The commotion surrounding foreign implication in the ongoing fighting in Syria is focusing on the Lebanese Hezbollah, knowing that numerous foreign combatants joined the battles, including Sunni extremists who came from various countries to fight the regime and Shiites who came from Lebanon and Iraq among other places to fight the armed opposition. All these foreign fighters are implicated in the Syrian fight, along with Hezbollah. So why this focus on the Party of God? Naturally, any civil fighting is loathed and condemned, and any fueling of this fight is denounced. In addition, any foreign implication in it constitutes a violation and undermining of the country's sovereignty, as there is no foreign implication that is legitimate, and another that is illegitimate - under whichever pretext - unless it is made in accordance with a Security Council decision. And this has not yet been seen at the level of the Syrian situation. When there was talk about Al-Nusra Front, the issue was not related to the fighting of foreigners within its ranks, but rather to its extremist ideology which caused it to be classified as a terrorist group. But the talk about Hezbollah on the occasion of the Al-Quseir battles, in which it is fiercely participating and where dozens have fallen among its elements, has become a matter of aggression and occupation, because the party is a political entity with proclaimed loyalties and ties with Iran. Hence, its participation in the fight is an intervention in the affairs of another state as per International Law, whereas the fighters of Al-Nusra Front remain individuals whose status does not amount to the level of an intervention regardless of their horrific acts and the crimes they commit, and they will be held accountable based on Criminal Law. In that sense, the participation of Hezbollah – with what it represents – is a foreign intervention, with all the consequences this implies in International Law. This is why there is great interest in the expansion of this participation, which in turn reflects the expansion of Iran's participation that also falls under the stipulations of this law. In parallel, this public participation by Hezbollah in the fighting in Syria reveals strategic change in the political rhetoric, after its previous Lebanese task has transformed into a recognized Iranian intervention tool in the sovereign affairs of another state. The party's forced exposure of this shift which affected its primary role, is a setback at the level of the claims related to its political role under the banner of resistance against the Israeli occupation of Lebanese territories, and a return to its main role as a Shiite party following the Vileyat-e Faqih under the banner of defending the rejectionism axis this time around. The party's exploitation of the resistance in Lebanon was successful, or at the very least earned it political support from the majority of the Lebanese and the various sects, who considered it was fighting Israel to liberate the land without truly considering why it was this party in particular – with all that it represents – that was assigned to carry out resistance and liberation. By relinquishing resistance in favor of rejectionism, the party became forced to defend the Syrian regime, not only because it is its political ally, but also because it is a minority regime, i.e. a sectarian ally. And in order to justify its military intervention, the party's position - since the eruption of the Syrian crisis – gradually went from understanding the popular demands and stressing the necessity of meeting them under the ceiling of the regime, to stating there are infiltrators and agents who should be deterred among the protesters, to assuring there are Lebanese living on the Syrian side of the border and defending themselves, to pointing to the presence of Shiite shrines threatened by the Takfiris, to addressing preemptive strikes to the Takfiris in Syria to prevent it from falling in their hands. In other words, the protection of the Syrian side in the rejectionism axis requires the fighting of the vast popular majority in Syria to serve the minority regime, which would explain the fierce combats in Al-Quseir and the size of the losses suffered by the party in that area, considering that Rif Homs is the node connecting the Lebanese Shiite depth and the minority depth in Syria.
