The Montagnard

The View from Outside the Beast

A critique of the actions of Hezbollah through anti-imperialist lenses.

By Iskandar N. / June 28, 2026 / 17 min read

Internationalism

Nicolas Moufarrege, Le sang du phénix (The Blood of the Phoenix), 1975.

Preface

As a brief preface, this piece is not aimed at discrediting genuine anti-imperialist resistance, but rather to elaborate on the reactionary fall of what once was a genuine resistance group, and has since become an imperialist arm in its own right over the people it claims to protect.

For reference: I am a Levantine Arab, descended from Levantine heritage (primarily Lebanese but with some Syrian, Golani, Aramean, and likely Palestinian as well) on both sides of my family for thousands of years. Both of my parents grew up in Lebanon and were refugees of Israeli invasions and the Lebanese Civil War; my father personally witnessed the frontline of the first half of the war, and lived right on the Green Line in Beirut. I myself have been in Lebanon for every struggle it has faced during my life, be them occupations, crises, uprisings, or invasions - including the one being conducted now in 2026.

All of these factors are worth mentioning because they all share a common foundation: the geopolitical struggle of West Asia, and its direct impact on Lebanon and the Lebanese people. While things are far from black and white, there are numerous regional imperialist powers competing over the region, with Lebanon being a target among nearly all of them: the US-Israeli Atlanticist hegemon; Turkiye’s almost-neo-Ottoman imperialist endeavors; Iran’s hegemon that calls itself the “Axis of Resistance”, which frequently fools westerners into believing they are genuine anti-imperialists rather than an opposing imperialist bloc in their own right; and the Saudi-led oligarchy of Peninsular oil barons.

While there are many forces at play here, with no less than 4 distinct imperialist blocs struggling against one another for power and hegemony in the region, this piece will largely only regard two of them: the Atlanticist hegemony of the United States and Israel as western imperialists, and the theocratic hegemony of the “Axis of Resistance” as Iran’s opposing camp of eastern imperialism. Even within these camps are many more moving pieces, which we will not go into - of the Atlanticists, the relevant party is primarily Israel, with the US holding a more minor mention; and of the Axis of Resistance, we will be either greatly limiting or excluding entirely mention of Assad’s Ba’athist Syria, Ba’athist Iraq under Saddam Hussein, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in Gaza, and instead will be focusing almost exclusively on Iran and Hezbollah as the relevant players within this camp.

I have refrained from any intrinsic denunciation of many of these actions in and of themselves. It is the history of action, the context of such actions, and the broader ideological aims that they serve that are deserving of condemnation. After all, a critical stance must both critique and critically analyze events.

All that said, if you are still of the opinion that I cannot voice criticism on militant groups that operate within Lebanon and affect all Lebanese people, myself and my family included, then now is the time to stop reading.

The Face of the Beast

By now, many active leftists within America have heard - often at anti-war rallies or marches - the phrase “the belly of the beast”. It doesn’t require much explanation to point out that the “beast” references imperialism, and Americans - living within the imperial core - are situated in the “belly” of this beast.

Yet from outside the beast - as I write this, sitting on a balcony in Beirut above a busy street - we can not only get a good look at its face, but at everything that exists around it.

Inside the belly of the beast, all one can see is the beast. Maybe they can hear the dampened sounds of resistance from outside, but they’ll never receive the full picture - only snippets, filtered through the external layers of the empire’s periphery and mantle. With these small pieces of information, one must decide: to support their beast, or to oppose it. Many selfishly choose their beast, while others choose to support the resistance without criticism or analysis. They cannot be fully blamed - they can’t truly see what the resistance looks like, they can only know that the fight is against the beast, and therefore, it must be just. But when one steps outside of the empire - beyond even its periphery - and finds themselves where the fiercest battles are fought, they can witness the resistance’s face just as clearly as the beast’s.

But this piece is not about the beast, but rather the one before it - and why it has yet to be eaten.

The Roots of Resistance

Let us begin by clarifying the subject of this piece, and the historical and contemporary context within which it exists: the militant group and political party of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah - the name meaning “party of God” (hizb = “party”, allah = Allah/God) in Arabic - was formed in the early- to mid-1980s in response to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The exact year and date of its formation is disputed, ranging as early as the end of 1982¹, but it is generally agreed upon that it was a distinct entity by 1985². The organization’s own founding myth of their military wing occurs on June 8th, 1982, two days after the Israeli invasion, where 50 Shia militants delayed an armored Israeli brigade at Khalde and prevented their advance on Beirut for 6 days.³ While it served as the foundation for what would become a religiously-inspired legend, it was also undoubtedly an instance of impressive and ferverous national resistance against an invading and occupying force.

