By: Tashbih Sayyed, Ph.D.
First came the official Saudi Arabian, Egyptian and Jordanian condemnation of Hezbollah and then came Salafi Sheikh Abdullah bin Jabreen's fatwa (edict): It is illegal for Muslims to join, support, or pray for the terrorist group Hezbollah. The twin judgments raised a number of questions. Why has Hezbollah been condemned? What does it mean for the current Middle East crisis? Does it carry any weight with the Islamist groups that are busy in carrying out the global jihad? And how will these rulings influence the war on terror in the long term?
Has Hezbollah been condemned because of its mission or because of its religious orientation? As far as Hezbollah's mission is concerned, it is the same as that of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Martyrs Brigade and Lashkar-e-Taiba: destruction of the Jewish state. And we all know that the condemning states and the Wahhabi clerical establishment have been known to support this anti-Israel agenda. That means that the objective of the rulings cannot be the mission. It has to be the Shiite Islam that Hezbollah represents.
Another reason for Hezbollah to earn the wrath of the Sunni states is the fact that it is a proxy of the only Shiite state in the Muslim world, Iran, a country that under the leadership of its present president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has rededicated itself to the export of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Shiite revolution. Iran also wants to be the regional superpower.
Saudi Arabia feels threatened by Iran's revolutionary zeal as it itself is in the business of exporting its own brand of revolution - Wahhabism - that has very successfully revived the institution of Jihad and has plunged the world into an abyss of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. A revolutionary Shiite state also poses a direct threat to the Khilafah movement, a passion of Wahhabism, that fuels the global jihad and wants to bring back the glorious days of early Islam when Muslims ruled over Jews and Christians.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, the Sunni states that have contributed three of Al Qaeda's primary leaders, can't accept any group that can facilitate a non-Sunni state to take away the leadership of jihad from their hands.
Iran's recent efforts to present itself as the champion of the Islamist agenda and a leader of the anti-Israel jihad have rocked the Wahhabi boat. Iran has formed a close alliance with Hamas and has declared that Tehran and Hamas represented a "united front" against Israel.
"The Palestinians have voted for the resistance and have shown their loyalty," Iran foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said, telling "the allies of the Zionist regime to closely examine the evolution of the region and open their eyes to the undisputable realities of the Middle East.
Hamas political chief Khaled Mashal said during a visit to Tehran in December 2005, that his group would step up attacks against Israel if the Jewish state takes military action against Iran over its disputed nuclear program. "Just as Islamic Iran defends the rights of the Palestinians, we defend the rights of Islamic Iran. We are part of a united front against the enemies of Islam," Mashal said.
On January 20, 2006, Ahmadinejad visited Damascus and met with the leaders of 10 radical Palestinian movements, including Islamic Jihad and Hamas. He said he "strongly supports the Palestinian people's struggle".
Hezbollah, whose leaders pledge allegiance to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has also been working very closely with Hamas. The Hamas-Hezbollah alliance is also seen by the Arab states as an effort by Iran to gain some level of strategic leverage in the heart of the Arab world.
In many ways the present crisis in Lebanon and Palestine is the direct result of this Iran-Hezbollah-Hamas-Syrian alliance. It all started when on June 16, 2006, Iran and Syria signed an agreement to expand military cooperation against what they called the "common threats" posed by Israel and the United States.
Soon after the Syrian-Iran defense pact, Hamas fired the first salvo in the latest war against the Jewish state by launching rockets at Israeli civilians and abducting the Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit on the morning of June 25, 2006. Hezbollah followed by launching a cross border raid into Israel on July 12, 2006, killing two Israeli soldiers and abducting the other two. It is safe to assume that the Hezbollah action was carried out under the obligations of an agreement between the two to continue to use terrorism against Israel in spite of U.S. and Israeli pressure and a U.N. resolution calling for the dismantlement of the terror groups. According to this agreement reached between Hamas leader Khaled Mashal and Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah at a Hezbollah office in south Beirut, "resistance and steadfastness option is the only option".
Hezbollah and Hamas both are an integral part of the Islamist effort to eliminate the Jewish presence from the Middle East. If Saudis have been providing the necessary wherewithal for the continuation of terrorism in the Jewish lands then Iran and Syria have also been using Hezbollah to funnel money to finance Palestinian terror against Israel. According to a captured Hamas document that detailed Khaled Mashal's visit to Saudi Arabia; he actually had been invited by Crown Prince Abdullah himself. While Hamas had refused at the time to stop its suicide attacks, nonetheless, Saudi officials reassured Mashal of continuing support. Mashal said Hamas' relationship with Hezbollah was "strong. We are partners in this march of confronting a common enemy. In the same way south Lebanon was liberated, we have hoped that all of Palestine will be liberated."
Sunni Arab states are afraid that Iran's successes in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine will directly benefit the Shiites in Iraq and consequently will embolden and empower the Shiites in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other Middle Eastern states. To prevent this from happening, Sunni states do not have any other choice but to play the Shiite card. They are hoping that by rejuvenating and reinvigorating the Sunni-Shiite conflict, they will be able to prevent the Sunnis from rallying around Iran.
In my view, the Sunni condemnation and the fatwa will not have any significant effect on the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East but will definitely add to the ferocity that is often seen in Palestine and Iraq.
The underlining of the divisions in the world of Islam that have always existed and fuelled the factions to compete with each other will now influence the way terrorism is being carried out against the Judeo-Christian-Hindu world. Each the factions will compete fiercely to win the leadership of global jihad and the war against Israel. Israel can expect to see a hardening of attitudes among its adversaries and the U.S. will certainly experience further upsurge in insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(Tashbih Sayyed is the Editor in Chief of Pakistan Today and The Muslim World Today, President of Council for Democracy and Tolerance, an adjunct fellow of Hudson Institute, and a regular columnist for newspapers across the world.)
