Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was on the air at Hezbollah's al Manar TV station 12 hours after reports claim he was wounded in the Israeli air strike that flattened his headquarters compound in Beirut last night, July 15.
It was hard to determine whether he had been wounded or not. The recording shown by al Manar television was roughly edited, could have been made anywhere - like a hospital- and was of very poor quality. He spoke clearly, but appeared to be shaken up badly and actually called on his fellow Muslims for help for the first time.
After some of the usual bluster about the `surprises we have for the Zionists' Nasrallah said: "Our campaign has only just begun. We all (the Arab nation) saw how the Arab League foreign ministers’ meeting ended Saturday. Therefore we have never relied on them and they are of no interest to us. But,” Nasrallah stressed, “Today there is a danger that Israel will defeat Hamas in Gaza and Hizballah in Lebanon and then the entire Arab world will pay the price."
He went back to Hezbollah's glory days of 2000, when the Israelis retreated from South Lebanon:"We showed the world how a few with enough enterprise could beat the Israelis. Today, a fresh opportunity to rout the Zionists is at hand. We are a living example of how it can be done and we therefore ask (Arab leaders): Where are you?” Nasrallah ended his peroration with an appeal: “The battle is not Hizballah’s alone. This war belongs to the entire Arab and Muslim nation, for the sake of this world and the next."
This was a pretty thinly veiled appeal to Syria and Iran to get into the fight, IMO.
Nasrallah perhaps realizes now that he and Hezbollah were just pawns used by Iran and Syria to deflect attention from the dispute on Iran's nuclear weapons and sow dissension between the US and the EU. *Sigh* ....what a motard.
Iran, at least verbally appeared to answer Nasrallah's appeal.
Iran leader Ayatolah Ali Khameini declared on Iranian TV today that Iran will never allow Hezbollah to be disarmed. This was the first direct Iranian acknowledgement of support for Hezbollah since hostilities with Israel began on Wednesday, July 12th.
This could either be mere verbal histrionics or a real pledge of support with weapons and even ground forces if necessary to stop Hezbollah from being defeated.
This has become a very different Middle East war, with a lot of Israel's traditional foes opting out and Iran taking over as Israel's chief antagonist.
Stay tuned...
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I was reading an article today regarding how Gingrich wants Bush to address both houses of Congress and declare that we are in the midst of WWIII (or as some would call it, WWIV).
Personally, I think it would help the country finally put it all together (everything that has been going on) and finally realize what you've been saying all along. We are at War.
Thank you for highlighting it for those willing to go beyond the partisan politics and realize what is truly going on.
Lindsey
i may have missed it, but i think it's time for ff to answer a question(s).
why this?
why now?
the hezz/ham strategic planners, if they have either, must be using a page out of saddam's book on warfare against the west.
iran imo can't commit ground forces to this. can they?
how would they get there? are the toll gates in iraq operating? if they go through turkey, then they are going to show their true colors once and for all, refusing access to the IV id back in 2003.
if they go up the jordan that trip would take how long?
iran imo would be willing to fight to the last hezz/ham man and syria as well. then they proclaim a group of the repub guard as hezzbollah and say see the hezz have not been disarmed they are right here and ready to fight.
taqiyya?
just when iran is at the height of it's game in bluster over the nuke issue, hezz/ham pull this.
did they think that with olmert in control, i wonder what his family thinks of this, that israel would be easy pickings?
iran could string the nuke issue out for years. and still can.
if they commit forces to this fight, their crude loading ports on the persian gulf are sitting ducks. take them out and the iranian economy goes where fast?
start a fight and then scream to the world cease fire(!), cease fire(!). imo this is what the south lebanese and pallys get when they let hezz/ham represent them.
this is their gov't.
i also think a very significant comment was/has been made, by this leader of hezz that was injured, that more light should be made of.
the arab nations do not recognize borders. those lines on the maps don't mean squat to them. "they" view themselves as an arab nation with no borders or regions.
but i still have this/these questions for ff:
why this ?
why now ?
ps: if the joos have strategic planners i think they should look back to king hussien(sp) in sept. 1970. nothing less than action like that will quiet this storm.
ever. and after that action the king proclaimed we are jordanians not pallys.
ps update: i would just love it if assad were taken out. christmas every day for the rest of the year.
Hi Russell, Nazar, Louie...
Here's how I see it, as I wrote in another piece.
Iran's primary motivation in all this is to BUY TIME and to take the spotlight off of the controversy surrounding Iran's nuclear weapons programs.
