It is often claimed that that the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah is a Syrian stooge. This is untrue.
Syria's relationship with Hezbollah is complex: like most of the Arab people, Syria supported Hezbollah's efforts to get Israel to abandon its illegal occupation of southern Lebanon, but Syria remains a vehemently secular regime which is uncomfortable with Hezbollah's religious ideology.
Referring to Syrian and Iranian influence on the movement, Adam Shatz in 'The New York Review of Books of April 2004 argues that Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has achieved "a significant degree of autonomy from both parties."
http://www.mafhoum.com/press7/190P8.htm
Hezbollah enjoys popular support not only for its decisive role in forcing the Israeli withdrawal of 2000, but also for the range of social, educational, healthcare and welfare services it provides.
It vehemently denies claims that it is funded by Syria or Iran. Recently Abdallah Safieddine, Hezbollah's Tehran-based envoy, declared that "both countries' support was political and moral and that neither Tehran nor Damascus would decide the future of his movement."
http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=9092
Furthermore, during Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in July said there was no evidence linking Syria and Iran to Hezbollah's attacks on Israel.
"I have heard this speculation. I have also heard speculation that Syria and Iran are involved in staging terrorist attacks. We take this very seriously, but we want to see facts. Whenever we ask for facts, there are not too many, if any," Lavrov told CNN's Late Edition program.
"We would be last to ignore the facts of this type of involvement. But so far we have not seen any proof." He added: "Hezbollah and Hamas have some of their leaders living in Syria. Therefore, of course Syrians do talk to them...and can exert some influence on them...but do not forget that Hezbollah is a Lebanese phenomenon. It is not an imported product."
Indeed, the Los Angeles Times reported that US officials have "declined to offer specific evidence of Iranian or Syrian involvement," and in the same article an anonymous Israeli official admitted that "I don't have evidence that there were direct instructions."
Wayne White, a senior official in the State Department's intelligence arm until 2005, has said it would be an overstatement to say Hezbollah is a "pawn" of Iran.
And Robert Malley, special assistant to former US President Bill Clinton for Arab-Israeli issues and director of the Near East and North Africa programme for the International Crisis Group in Washington, says: "I think there's more local autonomy, a greater degree of local decision-making, than people give credit for."
Even the US State Department's 2006 report on terrorism admits that Hezbollah "can and does act independently."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-hezbollah14jul14,1,808614.story?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=1&cset=true
Besides, one can argue that with billions of dollars a year in US military, economic and political support for Israel, what is wrong with Hezbollah receiving support?
Despite its rhetoric about democracy in the Middle East, the US continues to ignore the electoral legitimacy bestowed upon Hezbollah by the Lebanese people, and continues to pressure the EU to list it as a terrorist organisation, which it has refused to do.
In the 2005 Lebanese parliamentary elections, Hezbollah and its ally Amal took all 23 seats in the south, gaining 35 of 128 seats in parliament, the second-largest bloc. Hezbollah itself has 14 seats in parliament. Its Deputy Secretary-General Naim al-Qassem described the sweeping victory as a "referendum on the popularity of the resistance and rejection of foreign interference in Lebanon's internal affairs."
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/096A65F0-1EB4-432E-B091-A2BBE8997375.htm
In fact the elections resulted, for the first time, in Hezbollah's representation in Lebanon's cabinet, with two members. Muhammad Fneish, the country’s energy minister, responded aptly to the US refusal to deal with any Hezbollah representative in Lebanon's government: "Our presence in government is an affair that concerns the Lebanese people, and US intervention…goes against democracy."
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/38FD8B8D-F882-4EE1-883D-0EC5E0C83726.htm