Why Hezbollah is sitting out the Gaza conflict

Roger Cressey, NBC News analyst and former deputy counterterrorism director for the National Security Council, notes that Hezbollah is now essentially the government in Lebanon and has different responsibilities, different agendas. “There has never been a correlation between events in Gaza and Hezbollah’s strategic decision-making,” says Cressey.

That doesn’t mean Hezbollah wants to make peace with Israel, just that it’s biding its time, and more importantly that, in the words of more than one analyst, “it has no dog in this fight.”

“Hezbollah is now the party in control of the Lebanese government,” Dr. Robert Danin, Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow, told journalists in a conference call Tuesday. “That has a way of moderating one’s behavior. If they attacked Israel, they know they would be taking the state of Lebanon to war.”…

“Hezbollah’s focus is elsewhere,” added Danin. “Its relationship with Iran, its relationship with the Assad regime … Hezbollah is in a very vulnerable position. Without Syria, it would lose its lifeline to Iran.”