contractors.” The US “perfected” the use of proxies in the war on Syria through utilizing two additional layers ( Turse and Speri, 2022). The first layer was represented by the Arab states and Turkey that collaborated with the US while the second layer was represented by the use of those collaborators’ terrorist armies primarily al-Qaeda, ISIS, and MB fighters.
The war on Syria is a prime example of how US strategy for one country is indeed connected with the US vision for the entire region in a global context. It is also a prime example of the continued US failures in achieving its strategic goals. Hence, it is useful to discuss these points however briefly.
As mentioned previously, the plan for Syria was part of the US “Arab Spring” strategy to dominate the region and deny it to US regional enemies and emerging global rivals. Central to this view is the realization that the war on Syria had multiple goals and objectives. Aside from guaranteeing the regional dominance of the Zionist entity, it had to do with which gas pipeline would pass through Syria then Turkey on its way to Europe. Would it be the Qatari gas pipeline that the US supported or the Russian ( EcoWatch, 2016)? Obviously, denying the Russians more influence in Syria if not denying it any influence completely, was an important goal that had regional and global implications for US global strategy. 7
It is now clear that the US despite all of its meticulous planning has failed in destroying the Syrian State for the benefit of the Zionist entity and its regional collaborators. It was incomprehensible to the US how the Syrian State would be able to withstand the terrorist armies arrayed against it. However, even a cursory look at US aggression since the war in Southeast Asia, shows that those in power continue to commit similar mistakes. It appears that despite the billions of dollars spent on intelligence, the US failed to assess the nature of the Syrian regime ( Ford, 2021).
Furthermore, many regional and international players did not anticipate Russia’s entry in the war on the side of the Syrian State ( Charap, Treyger, and Geist, 2019). Those repeated failures, despite the death and destruction that the attacks caused, highlights the limits of US power and its intelligence capabilities that continue to produce faulty analyses of the other side’s strengths and weaknesses. 8
In terms of the war in Syria, two critical points should be kept in mind. First, Hezbollah entered the fight on the side of the State against the terrorists (al-Qaeda, ISIS, and others) led the US, the Zionist entity, and reactionary states and non-state actors in the region to renew their efforts to try and defeat Hezbollah to relieve them from the threat that Hezbollah constituted for their strategic plan ( Jones and Markusen, 2018). Second, the direct entry of Russia in the war catapulted it to a major player on the global scene. Hezbollah, it must be stated, was instrumental in the defeat of the US strategic plan. It also worked in tandem with the Russian and Syrian military along with Iranian advisers and Syrian popular forces to regain most of the Syrian territory captured by ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the other terrorist organizations. The Syrian State now controls about 75 percent of its original territory. Hezbollah also fought al-Qaeda and ISIS in the northeast of Lebanon and defeated them ( Laub, 2021). It was clear that the US saw in the Russian challenge to the US in Syria, a major threat that must be countered.
The Turkish role in this matter was central, as it controlled or collaborated with multiple terrorist organizations fighting in Syria ( Oktay, 2016). It is interesting to note that the Russian Ambassador to Turkey was assassinated in Turkey in 2015 and that the Turks downed a Russian fighter plane shortly thereafter ( Oktay, 2016). The firm Russian response to those events has put Turkey on notice, which blunted the latter’s role in countering the Russian military role in Syria ( Oktay, 2016).
Concomitant with these developments, the US began to assert its presence on the ground in Syria east of the Euphrates River through its control of the Democratic Syrian Forces (usually referred to by its Arabic acronym, Qassad) that it organized and the establishment of military bases. As a military force, Qassad includes Kurdish separatist forces, which also means that Syrian Arabs are part of that force ( Aljazeera, 2022).