Hezbollah ossified as an organization under the leadership of its founder and first secretary-general, Subhi al-Tufayli, as a revolutionary group that shunned political involvement and was solely focused on ending the Zionist occupation of southern Lebanon⁴. It played a wider role in the late half of the Lebanese Civil War, opposing the older Shia group of the Amal Movement and Syrian meddling within Lebanon⁵, as well as supporting Sunni Palestinian refugees against besiegement by the same groups, but this involvement was secondary to its primary purpose as an anti-imperialist resistance group.

However, following the Taif Agreement and subsequent end of the civil war in 1990, Hezbollah was the sole militia allowed to retain their arms⁶. The end of the war and its granting of special status allowed the group to restructure itself, undergoing several internal changes. In 1991, al-Tufayli stepped down as general-secretary, citing the need for a new leader to facilitate hostage negotiations - as such, Abbas al-Musawi was elected. However, he served for less than a year, from May of 1991 until his assassination in February of 1992⁷. The untimely death resulted in a schism within the group, with a minority faction intent on maintaining the revolutionary resistance nature of the organization cohering around al-Tufayli, and a larger faction wishing to enter politics and further build relations with Iran cohering around Hassan Nasrallah - who was subsequently elected general-secretary, and introduced the group into political involvement in time for the 1992 elections.⁸

Tensions between the pro-Iran and anti-political factions remained, despite Nasrallah’s downplaying of Hezbollah’s resistant nature over the years, until al-Tufayli’s expulsion from the organization in 1998⁹ and subsequent attempt at forming a breakaway faction to adhere to the original direction¹⁰; such attempts never fully materialized, and al-Tufayli’s original vision for Hezbollah has since dispersed among the many other different political movements within Lebanon. Contrastingly, Nasrallah’s leadership of Hezbollah - which lasted for 32 years, from his ascension to general-secretary in 1992 until his assassination during the Israeli invasion of 2024 - saw the group reorient itself as a political party, steering away from its original foundations towards one of class collaboration.¹¹

Revolutionary Becomes Reactionary

Currently, as it stands, there is an ongoing war between the U.S imperial camp (including Israel and several Arab Gulf states) and the so-called “Axis of Resistance”, which constitutes another regional geopolitical camp comprised of Iran and several proxies, including Hezbollah (and formerly including the Assad regime of Syria prior to his ousting in 2024). The name of this camp is in quotations because while it is, in a fashion, resistant to American imperialist forces, it is a resistance born from a desire to expand its own hegemony across the region, rather than one of genuine self-determination of the nations within West Asia. As an attached arm of this Axis, Hezbollah has abandoned its historic role of resistance.¹²

The latest round of heightened hostilities began on February 28th, 2026, with a series of sudden strikes by the US and Israel against Iran. These attacks, unexpected as they were, were also entirely unprovoked, and were carried out with the purpose of intended regime change and destabilization of Iran. Hundreds were killed, including the leader of the country, Ayatollah Ali Khameini. While the action of assassinating a sovereign leader is reprehensible and should be condemned, let us also take this moment to address a central fact: Khameini was a reactionary theocrat who led a country of over 90 million people bound by a strict interpretation of religious law that suppressed and oppressed the vast majority of the country’s populace. The rise of his predecessor, Ruhollah Khomeini, was the result of a reactionary anti-imperialist backlash within the country against a western-installed Shah. The anti-imperialist origins of this regime does not make it inherently good; if anything, it goes to highlight the reactionary nature of this movement and subsequent suppression of leftist organizing.

