In his latest speech last week Hasan Nasrallah the leader of Hezbollah a political entity created by Iran in Lebanon in the eighties said that he has not been proud of all his public life. Perhaps one of these times is when he delivered a speech in March 2015 opposing the ‘military attack by Saudi Arabia and its allies against the Yemeni people’! That was a fiasco of a statement. Hezbollah was always saying that all its purpose in keeping forming a militia and arming it was to fight Israel. To forget that prime goal and turn its guns on Saudi Arabia and their allies this means in political terms that the masters of Hezbollah in Tehran have instructed their agent to open political fire somewhere else far away from Israel after decades of deceiving the Arab general public that their prime goal was to fight Tel Aviv.

Howeverthis is not the first time Hezbollah has changed its targets. Almost four years ago Hezbollah sent fighters to Syria to rescue a regime that has committed the most terrible atrocities against its own people-a regime far more brutal and corrupt than any other in the region. Hezbollah is not ashamed to defend this brutally and stand hand in hand with a gross injustice. Those lost dead and injured from his own militia are now almost three times those in the 2006 war! The phenomena of Hezbollah could be categorised as ‘ravenous’ catching the ‘virus’ of ISIS!

Hezbollah was in direct conflict with Israel in the summer of 2006 when it kidnapped two Israeli soldiers on the border with Lebanon. Israel retaliated because of that and war broke out for thirty five days. All of Lebanon was at the mercy of the Israeli fighters and guns. One thousand Lebanese citizens lost their lives most of them civilians and around ten thousand left their villages in the south. An international ceasefire was agreed Hezbollah accordingly was banned in the zone up to 35 kilometres from the Lebanese Israeli borders Fifteen thousand blue-hats (UN forces) were placed to guard the border to prevent any Hezbollah member coming near to it! The propaganda of Hezbollah later called that arrangement a “triumph”!

The Arab-Israel war broke out several times in more than half a century of continued conflict. The most well-known of them are three: the wars of 1948 1967 and 1973. The latter was very important as it brought some peace to the region. Egyptian and Syrian forces fought on both borders and thousands of soldiers died from both camps. The Egyptians alone lost some estimate as much as six thousand and twelve thousand were wounded. Hundreds of items of military hardware were destroyed but the battle for diplomacy was won because the Gulf Countries became involved. At the time the Gulf states led by Saudi Arabiascaled down oil production-starting with a decrease of 10%.Laterthe Saudi King at the time Faisal bin Abdul-Azizordered a ban on selling Saudi oil to the United states. Thousands of cars were seen in long lines at the filling stationsqueuing for refills. The concept of the “oil weapon” had been introduced for the first time to the international media. This action made Hennery Kissinger the former secretary of United States at the time hurry to the region to sort out some kind of compromise. A process was put in the pipeline for laterresulting in Egyptians gaining their whole land in Sinai and ‘almost permanent’ peace in the Golan Heights on the Syrian border.

At that time probably Nasrallah in his Cartel did not know what Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states had contributed to the war effort and the conflict with Israel. In fact he said publicly in the aftermath of Lebanese war in 2006 if he knew what the war could bring to the Lebanese people he would not have sought any ‘provocation of Israel’.

Anyway since that time and for long time to come Hassan Nasrullah nor his Iranian backers have ever dared to provoke another war or even a skirmish with Israel- the eight years since has proven that. His war will be limited to helping the poor Lebanese their economy their system of lawand their livelihood and he will be known for his action towards the Gulf States and fiery statements.

He is now risking the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese workers in the Gulf-they can go nowhere to work in fact. The big question is where is Hezbollah taking Lebanon to? Does it want to create a “Welayat Al Faqih” in the style of Iran?! Could it do that in a diversified society with Christian Sunni and Druze and almost ten other dominations? Until what time can it hold a gun over the heads of most Lebanese citizens who do not share its convictions?

Also what kind of action can Hezbollah take now towards its exhausted slogan ‘fighting Israel’? Who on earth still believes that? Hezbollah is now no more than: a hired gun” and big mouth involving itself in Yemen Syria Iraq Bahrain and a number of other places fighting to enhance the Iranian interests. This being tolerated no more which is why the GCC has declared Hezbollah a terrorist organization- nobody now fears Hasan Nasrallah!

Dr Mohammed Al Rumaihi The writer is an academic and researcher in GCC affairs.