Turkey played on the contradictions among the US, Russia, Qassad, Iran, and Syria. The Russians sought to move Turkey away from the US despite Turkey’s NATO membership. The tool for this strategy was the Astana tripartite meetings of Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Those meetings were supplemented by the Sochi meetings between Russia and Turkey. Turkey cooperated with Russia and Iran by ensuring that terrorists evacuate multiple towns and cities and move to Idlib province in the North where Turkey was already harboring terrorists ( Turkey—Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2018; Semenov, 2021). The cities and towns would then revert back to the Syrian State without a fight.
The Turks, too, have gained in the process. Namely, they consolidated their military presence in the North of Syria as a prelude to making demographic changes that would render it difficult for the North of Syria to revert back to the Syrian State ( Van Veen, 2021). In fact, the Turks have expanded their territorial presence in the North of Syria through military operations against Qassad in Ifrin, Tal Abyad, and Ras el-Ain. It is interesting to note that the US illegal presence in Syria, presumably for the protection of the Kurds, did not protect the Kurds from the Turkish military operations that cost the Kurds territory and created tens of thousands of refugees ( Wimmen, 2017). The Syrian State kept an opening to bring back Qassad to its fold, but all those attempts failed. Turkey threatened to continue gaining territory from Qassad who it branded as a terrorist organization ( Abadi, 2019; Aljazeera, 2022). The Syrian State maintained its position that the Turkish presence in Syria was illegal and must end. It informed both the Russians and Iranians that should the Turkish military operation, take place, Syria would defend its territories ( The Carter Center, 2022). The International Commission on Human Rights also considers Turkish military presence in Syria illegal ( Hernandez, 2020). In this connection, the recent Tehran Summit among Turkey, Russia, and Iran ( Pellegrin, et al. 2022), put Turkey on notice that with any sort of military operation it launches in Syria, both the Iranians and the Russians would side with Syria. Among other things, the Tehran Summit agreed that all three states respect the territorial integrity of Syria ( Jansen, 2022). However, Erdoğan is notorious for agreeing to something at a summit meeting with the Iranians and Russians only to renege on it soon after he leaves the summit. Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Cavuşoğlu, later said that Turkey did not need anyone’s permission to go on the offensive against Qassad ( Tokyay, 2022).
Lebanon and Recent Regional Developments
The Lebanese situation contributed to complications in the regional scene in two major ways. First, the protests that occurred on October 17, 2019 constituted a portal from which Lebanon entered into a tailspin ( Amnesty International, 2021). Suffice it to say that the Lebanese banks closed down and refused to honor people’s withdrawals ( Azhari, 2022). The monetary situation deteriorated and the previous pegging of the Lebanese currency to the dollar under a formula of roughly $1=1,507 Lebanese Lira no longer held. The Lira kept losing to the dollar until it reached levels as high as 30,000 Liras ( Arab News, 2022). The Lira kept fluctuating within a narrow band and is expected to lose value even more. These developments meant that commodity prices at stores went sky high leading to sky rocketing poverty levels that approached 80 percent. Furthermore, the bank account holders lost the value of their accounts.
Second, the US, Gulf States, especially Saudi Arabia, and the Zionist entity wanted to squeeze Lebanon monetarily, financially, and economically to smash Hezbollah’s support base. Consequently, they tightened the noose on the Lebanese economy. The US applied sanctions on more individuals either to punish them for their support of Hezbollah or to make them more pliable in cooperating with the US ( El-Amine, 2020).
The situation deteriorated precipitously when the Beirut port explosion occurred on August 4, 2020. It killed hundreds of people and injured thousands. In the midst of all these tragic events the political parties opposed to Hezbollah accused it of having a hand in the explosion in an effort to diminish its public support ( Reuters Staff, 2020). The first commemoration of the explosion built on what the anti-Hezbollah Christian parties described as a devastation that befell Christian neighborhoods. The Maronite Patriarch al-Ra’i held a religious ceremony to commemorate the (Christian) victims of the devastation ( Abi Raad, 2021). The Patriarch’s exclusion of Muslim clerics from the commemoration, by not seeking an ecumenical ceremony, was not innocent, as he has spoken multiple times against Hezbollah ( Abdul-Hussein, 2020). Despite all the agitation against Hezbollah, and the loss of parliamentary seats by its allies, the Party’s popular support remained strong. This was expressed in the 2022 parliamentary elections where Hezbollah did not lose any of its seats and gained the highest popular support in the elections probably more so than all the other parties combined ( Associated Press, 2022b).