In this same vein of anti-imperial reaction (to further distinguish it from anti-imperialist revolutionary action), Hezbollah responded to this assassination by firing a salvo of rockets into Upper Galilee in what they described as vengeance and retaliation for Khameini on March 2nd. This action prompted the swift and disproportionate response by Israel, in which over 70 air strikes were conducted, over 50 villages ordered evacuated, nearly 30,000 people displaced, and resulted in over 50 deaths - all in a single day.¹³¹⁴

It has now been over 100 days since then. The death toll has risen above 4,000¹⁵, the number of injured exceeding 12,000, a fifth of the country’s population remain forcibly displaced from their homes, and around 2,000 square kilometers of South Lebanon have had their populations forcibly displaced and were subsequently militarily occupied by the IOF¹⁶. Thousands of homes and buildings have been systematically demolished, with entire villages that were home to thousands of people being razed and erased¹⁷. In stark contrast, Iran has enjoyed a ceasefire and relative peace since mid-April, all while sitting on its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, pressuring the west.

Without contest, Lebanon has been the largest victim of this conflict, and the Lebanese people have paid the price. While little faith can be placed in Zionists and their incessant desire to imperialize everything around them, one can only ask - if Hezbollah hadn’t launched those rockets on March 2nd, would we still be bleeding this much? Would Israel have taken it upon themselves to make an example out of us to show that they won’t tolerate slights? While it’s far from certain, there stands the undeniable possibility that if such a salvo hadn’t been fired, then 4,000 Lebanese deaths could have been avoided.

Pawn’s Sacrifice

In addition to the deaths and injuries and displacement, the rest of Lebanon is hurting too. Nearly every major city south of and including Beirut has been hit by airstrikes, and the infrastructure damage is visible for all to see. The war has caused an economic impact of nearly $9 billion - roughly a third of the country’s GDP, with the bulk of the impact being felt among gas, electricity, water, food, and healthcare. Medication prices have risen 67% and are in much more limited supply, food prices have gone up 15-30%, and bus fares have increased over 60%. In a country where the average person makes $122 a month, gas prices of $1.35/liter ($5.10/gallon) and electricity rates of $0.55/kWh - which constitute 30% and 300% increases in the past 3 months, respectively - are entirely unaffordable, and are unaffordable even to those living in the imperial core.

And in all of this, Lebanon’s involvement in this war, and all its accompanying suffering, is supposedly due to an “alliance” with Iran. And yet while the Lebanese people suffer and bleed for a course we didn’t choose, Iran has enjoyed a longer period of ceasefire peace than the length of fighting it had to endure. Every day, Lebanon has been bombed, people have been killed and injured, escalations occur daily, and Iran does nothing. They have shown themselves to visibly tolerate - in both actions and words - the rampant destruction of the south, and only draw a line when any attacks target Dahiyeh, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the organizational base of power for Hezbollah¹⁸. In other words, the Iranians do not care about the suffering the Lebanese endure; they only care about the durability of their proxy and influence in the country. They do not care for the Lebanese of the south who have lost their homes, their family members, their limbs and lives, even as the vast majority of them are Shia Muslims, who Iran and Hezbollah have supposedly vowed to protect. In fact, such apathy is shown towards us that even Lebanese Christians in the south have shown themselves to be more willing to aid and protect Shias under attack from the IOF than Iran and Hezbollah have - even if such a Shia is in Hezbollah’s own ranks¹⁹.

The conclusion of such, very simply, is that Hezbollah does not care about the protection and liberation of its own people. It is a force that answers exclusively and unquestionably to the IRGC, and does so with little regard for the well-being of the Lebanese people and Lebanon’s sovereignty. In effect, the party - in demanding Iran’s input and approval of all actions, and likely receiving in-depth directions from them at every turn - provides the IRGC with undue and entirely unelected influence and representation within the Lebanese parliament and the governance of the country.

Callous Chauvinism, Colonial Campism

So why is it that when the US does such a thing, it is accurately portrayed as an act of imperialist puppeting, yet when a similarly imperialist body that happens to be opposed to the US does the same thing - as per the “Axis of Resistance” and Hezbollah in Lebanon - it is praised as an honorable act of anti-imperialism? There are numerous individuals - many of whom would be accurately categorized as both campists and chauvinists, even if they would insist their stances are rooted in anti-chauvinism - who actively cheer on such action, actions that lead to the death and suffering of my people, because it suits their shallow and uncritical conception of geopolitics. The likes of these types include Calla Walsh, a white American who has since come to reside in Beirut, colonizing my home and taking advantage of my people’s suffering for the gratification of her own shallow political analysis²⁰. Two things can both be true; two things can also both be bad. It is true that Iran is opposed to American imperialism, just as it is true that Iran is imperialist itself. American imperialism is bad, as Iranian imperialism is bad. Failing to recognize such a circumstance is not just uncritical and reductive, it is infantile, and must be grown out of.

