Now, after Stratfor & Al Arabiya, 'who're you gonna call'? AsSiyassah of course!

For those interested in dissecting and exposing the flimsiness of those mediums, especially as they relate to Hezbollah, Amal Saad Ghorayeb slam dunks STRATFOR, again. I post with her permission:

"I appreciate your invitation to further debate this issue. As it so happens my analysis (not to be confused with “opinion” as you refer to it in your e-mail) is based on evidence, though I find it most unfortunate that you do not apply the same standard to your own reports which make their way into the hands of Fortune 500 companies, news outlets and the US government. In fact, your e-mail response merely underlines STRATFOR’s complete disregard for empirical evidence.

You boldly claim to know what Qasim’s “true convictions” are though you make no attempt to demonstrate this knowledge with verifiable proof. More problematic still, is your reliance upon purported conventional wisdom as a source of empirical support. This much is revealed by your assertion that “it is not a secret within Hezbollah that Qasim is not a believer in Wilayat al-Faqih”.

As an observer of Hizbullah for the past 13 years, this “open secret” seems to have eluded me and escaped the notice of other observers of the movement whose works I have read.

I did not even find any reference to this issue in Al Sharq al-Awsat, a newspaper I have no respect for but whose reports you have sourced before. As affirmed by the Saudi newspaper earlier this year , “ Sheikh Naim Kassem, and other leaders of the radical Shiite party that believe in the absolute power of the Wali Al Faqih,” (http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=3&id=17023).

You go on to claim that Qasim “was told” he must commit to the authority of the Faqih as a precondition for his membership in the party. I am very curious about the source of this audacious pronouncement as I am not familiar with this particular historical account. Were you or any other STRATFOR “sources” present in 1982 to overhear this? Perhaps the same “STRATFOR sources in Hezbollah” that you refer to in your report published on 15 December 2007 were present? Most intriguing…..

As a political scientist trained in the western tradition of the social sciences, I was taught that the twin pillars of scientific research are logic and observation. To be accepted as valid, assertions must make sense and be grounded in empirical reality, criteria which your reports and claims lack. As such, I shall attempt to set the record straight for you:

Qasim never “decided to join” a newly formed Hizbullah because he was one of those who founded it (and FYI, nobody simply "joins" Hizbullah in the organizational sense). Moreover, his involvement in the “Committee Supportive of the Islamic Revolution” --a cultural organization established in 1979 in the run-up to the revolution in Iran—predated Hizbullah’s establishment. Needless to say, Qasim would not have voluntarily joined this movement had he not been convinced of the principle of the Wilayat al-Faqih which Khomeini represented.

As I explain in my upcoming book on Iran’s relationship with Hizbullah, as well as its other allies, the commitment to the principle of the Wilayat al-Faqih and the struggle against Israel are not only defining features of Hizbullah’s ideology, but are the very reasons the movement emerged. To argue that Qasim is a Hizbullah official who was never genuinely committed to the Wilaya is equivalent to arguing that a Communist party official privately repudiated Marxism and did not believe in class equality except for “expediency’s” sake.

If STRATFOR truly is the "shadow CIA" as Barron's dubbed it, then that explains a lot......"

and now to AsSiyassah:

"On November 18, the independent (You got to love that term in this context!), anti-Syrian Al-Seyassah daily carried the following exclusive report: “The domestic disputes in Hezbollah have come to light as conflicting information emerged about what was truly happening in the ranks of the party that failed on two occasions during the last couple of years to hold its general conference, elect a new command and draw a new political, military and organizational vision for the coming stage. Some media outlets close to the party mentioned that the latter was soon going to stage its general conference, announce the names of the elected Shura Council members, conduct wide-scale changes in most of the organizational and political sectors, as well as in the military body involved in the resistance as was usually done after each conference.

“They added that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s term will be renewed as the party’s secretary general, and that changes will affect the organizational structure taking into consideration the major expansion which was seen during the last few years and which rendered Hezbollah’s organizational and administrative body twice as large than before the July 2006 war. However, knowledgeable (as opposed to amateurish?) sources in Hezbollah hurriedly denied the information and especially the talk about the party’s election of new Shura Council members, indicating that the preparations to stage these elections were ongoing and that in case they are held, an official statement will be issued in that regard...

“For its part, Al-Seyassah learned from sources following the developments that two reports were leaked (Read: Leaked from Ahmad Jarallah to AsSiyassah!)to the media about the internal reality of Hezbollah, showing the presence of two major directions prevailing over the leaders of the party in regard to the way to deal with the conference. The first direction led by Nasrallah is trying to maintain the current leadership formation without introducing any drastic changes and was the one that leaked the first report to some media outlets, claiming that the Shura Council elections were indeed conducted... As for the second direction led by deputy Secretary General Sheikh Na’im Qassem, it wishes to introduce drastic changes at the level of the leadership structure. In this context, a knowledgeable partisan source assured Al-Seyassah that the dispute extended beyond the ambition to assume positions and affected the political inclination of the party during the coming stage.

“Indeed, Nasrallah’s movement which is historically known for its good relations with Damascus and its ties with Tehran, is pushing toward calming down the party’s military action and focusing on political action, firstly because the party expanded on the Shi’i level at the expense of the Amal movement and the other forces, and secondly because the party lost the sympathy and support of the other Lebanese sects. These two factors [according to Nasrallah’s movement] required the party to work more on the popular bases and to further infiltrate (so much infiltration, and so little time) political, unionist and economic life.

“On the other hand, Qassem’s wing which is known for its cold relations with Damascus, is calling for the return of the party to “its origins”, i.e. to the military action through which it secured many accomplishments, believing that a further engagement in political life will entail further drowning in the Lebanese mud. This wing also considered that the party lost popular Lebanese sympathy toward the cause of the resistance due to the sectarian behavior it had to adopt during its accession to the Lebanese sectarian system. For his part, the partisan source stated that the dispute was not simple and that its outcome will not only entail the postponement of the party’s general conference, but will also affect its political and military performance.

“He indicated that the most prominent sign for this paralysis was the fact that the high commanders did not have clear answers to the questions of the partisan bases, namely the one related to whether the retaliation for the assassination of military official Imad Mughniyeh was a reality or a mere promise that could not be met.”