August 4, 2022 commemorated the second anniversary of the explosion. It came in the midst of a very serious political crisis in the country as discussed previously. Three other matters, namely the conflict over oil and gas in the Mediterranean between Lebanon and the Zionist entity, the inability of Lebanese politicians to agree on the formation of a new government, and the upcoming Lebanese presidential elections, all contributed to the exacerbation of the political crisis that reached near explosive social and political levels. The first matter has to do with the demarcation of the Lebanese maritime exclusive economic zone. The origins of the problem had to do with the Zionist entity’s occupation of South Lebanon in 1978 and the expansion of the occupation in 1982. When the Lebanese Resistance Movement forced the Zionist entity to end its occupation, the latter did not retreat behind the Armistice lines. Instead it created a “blue line” parts of which were drawn on Lebanese soil.
It is useful to discuss recent critical developments in this matter. Here the US role as a dishonest broker is quickly exposed. First, it is no secret that the US openly supports the Zionist entity militarily, financially, economically, politically, and diplomatically. Second, in the indirect negotiations between Lebanon and the Zionist entity, US envoys invariably put pressure on Lebanon to yield to the other side’s conditions, at the expense of the Lebanese maritime exclusive economic zone. In fact, the US has put pressure on the Lebanese governments since 2007 to accept the minimum of Lebanon’s rights in the oil and gas finds in the Mediterranean and allow the Zionist entity to take over the rest of those rights ( Aoudé, 2019). Currently, Hezbollah has put the Zionist entity and the US on notice: agree to Lebanon’s rights in oil and gas in its exclusive economic zone and lift the undeclared embargo on international companies to explore in Lebanon’s maritime blocs. Failure to do so would mean that the Zionists would not be able to extract and export gas from the Palestinian fields that the Zionist entity stole by virtue of establishing a settler-colonial entity in Palestine in 1948 ( Nasrallah, 2022).
Before delving into the two other matters, it is useful to discuss briefly the Lebanese political system. Lebanon’s system is confessional whereby the Prime Minister must be a Sunni Muslim, the Parliament President must be Shi’i Muslim, and the President of the republic must be a Maronite Christian. This setup further complicates the conflict among the ruling class blocs. The Lebanese capitalist system is Western leaning regardless of the confessional affiliation of the individual capitalists. However, the various Lebanese political leaders of all religious confessions utilize their respective communities to improve their positions within the political system. Within each community there exists more than one leader, which further complicates the political and social situation within each confession and within Lebanese politics. Furthermore, most political parties or political trends are organized on a confessional basis ( Odeh, 1985: 28–52; 88–130). Those may include a minority of individuals from other confessions who for whatever reason find their interests congruent with the confessional party they are members of. A few minor parties are organized across confessional lines such as the Communist Party, the Social Nationalist Syrian Party, and the Baath Party. Hezbollah, however, which is considered to be the largest Lebanese party, is organized along confessional lines. Its members are all recruited from the Shi’a Muslim community. However, Hezbollah has supporters from all confessions because of its role in liberating the South of Lebanon in 2000, its victory over the Zionist entity in 2006, and its ability to form a deterrent against that entity for the past 16 years ( Nasrallah, 2022).
