Nabih Berri and the blood of Lebanon’s Shias

14/09/2026

By Hicham Bou Nassif | Weinberg Associate Professor of International Relations and the Middle East and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College-California

Nabih Berri is not innocent of the bloodshed suffered for years by Shias at the hands of Hezbollah and Iran in Lebanon. What is certain is that the Shias of southern Lebanon are living through a tragedy. It is equally certain that the price of Nabih Berri’s leadership and his long tenure as speaker of parliament has been his silence over the policies that paved the way for this tragedy, and his support for them at every major juncture.

To be clear, what is happening in the south today did not begin when Hassan Nasrallah decided to open a front in support of Gaza. It began much earlier, when Hafez al-Assad decided to thwart the 17 May 1983 Agreement, with the help at the time of Nabih Berri and Walid Jumblatt. Since Berri was one of the tools al-Assad used to suppress Lebanon’s resistance against its role as a proxy battleground with Israel, the leader of the Amal Movement bears moral and political responsibility for the four decades that followed—decades that kept southern Lebanon trapped in that role.

Any current or future attempt to absolve Berri of responsibility for the tragedies of southern Lebanon is, therefore, nothing more than a blatant falsification of our contemporary history and should not be allowed to go unchallenged.

The fact is that the period of Hezbollah’s rise and consolidation of power in Lebanon, following the Syrian army’s tightening of its grip on the eastern regions in 1990, was also the period of Nabih Berri’s political ascendancy in our country. Hafez al-Assad assigned roles to everyone: Hezbollah would fight on behalf of Syria and Iran in the south, while Nabih Berri would provide political cover for the group and those directing it from Beirut.

It is true that the game at the time was bigger than Berri, or any other local player, given that the decision to hand Lebanon over to Syria was an American one. But it is equally true that Berri accepted the role assigned to him and played it enthusiastically. It kept him in an uncontested position throughout the years of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. During those dark years, two things grew in Lebanon: Hezbollah’s state within a state and Nabih Berri’s influence. To claim that Berri’s influence has nothing to do with Hezbollah’s state within a state is absurd; he is its protégé.

The period beginning in 2005 and the years that followed could have been an opportunity for Berri to save the Shias — and Lebanon as a whole — from the monster Hafez al-Assad and Iran had planted among them. But Berri was, naturally, preoccupied with saving himself, not the Shias.

Yes, the opportunity presented itself during the heyday of the March 14 movement, and the militia could have been isolated domestically had Berri switched sides. But Hezbollah’s predicament at the time turned into an opportunity for Berri. He placed all the Shias under the group’s grip in exchange for his own, Berri’s, continued tenure as speaker of parliament.

The broader Shia public at the time believed that Nasrallah and Berri were laying the foundations for permanent Shia rule in Lebanon. The truth, however, is that they were digging the graves into which Israel would later send the bodies of thousands of their own sons.

For the Shias to survive, southern Lebanon must be freed from its role as a mailbox used by foreign actors—including Yasser Arafat, al-Assad and Iran—in their regional power struggles. Liberating the south requires a minimum degree of independence in Lebanon’s national decision-making, the very independence that Nabih Berri devoted his entire political career to undermining.

In general, those among Lebanon’s Shias who understand where their interests lie are racing the “isolationists” toward “isolation.” This “isolation,” which some mock, is nothing more than Lebanon’s independence from the conflicts of others. And when that independence collapses, the Shias pay the price before anyone else. Moreover, they will pay more heavily than anyone else.

This article was originally published in Arabic by Nida al-Watan on 14 September 2026. The original can be found here.

The views expressed in this op-ed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of SyriacPress.