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Since its inception, Hezbollah has sought to transform Shia identity in Lebanon from a national belonging into an ideological alignment with Iran’s project of Wilayat al-Faqih. To that end, the party waged “wars of the brothers” to consolidate its control over the Shia community, attempting to undo the sense of final national belonging to Lebanon that Imam Musa al-Sadr had once institutionalized.
In its early years, Hezbollah sought to tighten its grip on the Shia community through two main channels: religion and arms (“resistance”). Yet its efforts to impose the doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih met with significant obstacles that prevented this ideology from taking root within Lebanon’s Shia milieu.
The historic and deeply rooted religious ties between Lebanese Shia and the religious authorities in Najaf — such as Grand Ayatollah Mohsen al-Hakim, Abu al-Qassem al-Khoei, and, later, Ali al-Sistani — stood as a formidable barrier to this project. These authorities represent a school of thought that explicitly rejects the Iranian model of political Wilayat al-Faqih, advocating instead for a clear separation between religious authority and direct governance.
At the local level, independent Shia religious leaders also resisted Wilayat al-Faqih project of Hezbollah. Religious leaders among them were Sayyid Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, alongside the significant moral and religious weight of Imam Mohammad Mehdi Shamseddine, who carried forward Imam Musa al-Sadr’s legacy of affirming the Shia community’s national belonging and its natural role within the Lebanese state rather than outside of it.
Together, these factors formed a wall of resistance against Hezbollah’s attempt to dominate the Shia community through doctrinal imposition.
Confronted with the failure of the ideological approach, Hezbollah shifted to a more pragmatic and effective tool: the banner of “resistance.” This discourse quickly resonated, particularly under the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, when the party advanced the slogan “arms for the liberation of the land” as a gateway to establishing its popular and political legitimacy within the community.
Yet what began as a liberation narrative gradually evolved into a self-serving ideology, encapsulated in the phrase “arms to defend the arms.” The so-called tool of liberation revealed its deeper purpose as an instrument of dominance and control. In this sense, Hezbollah successfully turned the “ideology of arms” into a mechanism for creating political and emotional separation between the Shia community and the Lebanese state — particularly at the level of allegiance.
The “ideology of arms” thus succeeded where the ideology of Wilayat al-Faqih had failed: it became a defining marker of identity and a symbol of absolute loyalty to Tehran, the ultimate patron of this armed ideology.
From this perspective, Hezbollah’s steadfast refusal to relinquish its arsenal is not merely a strategic military choice, a tool of influence or a bargaining chip. Rather, it is the very essence of its political and ideological existence. The weapons have become sacred in the party’s eyes, serving as the most effective means to estrange Shia from the Lebanese state and to create a psychological and political barrier against national integration. They also remain the sole conduit linking the Shia community to the project of Wilayat al-Faqih, with all the transnational implications it entails.
Consequently, disarming Hezbollah would not only weaken its influence but also pave the way for the Shia community to free itself from the grip of the Wilayat al-Faqih project. It would unravel the organic bond tying the fate of Lebanon’s Shia to Iran’s strategic interests — effectively dismantling Tehran’s entire sphere of influence in Lebanon.
Today, caught between the impossibility of imposing the religious ideology of Wilayat al-Faqih on the Shia community and the military setback that has deeply shaken the “ideology of arms” in the recent war, Iran’s project in Lebanon stands on the brink of decline.