The second matter regarding forming a cabinet to replace the caretaker government expresses the internal conflict within the Lebanese ruling class blocs and political parties. Suffice it to say in this regard that Najib Miqati (the individual agreed upon to form a new cabinet) was the same individual who headed the previous cabinet. As a capitalist with international connections and investments, he could not oppose US and Western policies towards Lebanon and fight for the country’s national interests. Because almost all Lebanese politicians are tied to US and Western powers, the Lebanese people suffer the consequences of imperialist policies executed by local capitalists with international connections. The country’s political system allows the capitalists to divide the working class and the petty bourgeoisie along confessional lines ( Odeh, 1985). As an example, Miqati is Sunni Muslim and had the approval of Sunni politicians to be selected as prime minister. He then was selected to form a new cabinet. It would not have been possible for politicians from other religious sects to select another Sunni politician, as this option would lead to political instability. The huge divisions in the country and Miqati’s unwillingness to form a cabinet, had deepened the country’s crisis. 9 Miqati has been carrying out a US agenda to ensure that President Aoun’s term registers the maximum number of failures in a bid to weaken his Free Patriotic Trend and enhance the role of the Lebanese Forces Party among (Maronite) Christians.
Similarly, the third matter regarding the Presidential elections are even more sensitive and critical for the Lebanese. Here, the role of the US and regional states in electing Lebanese presidents is more apparent. Recalling that the president must be a Maronite Christian and is elected by the parliament, it becomes extremely difficult to imagine that in a vertically divided polity and society that a president would be elected within the constitutional time limits (September 1 till October 31). The absence of a cabinet and a president while the economic and financial situation are in shambles could send the country into a tailspin, which would be to the advantage of the US, the Zionist entity, and Arab reactionary states.
The Axis of Resistance in a New Global Environment
This article showed the interrelationship among the constituents of the Axis of Resistance in a global context. It is clear that for a long time the foremost goal of the US in Lebanon has been the destruction of Hezbollah. Having failed to crush it in 2006 through the Zionist entity’s war, the US hopes to do so by destroying Lebanon. A political vacuum of this magnitude, could send the country into civil war or complete chaos. However, in the event that the US succeeds in installing a president answerable to it completely, or at least not a US adversary, Miqati, in all likelihood would then proceed to form a cabinet, which most probably would be answerable to the US. 10 Either scenario would lead to the crushing of Hezbollah, as the US and its regional followers (state and non-state actors) envision. But the Axis of Resistance, at the center of which is the Palestinian Resistance Movement, has its own calculations as well and is not likely to surrender easily. A few examples suffice to prove the point. The Syrian State was able to withstand the imperialist-terrorist onslaught against it aided by allies of state and non-state actors such as Iran and Hezbollah. The Iraqi Resistance movement forced the US to withdraw from Iraq in 2011, even though they returned under “the cover” of fighting ISIS. Iran retaliated to the US assassination of General Qasem Suleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in January 2020 by targeting Ain al-Asad, the largest US base in Iraq ( The Economist, 2020). The Sword of Jerusalem and the Zionist entity’s August 5, 2022 attacks on Gaza and the retaliation of the Islamic Jihad organization against the attacks are recent examples that the Axis of Resistance will not surrender.
The quickly developing international situation, especially after the Russian February 24, 2022 incursion into Ukraine, put the Axis of Resistance in a better position vis-à-vis the US and the Zionist entity. In fact, the war has upset all calculations that were in favor of US global domination. It is clear that the unilateral international system is quickly becoming a thing of the past, even though the US is still pushing on with its machinations to engulf the world with more wars in the hope of resurrecting the old system.
Insofar as the West Asia region is concerned, the analysis presented here is based on a sweep of events. This demonstrates that the problem is predominantly the expansionary nature of the Zionist settler-colonial entity that the US and other western powers support. Biden’s recent visit to the region showed that the US was mainly interested in bolstering the Zionist entity’s position with the regional states that have normalized relations through the Abraham Accords. However, Biden’s visit did not achieve its main objective of having the Zionist entity feel as though it was part of the region. It appears that the US could not do whatever it had been able to do in a unilateral global system. Similarly, the steadfast Iranian position in the face of US threats regarding the on-again-off-again nuclear negotiations shows that the US cannot dictate its desires to the Axis of Resistance. In the face of the intransigent US position, while fighting a rear-guard battle to regain its global dominance, the logical conclusion for the peoples in the region, is to unite and fight the imperial beast.