Analyst sees Iran’s fingerprints on Hizbullah attacks on Israel

by Debra Rubin
NJJN Staff Writer

The Hizbullah capture of two Israeli soldiers that precipitated Israel’s attacks on Lebanon was a well-thought-out operation long planned by leaders in Iran — with the approval of Syria — according to a Washington-based counterterrorism expert.

“Hizbullah was created by Iran,” said Olivier Guitta, a terrorism consultant with broad expertise on Israel and the Arab world. “Hizbullah gets its marching orders from Iran.”

Guitta, who has written in-depth studies of Hizbullah for the Brookings Institution, outlined the origins and goals of the terrorist organization at a July 28 program at Congregation B’nai Tikvah in North Brunswick, cosponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County and the synagogue.

In a phone interview conducted before the Shabbat evening program, Guitta noted that what Hizbullah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah didn’t anticipate was the ferocity of the Israeli response to the kidnapping of its soldiers.

“He made a major mistake in that he did not think Israel would retaliate that strongly or he hoped it would agree to an exchange of hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners like they did in 2004,” explained Guitta, a Moroccan-born Jew who lived in Spain, France, and Germany before moving to the United States in 1992.

Israel released more than 430 Arab prisoners in January 2004 in exchange for a kidnapped Israeli businessman and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers missing since October 2000. In 1985, Israel freed 1,150 prisoners in exchange for three Israeli soldiers kidnapped in Lebanon.

Guitta said that Hizbullah was created by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in 1982 to spread his vision of Islamic radicalism, destroy Israel, and blunt Western power. Ever since, the terrorist group has had both the financial and spiritual backing of the Iranian leadership.

With the approval of Syria, the Shiite Islamist revolutionary government in Iran originally dispatched around 1,000 members of its elite Revolutionary Guards to the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon, an area occupied by Syrian forces. There they recruited radical Shiite clerics to their Hizbullah cause. In a 1985 manifesto, the leadership of Hizbullah pledged loyalty to Khomeini and to the goal of establishing an Islamic state in Lebanon.

“They would spread [Khomeini’s] vision of Islamic revolution,” explained Guitta, who speaks five languages and reads daily Arabic, European, Israeli, and American press reports. “The way [the Iranians] saw it, they would drive a wedge between the communities in Lebanon. The Lebanese people would lose their social fabric. They tried going house to house to deal with social problems. They tried telling them, ‘You’re first a Shiite.’ They were going to show the importance of Iran. They were looking to make Lebanon an Iranian province.”

Lebanon’s three major religious groupings are Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, and Maronite Christians. The president of Lebanon must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni, and the speaker of parliament a Shiite.

Syrian troops, rather than Iranian, have occupied Lebanon for practical reasons, said Guitta.

Guitta holds a master’s of business administration from a French business school and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Cologne in Germany. He had over a decade of experience in international banking and portfolio management with major firms in New York and Miami. However, after 9/11, Guitta said, he decided to switch careers and instead fight “the war of ideas.”

Guitta moved to Washington in 2004 to begin sharing his expertise on the Middle East, terrorism, and Europe. His clients include think-tanks and lobbying and law firms needing assistance on terrorism cases.

In discussing prospects for peace, Guitta said that Hamas’ terrorist arm, run by Khaled Mashaal, its political leader based in Damascus, has no intention of entering into a peace deal with its enemy, Israel. Likewise, Imad Mugniyeh, the Lebanese commander widely believed to be heading Hizbullah’s international branch, has an active role in Israeli terrorist attacks, according to Guitta.

Mugniyeh is on the European Union’s list of wanted terrorists and the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list for his role in a series of high-profile attacks against the West, including the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet and murder of one of its passengers, a U.S. Navy diver, and the 1983 attacks on a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Marines.

“If the international community does not get in the way, which they are, Israel needs to go to page one of the book and kill Nasrallah and Mugniyeh,” explained Guitta. “If they can kill those two guys, victory is theirs. If they don’t kill those guys, they will regroup and go back to the same kinds of attacks on a regular basis against Israel.

“The job has to be finished, because if not, they’ll be back.”