Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God
MATTHEW LEVITT
©2013 Matthew Levitt. All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Levitt, Matthew, 1970-
Hezbollah : the global footprint of Lebanon’s party of god / Matthew Levitt.
pages cm
Includes bibliographic references and index.
ISBN 978-1-62616-013-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Hizballah (Lebanon) 2. Lebanon—Politics and government.
I. Title.
JQ1828.A98L48 2013
324.25692'084—dc23
2013002933
∞This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
15 14 13 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 First printing
Printed in the United States of America
For my parents,
who made it all possible
And my wife and children,
who make it all worthwhile
Acknowledgments
THIS BOOK IS THE PRODUCT of a decade of research and writing, based on interviews with officials and experts from five continents, declassified intelligence reports, court documents, and much more. Some people spoke on the record, but more spoke on background or not for attribution, either because they still work in government or because they feared putting at risk their future access to people in Lebanon. Many people also helped me obtain documents that, though unclassified (or declassified), were not necessarily accessible to the public. I have thanked these people privately, and do so again here—the reader will not know their names, but they know who they are and will recognize themselves in this acknowledgment all the same.
Special thanks are due to my friends and colleagues at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where I am a senior fellow and direct the institute’s Stein program on counterterrorism and intelligence. I am especially grateful for the support of the institute’s executive committee, board of trustees, and executive director Robert Satloff. The institute’s senior research staff was a constant source of support, and I am a wiser person for having the opportunity to be a part of this truly remarkable intellectual community.
I owe a special thanks and acknowledgment to the various research assistants and interns at The Washington Institute who at some point over the past few years put their hearts and souls into this study, including David Bagby, Ben Freedman, Shoshana Haberman, David Jacobson, Julie Lascar, Jake Lipton, Julia Miller, Michael Mitchell, Jonathan Prohov, Aaron Resnick, Guive Rosen, Gabriela Rudin, Nick Shaker, Melissa Trebil, and Kelli Vanderlee. As researchers, data organizers, fact checkers, editors, formatters, sounding boards, and partners in crime, the institute’s cadre of researchers have been second to none throughout this project.
But among the research assistants who worked on this book with me, four stand out for the amount of time and energy they invested in the project. Samuel Cutler, Stephanie Papa, and Becca Wasser each spent over a year organizing material, scheduling interviews, drafting timelines, and so much more. These three saw me through the long haul of organizing the massive quantity of material I collected intoa coherent, usable archive so that I could start drafting chapters. All told, Divah Alshawa will have spent over two years on this project, including many rounds of “final” editing, fact checking, and formatting. I often had to kick her out of the office at the end of the day, only to find that she’d gone home and worked on the manuscript there too. Any errors or typos that may have slipped through are mine alone, but the reason there will be so few, if any, is that Divah made sure that would be the case.
Special
MATTHEW LEVITT
©2013 Matthew Levitt. All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Levitt, Matthew, 1970-
Hezbollah : the global footprint of Lebanon’s party of god / Matthew Levitt.
pages cm
Includes bibliographic references and index.
ISBN 978-1-62616-013-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Hizballah (Lebanon) 2. Lebanon—Politics and government.
I. Title.
JQ1828.A98L48 2013
324.25692'084—dc23
2013002933
∞This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
15 14 13 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 First printing
Printed in the United States of America
For my parents,
who made it all possible
And my wife and children,
who make it all worthwhile
Acknowledgments
THIS BOOK IS THE PRODUCT of a decade of research and writing, based on interviews with officials and experts from five continents, declassified intelligence reports, court documents, and much more. Some people spoke on the record, but more spoke on background or not for attribution, either because they still work in government or because they feared putting at risk their future access to people in Lebanon. Many people also helped me obtain documents that, though unclassified (or declassified), were not necessarily accessible to the public. I have thanked these people privately, and do so again here—the reader will not know their names, but they know who they are and will recognize themselves in this acknowledgment all the same.
Special thanks are due to my friends and colleagues at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where I am a senior fellow and direct the institute’s Stein program on counterterrorism and intelligence. I am especially grateful for the support of the institute’s executive committee, board of trustees, and executive director Robert Satloff. The institute’s senior research staff was a constant source of support, and I am a wiser person for having the opportunity to be a part of this truly remarkable intellectual community.
I owe a special thanks and acknowledgment to the various research assistants and interns at The Washington Institute who at some point over the past few years put their hearts and souls into this study, including David Bagby, Ben Freedman, Shoshana Haberman, David Jacobson, Julie Lascar, Jake Lipton, Julia Miller, Michael Mitchell, Jonathan Prohov, Aaron Resnick, Guive Rosen, Gabriela Rudin, Nick Shaker, Melissa Trebil, and Kelli Vanderlee. As researchers, data organizers, fact checkers, editors, formatters, sounding boards, and partners in crime, the institute’s cadre of researchers have been second to none throughout this project.
But among the research assistants who worked on this book with me, four stand out for the amount of time and energy they invested in the project. Samuel Cutler, Stephanie Papa, and Becca Wasser each spent over a year organizing material, scheduling interviews, drafting timelines, and so much more. These three saw me through the long haul of organizing the massive quantity of material I collected intoa coherent, usable archive so that I could start drafting chapters. All told, Divah Alshawa will have spent over two years on this project, including many rounds of “final” editing, fact checking, and formatting. I often had to kick her out of the office at the end of the day, only to find that she’d gone home and worked on the manuscript there too. Any errors or typos that may have slipped through are mine alone, but the reason there will be so few, if any, is that Divah made sure that would be the case.
Special
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