BEIRUT — Hezbollah's offensive against mostly Sunni Muslim political rivals in Lebanon has sullied its image in the Arab world as an armed force engaged in a righteous struggle against Israel.
But interviews with analysts and Arab news media accounts suggest that the Shiite Muslim group still came out ahead. It won major concessions from the Lebanese government after its assault and largely retained its popularity despite turning its weapons against fellow Muslims.
Hezbollah fighters this month briefly took over Sunni-dominated West Beirut in what they described as legitimate protection of their military might from a Lebanese government targeting the movement's key telecommunications and intelligence assets.
Satellite television channels across the region broadcast images of Shiite militiamen armed with rocket launchers and assault rifles. West-leaning TV stations spoke of a Hezbollah "occupation" of Beirut streets and described the events as an "armed coup orchestrated by Iran," playing on the growing rift between Sunnis who dominate the region and Shiites who control Iran.
Hezbollah had broken a promise, they said, by using its formidable arsenal against domestic rivals.
"For many Arabs, Hezbollah lost much of its glow as a pure resistance group fighting against Israel," said Mishari Thaydi, a Saudi columnist for the London-based pan-Arab daily Al Sharq al Awsat. "By laying siege to the residence of lawmaker Saad Hariri, a symbol of Sunni leadership in Lebanon, and attacking other Sunni figures, Hezbollah projected an irreparable image as a sectarian militia."
U.S. officials have voiced optimism that the offensive will damp Arab enthusiasm for the Iranian- and Syrian-backed movement.
"Hezbollah lost something very important, which is any argument that it is somehow a resistance movement on behalf of the Lebanese people," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters Thursday in the Bay Area.
But the swiftness of Hezbollah's operation and the political compromise that followed Wednesday, giving the movement veto power over major government decisions while bolstering its U.S.-backed rivals' election prospects, may have helped the group retain its popularity and calm sectarian tensions that work against its influence, analysts said.
Aiding Hezbollah's cause is the deep hostility in the Arab streets toward the United States and its allies, which often extends to the Lebanese government.
