Tony Badran..
NOW..
28 February '13..
The recent death of Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) senior officer Hassan Shateri, alias Hessam Khoshnevis, has cast the spotlight on the direct role the IRGC plays in overseeing Hezbollah’s affairs. While Shateri operated in Lebanon under civilian cover, the revelation of his real identity was met with a general sense of surprise. But the presence in Lebanon of IRGC commanders of such stature is hardly novel. IRGC involvement is pervasive in multiple areas of Hezbollah operations, and has been so since the group’s inception. The increased visibility of the IRGC’s hand, however, should refocus the discussion on the nature and mission of Hezbollah, and serve as a corrective to media and academic characterizations of the group.
Even though the IRGC’s presence in Lebanon became more visible since 2006, and even more so following the 2008 assassination of Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyah, it has nonetheless been longstanding. In fact, Shateri’s assassination brings us back full circle to 1981, when Mohammad Saleh Hosseini, another senior IRGC commander based in Lebanon with the cover of a “political adviser,” was ambushed and gunned down in Beirut by unknown assailants (possibly Iraqi intelligence) while driving his car. Quds Force operatives have long used such diplomatic cover in their overseas operations.
One reason many were surprised to learn of Shateri’s true identity can be attributed to years of willful self-deluding coverage of Hezbollah in academe and the media. The mantra of Hezbollah as a nationalist Lebanese resistance group became so entrenched that it led many analysts to minimize or deny the party’s subservience to Iran. Hezbollah experts dismissed as “anachronistic” the argument that the Party of God was an extension of Iranian regime structures, such as the IRGC. These prevailing views regarding Hezbollah as an autonomous “sub-state actor” had blinded many to a fact made clear in the 2006 war: Hezbollah is an extension of a state apparatus, and that state is Iran.
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