a grove divided

Is Hezbollah making the same order of strategic error as has Bashar Assad of late? Lebanese blogger Tony Badran thinks so.

[I]t's really Hizbullah (and a practically homogenous Shi'a following) vs. the majority of Lebanon's groups: Christians, Druze, Sunnis. So everyone knows where the true consensus lies. All Hizbullah is doing is bargaining, only not too brightly. This has cost it credibility and prestige, rendering [Hizbullah leader] Nasrallah nothing more than a Nasser Qandil or Asem Qansoh, the pro-Syrian pitbulls that Nasrallah thought he was so above and beyond. Now, just like them and all those small pro-Syrian parties, Hizbullah is risking defining itself as a Syrian enforcer. Knowing that they have no future outside Lebanon, and there is no way they can go on antagonizing the rest of the Lebanese, that might turn out to be the dumbest move they've made yet.

In that sense, they have sounded more like the Sunnis of Iraq. That's not the wise move of a confident party. That's the move of a vulnerable party that wants to get guarantees that consolidate its gains. The mixed behavior also suggests internal division (and probably a Syrian threat). So underneath all those numbers lies a much more anxious and confused party, uncertain how to proceed.

What is more, if Hezbollah proves recalcitrant, it risks alienating its Western defenders—particularly France, which has stymied any feeble EU attempts at labelling the group a terrorist organization. Which, of course, it manifestly is.

The Shi'ite-based organization was created by the Islamic Republic in 1982, in essence to fight anti-Iranian operations mounted by Iraq in the region, but also as a tool responding to one of the principles of the Islamic Republic: the annihilation of the Jewish state and ending the presence in the region of its Western supporters, mainly the US - objectives that also responded to Syrian goals.

Armed, financed and trained by both Iran and Syria, the Hezbollah enjoys enviable popularity both in Lebanon and throughout the Arab world because of its unabated fight against the Israelis, to the point that it is credited as the “single Arab movement that forced the mighty Tsahal [Israeli army] to withdraw in June 2000 from the areas it had occupied in parts of southern Lebanon since 1982”.

It was also Hezbollah that put an end to the presence of US Marine Corps and French forces in the country by killing more than 240 Americans in their barracks in Beirut in 1983 and 120 French soldiers in deadly suicidal attacks against their garrison.

The movement also adopted the tactic of taking Western hostages, through a number of freelance hostage-taking cells, such as the Revolutionary Justice Organization and the Organization of the Oppressed Earth, which seized US church envoy Terry Waite in 1987 and held him for 1,760 days.

American professor Joshua Landis—currently living in Damascus—reports that Tuesday's Hezbollah demonstration in Beirut greatly cheered Syrian spirits. But high morale will not count for much, if one's strategic position becomes untenable. Wretchard of The Belmont Club suspects that the damage is already done.

My own nonspecialist opinion is that despite their apparent strength Syria is holding a losing hand. The train of reasoning begins with the observation that no country has ever been able to maintain occupation over another using secret services alone. Secret services must ultimately operate behind a shield provided by a secure border or conventional forces; otherwise their headquarters, safehouses and files will be vulnerable to the first foe that shows up with a tank. By sending those conventional forces back to the border while reinstalling [once and future Lebanese PM] Karami, Syria is attempting to restore the status quo ante under weakened circumstances. Can they do it? […]

The problem with dictatorships is entropy; a lot of energy is needed to keep people in line against their will and that task is frankly impossible. So dictators cheat and create the illusion of omnipotence and a climate of fear to hustle people along. Dictatorships depend, as [Juan] Cole says though he probably didn't mean it that way, on “PT Barnum's dictum that one is born every minute”. If the Syrian conventional troops are moved out of Lebanon, its hold will depend utterly on smoke and mirrors.

And as the Syrian influence evaporates, Hezbollah will see its only neighboring ally severely weakened—a prospect of which the self-proclaimed Party of God must be acutely aware.

Having witnessed in 1975 a "spontaneous" anti-American May Day demonstration in W. Berlin with "participants" ordered in from all over the East Bloc at great expense to the various governments and great aggravation to the unwilling marchers, I wouldn't judge the pro-Syrian demonstration very highly. A Lebanonese coworker confirmed that great numbers of people were bussed in from Syria.
Potemkin village time.

And don't forget the Palestinians. And the Iranians.

Certainly there were many Lebanese Shia—but as you say, how many were there willingly?