And just as campists and chauvinists will praise such imperialist action from the other side of the curtain, Hezbollah acts as its sweeping arm. The tenuous balance within which the paramilitary has found itself in recent years has resulted in the party being required to constantly justify their existence with the ever-prevalent threat of dangerous and violent Zionism across the border while also showing themselves capable of beating them back each time - if only barely. As such, Hezbollah is actively incentivized to needlessly and unnecessarily maintain a “forever war” with Israel, to constantly instill fear in the minds of the Lebanese Shias of the south to continue soliciting their support and justifying their continued armament. As such, they stand as a legitimate roadblock to a peaceful existence; such can be seen with Hezbollah’s categorical rejection of all attempts by the Lebanese government to forge a lasting and permanent peace, even one whose terms would drastically harm the material hegemony and legitimacy of all Zionist occupations (including the West bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights)²¹. They justify such rejections by claiming the need to “consult the IRGC” on matters, yet the matters of ceasefire do not put Iran at risk - only Lebanon.

The IRGC is already apparent in their insistence to want to lord their control over Lebanon and use it as a pawn in their own game, rather than grant us the right to exercise our own self-determination and determine our path forward for ourselves²². It is also worth noting that Hezbollah is very obviously and deeply compromised by a variety of outside assets - including infiltrators from both Mossad and the CIA - some of whom likely have high-ranking positions and contribute to large-scale decisions²³. These breaches likely result in organizational decisions being swayed to lay the perfect seeds for Zionist justifications for escalation, invasion, occupation, and imperialism of Lebanese territory.

Conclusion

As I sit here in Lebanon and continue to reimmerse myself in the society of my home, I cannot help but remember that there are no perfect victims; suffering doesn’t make one good, it just makes one suffer. For all their flaws, the vast majority of those in Hezbollah are Lebanese. The national liberation and self-determination of our people means the ability to make our own decisions, even if that includes the wrong decisions. One such decision was made by Subhi al-Tufayli when he first founded Hezbollah as a fiercely Islamist and anti-zionist militia under the tutelage of Ayatollah Khomeini; yet it was a decision made by the Lebanese people, of the Lebanese people, for the Lebanese people.

Plenty of other Lebanese people outside of Hezbollah make poor decisions, too: the largest party in the Lebanese parliament is the Maronite, phalangist Lebanese Forces (“2ouwet”), led by mass murderer Samir Geagea. Future Movement, Hariri’s Sunni party, is highly partial to Saudi influence; Free Patriotic Movement (“Tayyar”) and Kataeb are right-wing Christian parties that alienate Muslim voters; the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (“2awmiye”), while secular and somewhat labor-oriented, aims to restore Syrian occupation of Lebanon; the Progressive Socialist Party has fallen from its socialist, secular roots, settling into a social democrat Druze-interests party, while the Lebanese Communist Party barely managed to win a seat among a list of reformists; and the Amal Movement continues to try to win over the Shia constituency, vying for power against Hezbollah over the same demographic.²⁴

Yet as Hezbollah consistently adopts a position which undermines that self-determination in favor of Iranian supervision, it acts as an arm for Iranian imperialism over Lebanon. Their priorities are clear: their power is provided by Iran, not Lebanon, and as such they are incentivized to take actions that indirectly cause suffering and grief to the Lebanese people if it allows them to continue holding that position of influence. Hezbollah’s continued existence and political hegemony rests on its ability to justify its mission and maintain its image as a resistance force. By creating tensions and triggering conflicts which they can then engage with directly, they can fuel their appearance of resisting conflicts, despite actively fueling the conflicts as well. The fact that they have long-since been reduced to a regional proxy in the West Asian geopolitical struggle means little to them; as long as they can keep the facade up, they will maintain power.

And one final thing - the ability to support a movement while critiquing its movers is not chauvinism; it is evidence of one’s ability to think and engage critically. Vocal critique with support does not dampen one’s support, but rather make it stronger. This is not just my philosophy, but the philosophy of Levantine Arab culture by large. To us, blind agreement is hollow - you cannot simply nod your head and agree, but add your own thoughts as well, otherwise we might as well have not said anything to you at all²⁵. We must be able to engage with others in a dynamic fashion that is both critical and supportive, and the failure to do so is insulting to the very Arabs you might claim to support.