Hezbollah’s Comeback Plan and How to Counter It

Defeating the pro-Iran militia and preventing its rebound is a marathon, not a sprint

Hussain Abdul-Hussain

This Is Beirut

If the glass at your house got shattered during Hezbollah’s war with Israel, the Iran-backed militia would pay you $1,200 to fix it, a hefty sum by Lebanese standards. Reports, perhaps exaggerated, suggest that Hezbollah sits on a $10 billion budget allocated for reconstructing its partisans’ residential and commercial units. Spending at this level guarantees Hezbollah’s chokehold on Lebanon’s Shia and its control of all 27 Shia seats in parliament, and by extension, its ability to twist the arm of the state, at every corner, under the pretext of required “national consensus.”

Israel knocked out Hezbollah militarily, but the militia still has a pulse and is planning its comeback.

First, Hezbollah must absorb and deflect the anger of its partisans who have lost their houses and livelihoods. To do so, the party’s chief Naim Qassem said that Hezbollah has delegated any post-war responsibility to the Lebanese state. While such a position has won the militia applause from some Lebanese, who argued that the party was moderating, the move was a maneuver.

When the Shia partisans express anger, Hezbollah channels it against the government. When the government fails to convince Israel to withdraw from the five Lebanese hilltops because Hezbollah did not disarm, the militia will argue that it gave the state a couple of years to “liberate” the Lebanese land, but since the state failed, then “resistance” became inevitable.

Hezbollah understands that time is on its side. Israel’s military momentum, and with its international support, will weaken, which will give the Lebanese militia more freedom in rebuilding itself.

And while Hezbollah rebuilds its military capabilities, it has to ensure that its parliamentary bloc remains as strong.

In the spring of 2026, Lebanon will elect a new Parliament. Winning all 27 Shia seats, for itself and its junior partner Speaker Nabih Berri, is imperative. Once all Shia lawmakers are in Hezbollah’s pocket, the speaker — who enjoys vast authority in dictating who governs Lebanon and how — will remain one of the militia’s loyalists.

Second, Hezbollah will try to maintain, or even expand, the parliamentary bloc that it controls with its allies. If the Iran-backed militia manages to keep its current numbers in parliament, the next prime minister will certainly be a Hezbollah loyalist.

Hezbollah also understands that its opponents are too reluctant to face it, even when the militia is at its weakest point. President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have yet to utter the phrase “disarming Hezbollah,” even though such a phrase is spelled out in UNSC Resolution 1701 and the ceasefire and enforcement mechanism that Berri and Hezbollah signed in November. Aoun and Salam seem to think that Hezbollah will be disarmed by happenstance and that their role in the process is marginal.

In 2016, when Michel Aoun won the presidential election and picked Saad Hariri as his prime minister, the duo threw their hands in the air whenever anyone brought up the issue of Hezbollah’s arms. Aoun and Hariri argued that Hezbollah was a global problem and that the Lebanese state was too weak to deal with it.

While the second Aoun and Salam are not saying that Hezbollah is not Beirut’s problem, they are certainly behaving this way.

Unless Aoun and Salam show more spine against the militia, it is unlikely that any Shia opposition will emerge to take on Hezbollah in the coming election.

In 2022, 17 percent of the Shia electorate went to the polls and elected against Hezbollah and Berri. But the electoral law was designed in such a way that the Shia opposition received zero seats, instead of four or five, as proportionality would have mandated.

Also in 2022, Hezbollah twisted the arms of strong Hezbollah opponents. Rifaat al-Masri, the leader of a powerful Shia clan in the Bekaa, was forced to withdraw his candidacy, and so did cleric Abbas al-Jawhari. There is no reason to think that, under weak Aoun and Salam, Hezbollah opponents will feel safe enough to defy the militia and run against it in 2026.

Policy recommendations for those who want to see the 2026 election finish off Hezbollah, is to tie foreign assistance to the Lebanese state to verifiable measures that Aoun and Salam take to disarm the militia. Israel handed over to the 1701 Enforcement Committee a list of over 80 spots of Hezbollah arms depots. How many of these spots have the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) taken over, confiscated, or destroyed? The more the LAF asserts itself, the more U.S. funds it will get. The less it does, the less American money.

Furthermore, wealthy Arab capitals should be encouraged to fund anti-Hezbollah tickets. If Tehran is spending $10 billion on its Lebanese loyalists, regional capitals should consider spending a fraction of this amount, say up to $100 million, on tickets that run against the Hezbollah-led alliance.

Defeating Hezbollah and preventing its comeback is a marathon, not a sprint. Israel’s victory over Hezbollah put the party in the rearview mirror of its opponents. But if the opponents do not step up, and if their sponsors don’t put their money where their mouth is, then it won’t take long before Hezbollah catches up and overtakes its opponents, restoring its dominance over Lebanon.