What is the impact of Hizbullah’s intervention in Syria on the party’s image as a Lebanese national movement?

This thesis seeks to examine whether Hizbullah’s intervention in the Syrian Civil War has affected the party’s image as a Lebanese national movement, a narrative it has strived to maintain ever since the 1990s, when it started downplaying its bonds to Iran and concurrently emphasizing its Lebanese identity. Based on the situation in the fall of 2016, my analysis shows that Hizbullah’s discursively attempts to fit the intervention within its “Lebanonized” narrative through several strategies. It encourages national unity against what it considers a new enemy of the country, namely Islamist extremist groups; claims its role as a national protector of all Lebanese, and calls for dialogue and a political solution to the crisis. While this discourse has been recognized and reproduced by many of Hizbullah’s supporters in Lebanon, the party has not managed to convince the critics. Instead, the intervention has been regarded as a provocation and provoked increased suspicion about Hizbullah’s real identity. The discourse falls within the critics’ broader narrative of Hizbullah as an Iranian movement, operating as a state within a state. As concluded within this thesis, the case of the intervention in Syria should be considered an example of Hizbullah’s struggle to balance the contradicting components of its identity. It is also an illustration of how the wider Lebanese post-war political discussion has failed to move beyond the constrictions of sectarianism and foreign alliances