Iran and Hizbullah: A Very Special Relationship

This paper focuses on the Iranian influence in the Lebanese Shi'i movement Hezbollah. The main reason behind this decision was the fact that Iran is Hezbollah’s ideological and religious mentor. This movement’s political program derives from the Iranian Revolution, whose cadres provided the financial, political, and logistical support for the establishment of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah emerged in 1982 as a Shiite organization and an ideological Shiite proxy for Iran. During the next ten years, Hezbollah evolved into a complex institution; Hezbollah became a major political force in Lebanon and emerged as a powerful non-state military force in the region. Yet Hizbullah could not have reached its current level of significance without the support of Iran.
For the past 30 years, Hezbollah's strategic partnership with Iran has proven to be a mutually beneficial relationship. From Iran, Hezbollah gets tens of thousands of rockets, hundreds of millions of dollars a year, training and operational logistical support from Iran. From Hezbollah, Iran gets an extended reach -- to the Mediterranean and beyond -- and a means of targeting its enemies from afar with reasonable deniability.
Furthermore, Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah is part of an Iranian geostrategic scheme to establish a “Shiite arc of influence” from Iran across Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. With Hezbollah deeply involved in supporting the Assad-Alawite regime in its bloody internal war, there are negative political, material, and social consequences to the Lebanese-Shia organization for the intervention in the Syrian War. These problems will create a potentially existential crisis for Hezbollah in Lebanon.