Iran OWNS Hezbollah, just as they own Hamas..and both attacks were coordinated by Iran with Syria, Hezbollah's Nasrallah and Hamas' Khalid Meshaal....all of whom either reside in Damascus or, in the case of Nasrallah, are able to travel there covertly fairly easily.
As we speak, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Larijani is in Damascus long term to coordinate their joint war effort.
It's a well known chess strategy to sacrifice a pawn for position and leverage...and in Iran, we're dealing with the people who invented the game.
In a very clever stroke, they picked a place to attack that would not only take the heat of Iran but attack the west at its weakest hinge...Israel. They have thus split the consensus (to the extent it existed) between the US and the EU due to their VERY different attitudes on Israel, and gained added leverage in the eyes of Islamists as the true leaders of the jihad.
That's why this and why now.
Obviously, Nasrallah did not expect the kind of response Israel has given them. Why should they? The last time, Israel traded 400 live terrorists for three dead bodies and an Israeli civilian. And the last time Hezbollah went head to head with the IDF, the IDF ended up retreating for `security guarantees' by the UN.
Iran may not have figured on this level of response either, counting on the Bush Administration reining Israel in so as not to disturb Lebanon's pro western government. That might still happen, BTW.
Nasrallah, at this point, is very much worried about losing the whole kebab, which is why he made that heartfelt plea to Iran on Hezbollah's TV station.
Will Iran commit conventional forces? Who knows? The geography is not a major obstacle, IMO.
A)They could already have significant forces in Syria or even in Lebanon that we know nothing about
B) They could airlift, again probably covertly or even openly, at Syria's invitation. I don't think the US is going to shoot Iranian planes out of the sky on sight at this point. And if the Israelis do, we'll see a regional war anyway and no obstacle to fresh Iranian airlifts.
C)they could send forces through northern Iraq to Syria. Riskier, but the border is still pretty porous in a number of places. Rememebr, Iran has successfully sent arms and fighters to Iraq for a couple of years now.
D)Don't rule Turkey out. The Erdogan government is openly Islamist and becoming more aligned with Iran by the day.
As for Israel being determined not to let Iran have nukes, if they aren't in that place already, they never will be!
I personally see this going one of two ways. Either the US will pressure Israel into a ceasefire within 72 hours and do some diplomatic shuffling with the aim of disarming hezbollah and getting back the Israeli prisoners or B) Syria and possibly Iran may be forced to come in to protect their Hezbollah assets so as not to lose face in the jihadi world..in which case, we have a major regional war on our hands.
I found Putin's remarks at the G8 summit and the US blocking Russia's bid to join the WTO most revealing.
As I like to say, stay tuned....
Insightful comments. Personally, I don't think that the U.S. will pressure Israel to back off at all.
Unfortunately, I think your alternative scenario is perfectly plausible - a major regional war. The problem is this - how long will it stay regional?
I know a lot of people don't believe that the US will ever get directly involved in a war with Iran, but for me, it seems inevitable. How much longer can we allow islamic fascists to create havoc all over the world with out direct confrontation? They only know force.
From my standpoint, the earlier we deal with the threat - and this means backing Israel with intelligance, munitions, etc. on a larger scale immediately - the better. US direct involvement might be delayed, but we simply can't sit back and do nothing.
Lindsey
ff said,
not only take the heat of Iran but attack the west at its weakest hinge...Israel.
your joking right?
israel, the weakest link?
if the pally wanted to attack our weakest link they would be in sacramento by now.
and i don't buy the "taking the spotlight off the nuke" arguement either, if anything it intensifies it.
i read something similar in the new york sun.
what happened to the "wait out bush" theory everyone has been passing around?
imo, bush should go to crawford for 6-8 weeks & turn off everyones cell phones.
tell the UN to vacate new york & give us a call when their new headquarters in paris are open.
and as for syria & iran, get the map makers ready, they are gonna be busy the next few years.
WOW. LOVED your comment Louie!
While I certainly don't agree with Bush on everything, I do respect him to standing up for what he believes in. I hope he doesn't suddenly start listening to public opinion.
It will be interesting to see if he does indeed go to Crawford at all this summer - considering what's going on.
Lindsey
Hi Russell, Louie!
Louie, I believe you misunderstood my remarks about Israel being `the weakest hinge', which has nothing todo with Israel's strength and everything to do with the differences in American support for Israel and the EU's attitude.
In fact,it has opened up a gap. Not only that, but even the Leftist press acknowledged that the Middle East had `hijacked the agenda at the G8 summit', which was supposed to have Iran and comingto a concensus on how to deal with Iran's nukes as its main topic.
In that respect, and in playing for time, I think Iran was successful.
How successful, we shall see. I still think Iran has someting planned fo rAug 22nd.
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