Israel Matzav

Hezbullah in trouble?

Most of Hezbollah’s official allies in Lebanon are bribed and bullied into supporting it. The principal bullying instrument lately has been the Syrian car bomb. So if the Assad regime is pulled down in Damascus, expect a great deal of Hezbollah’s local support to simply evaporate.

It’s already starting to happen even while Assad is still standing.

Here is Amir Taheri:

In his Army Day speech, President Michel Suleiman, an ex- general, rejected all three pillars of Hezbollah’s discourse:

* Hezbollah insists that it maintains an unofficial army to “resist Israeli aggression.”

Suleiman said: “Defending the nation and ensuring its sovereignty with the force of arms is the exclusive prerogative of the national army.”

* Hezbollah also claims to be part of a “Resistance Front,” along with the Islamic Republic in Tehran and the Assad regime in Damascus. This, it says, means waging “relentless war” against the United States and Israel until “the Islamic Revolution” triumphs worldwide.

Suleiman, by contrast, pointedly asserted that no one had the right to involve Lebanon in conflicts that have nothing to do with it.

“We will not be dragged into problems created by others,” he said.

* Hezbollah has turned southern Beirut, parts of the Bekaa Valley and parts of south Lebanon into no-go areas for the Lebanese national army and police.

In tones that would have been unimaginable even a month ago, Suleiman said the national army would assert its presence throughout the national territory:

“The state shall never accept that the army abandons its role in any parcel of national territory,” the president said. “No to mini-states and sectarian enclaves anywhere in national territory.”

Labels: Hezbullah, Lebanon, Syrian uprising

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:44 AM