As Hezbollah is Iran’s main proxy, Hassan Nasrallah’s assassination will hit harder than Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh

Israel on Saturday said that it has assassinated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

Nasrallah was killed in airstrikes targeting Hezbollah’s central headquarters in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Friday, said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a statement.

Nasrallah is the latest and the most high-profile terrorist leader to be assassinated in the nearly-yearlong conflict. Previously, Israel had killed Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, and Hezbollah military chief Faud Shukr along with a whole line-up of senior commanders.

While all Iran-backed groups in the Middle East, such as the Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis, are often dubbed as Iranian proxies, no group comes close to Hezbollah when it comes to being integrated with Iran. This means that Nasrallah’s assassination would be a much harder blow to Iran than former Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh's killing a few months ago.

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While Hamas, Houthis, and other groups in the Middle East part are backed by Iran under the banner of ‘Axis of Resistance’, they have independent origins and sociopolitical contexts — even if enmity to the United States and Israel is common to them. Hezbollah, however, has had an Iranian hand from the onset.

Unlike Hamas or Houthis, which grew organically amongst the Palestinians and Yemenis respectively, Hezbollah was founded by Iran in 1982. Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, the Iranian Ambassador to Syria at the time, was one of the co-founders.

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Even though Hamas and Iran are now aligned and Iran backs Hamas, that was not always the case and these groups are very different, says Muddassir Quamar, a scholar of Middle East at the Jawaharlal Nehru University’s School of International Studies (SIS).

“Hamas is an offshoot of the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood. It is a Palestinian Sunni group. On the other hand, Hezbollah is a Lebanese armed Shia group and Iran was not just involved in its founding but the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) of Iran has been central in the group’s ideological, moral, financial, and armed upbringing ever since,” says Quamar, an Associate Professor at SIS’s Centre for West Asian Studies.

Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah is ideologically rooted in Iran

As the Israel-Hamas conflict is much well-known than the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, it is widely assumed that Hamas is the biggest Iranian proxy group. That’s not the case. The main Iranian proxy —in the true sense of the word— is Hezbollah.

Hamas is a Palestinian Sunni group which is committed to the establishment of a Palestinian state in the region. It is a Palestinian nationalist group and has origins in the violent Palestinian movement that emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood.

The main ideological convergence between Iran and Hamas is the rejection of Israel’s right to exist and a commitment to its destruction.

Hezbollah, on the other hand, is a Shia group — just like Shia-majority Iran. As it was founded at the behest of Iran, the group has adopted Iranian regime's ideology as its own. It has also sworn allegiance to the Supreme Leader of Iran — first to Ruhollah Khomeini and then his successor Ali Khamenei.

This is reflected in their activities as well. While Hamas, as a Palestinian group, has much more nationalistic objectives and its terrorist campaign is concentrated in Israeli and Palestinian territories, Hezbollah has acted across the world against the United States and Israel. The relative globalist outlook of Hezbollah is also reflective of Iran’s ideology and marks another difference between Hamas and Hezbollah.

While Hamas considers Israel to be the principal foe, Hezbollah follows Iran’s ideology and considers the United States to be the biggest enemy whom they call ’the Great Satan’ and hold Israel as the imperialist United States’ outpost in the Middle East.

Until September 11, 2001, Hezbollah was responsible for the deaths of more US nationals than any other terrorist organisation. Among other attacks, Hezbollah has been linked to the 1983 US Marine barracks bombings in Beirut in which 241 US personnel were killed, 1992 suicide bombing at the Israeli embassy in Argentina that killed 31, the Argentine Mutual Israelite Association (AMIA) bombing in Argentina that killed 85, and the 2005 Beirut bombing that killed 22.

Nasrallah’s assassination much harder for Iran than Haniyeh’s

For Iran, Hezbollah is much more than an armed group pitched against Israel.

While Iran supports Hamas and Houthis, its footprint in Hezbollah is such that the group is practically an extension of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the vastly influential intelligence and armed force of Iran that operates separately from the regular military and reports directly to the Supreme Leader.

In terms of both ideology and operations, Hezbollah and Iran have a near-complete alignment whereas such an alignment does not exist with other groups in the region like Hamas, says Quamar, the Middle East scholar at the JNU’s Centre for West Asian Studies.

Quamar tells Firstpost, “Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah operates like a wing of the IRGC. For example, till Iran did not support Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian Civil War, Hezbollah was not active in Syria. Once Iran pledged support, the IRGC joined the conflict from Assad’s side and was critical in keeping him in power. It continues to operate in Syria to this date.”

Quamar says that Hezbollah is Iran’s proxy for the bigger agenda where the United States is the main enemy.

Just like Iran’s agenda is not limited to fighting Israel, Hezbollah’s agenda is also not limited to Israel but is globalist in line with Iran.

“Hamas is fighting the war with Israel for the Palestinian state. Hezbollah is part of the conflict with Israel, but that’s a much smaller war for the group. Hezbollah will not go to the Gaza Strip to fight beside Hamas. It has no commitment to the Palestinian state. Instead, Hezbollah is committed to the broader Iranian agenda in the region and beyond,” says Quamar.

For these reasons, the destruction of Hezbollah’s capabilities and the assassination of its leader are much bigger blows to Iran than the assassination of Hamas’ late chief Haniyeh. As Hezbollah is an ideological offshoot of the Iranian regime and an extension of the IRGC, the dismantling of its infrastructure and war-waging capabilities along with the assassination of its leader will hit Iran much harder.

Moreover, the Iranian anger regarding Haniyeh’s assassination was not necessarily because of the killing of a key ally, but because of the fact that he was assassinated in a state guesthouse in Tehran just hours after the new president’s swearing-in when the security was at its peak. The Iranian rhetoric following Haniyeh’s killing was therefore driven more by this colossal embarrassment than any critical centrality of Haniyeh in Iranian grand designs.

Now, after Nasrallah’s assassination, the Middle East is in uncharted territories. Israel has assassinated the chief of the largest Iran-backed group that is practically a wing of the IRGC. The assassination comes after days of strategic bombardment dismantling the group and targeted attacks on the group’s communication systems. How Iran responds may decide whether the Middle East descends into chaos or breathes a sigh of relief.

In April, Iran attacked Israel directly for the first time ever with hundreds of missiles, rockets, and drones after Israel was deemed to have killed top IRGC commanders in a strike in Iranian mission in Syrian capital Damascus. Now Israel has assassinated the main regional ally — practically a wing of the IRGC. How Iran responds now, whether it goes after Israel or seeks an off-ramp considering the toll Israel has incurred on its interest so far, is left to be seen.