Reviewed by Harris Chaiklin

Extremist groups espousing a fundamentalist version of Islam are the stuff of daily headlines. These zealots glorify martyrdom and embrace other unconventional forms of warfare. Not much is known about the nature of these organizations. Nicholas Blanford’s Warriors of God, about the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, may help provide some understanding of all such groups.

This is a reporter’s book, not a scholarly work. Blanford has been reporting on the Middle East for more than a dozen years. Much of this time has been in Lebanon, where he had access to all aspects of Hezbollah’s Lebanese operations and was able to interview its leaders. The writing is sometimes detailed and dry and reads as if it were transferred from his working notes. At other times it has the flavor of an adventure story. The material follows a timeline but the choice of topics is dictated by the event he is reporting on.

The first part of the book is devoted to a detailed presentation of the group’s murky beginning. In 1984 Hezbollah, “The Party of God,” was officially adopted as its name. This Shiite group has two main principles: one is to wage unremitting war against Israel, including its U.S. ally, and the second is to work toward creating a world fundamentalist Islamic caliphate.

Blanford then proceeds to describe each aspect of the Hezbollah operation in great detail, often portraying his role in a story he is developing. The group’s activities include an extensive welfare system designed to ensure support from other Lebanese Shiites, its extensive media operations and mastery of propaganda, the deployment of sophisticated fortifications and weapons across Lebanon, and the many conflicts with Israel. Currently Hezbollah is in a stalemated position as regards its war against Israel. After the small war in July 2006, Lebanon was devastated and Israel withdrew without crushing Hezbollah. Neither the Lebanese government nor Iran currently wants another war.

Blanford tries to present Hezbollah’s actions in objective reportorial language, but all too frequently he stumbles, using terms such as “brilliant” to describe Hezbollah’s tactics and characterizing the Israelis and their American allies as “bumbling.” He does little analysis, although in one instance he describes Hezbollah as “a non-state militant group employing both irregular and conventional weapons and tactics in a single battlespace.” Combatting such tactics is very difficult for those who adhere to modern values, especially concerning the conduct of war. Most of Hezbollah’s opponents do not use suicide bombers, employ ambulances to carry weapons for attacks, or fire from close to civilian or U.N. positions.

The major contribution of this work is to show how dangerous and effective a force Hezbollah and similar organizations are. What detracts from it are questions about Blanford’s journalistic ethics. At one point the Israelis moved some topsoil a hundred yards from Lebanon into Israel. Blanford wrote a short newspaper article characterizing it as stealing topsoil. It didn’t get the reaction he wanted. “As expected there was no reaction to this mini scoop. The story clearly needed a little promotional shove.” He describes how he got the paper’s publisher to approach the speaker of the Lebanese Parliament with an offer to write a letter of protest. The letter could then be sent to the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the European Union and the Arab League. Blanford explains that, once the Parliament Speaker’s permission had been secured, “we wrote in his name a communiqué denouncing Israel’s ‘appallingly cynical policy’ of stealing Lebanese soil.” He succeeded in making this an international cause célebrè that reached the U.N., drew complaints from the European Union and forced Israel to defend the action, which it said was done by private contractors.

Such journalistic finagling calls into question many of the “first hand” accounts that are reported in this volume. And Blanford is currently embroiled in a controversy over his putting his name as co-author on a controversial interview when he only wrote the first paragraph. In short, this is a highly informative book and a useful contribution to the understanding of radical Islam’s threat if it is read with several grains of proverbial salt

Harris Chaiklin is professor emeritus at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. He is an inveterate book reviewer.

 

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