Key Lebanese Leader Says Iranian Weapons Can Deter Israeli Aggression

While the US media fixed its sights once again on Bin Laden's latest platitudes, a far more critical statement of intent was being delivered in Beirut simultaneously. Druze patriarch Walid Jumblatt -- until just last month a firm member of the pro-US March 14 coalition which won a majority in Lebanon's highly-contested elections in June - on Saturday stirred the murky waters of Lebanese politics by embracing old foes and challenging the regional status quo.

In an interview with Iran's Press TV, Jumblatt said that Lebanon can turn to Iran for the procurement of sophisticated weapons systems to deter its enemies, and that Lebanon has only one enemy, Israel.

Pointing to recurrent and unveiled Israeli threats this summer of reinvading Lebanese territory if the anti-Israel Hezbollah party was included in the new Lebanese government -- a certainty because of the number of parliamentary seats the Shiite group won in Lebanon's June elections -- Jumblatt warned that the Israelis "are not hiding that, they are saying we will attack or we will one day come to Lebanon again."

In an about turn from his years of criticizing Hezbollah, its patron, Iran, and regional ally, Syria, the Druze leader pointed to the benefit of Hezbollah maintaining its controversial weapons arsenal as a deterrent against Israeli designs on Lebanon.

The weapons available to the Lebanese Army from the United States and other Arab countries "are not the weapons we need...we need anti-tank weapons and anti-aircraft weapons which I think we can find in Iran or in Russia or in China." Washington will not provide these weapons because it fears they will inevitably be used against its Israeli ally, added Jumblatt.

The Druze leader also downplayed Saudi and Egyptian rumblings about an Iranian threat. "It appears that several points of conflict are rooted in misinformation and/or disengagement between the Iranians and the Arabs," said Jumblatt. He urged both parties to engage in dialogue, a position he says is also advocated by Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, as a way to deter "Israeli aggression on Lebanon and on Iran."

Jumblatt's statements to Press TV marks the most recent in a series of disclosures by the maverick politician that has shaken electoral politics in Lebanon. Shortly before voting day, a video of Jumblatt speaking with a small group of loyal Druze sheikhs was leaked to the media, in which he spoke of shifting political realities in the country. Citing the growing fortunes -- demographically, financially and politically -- of the Shiites, a "dangerous" rise in Sunni fundamentalism, and a decline in power within Lebanon's once-prominent Christian community, Jumblatt called for a careful rapprochement with the Shia and Syrians.

In the secretly taped video, the Druze chieftain also drew attention to the changing status of Shiites internationally: "Britain has launched a dialogue with Hezbollah, and America has launched one with Iran because they both need to confront the danger of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan," groups that target Shiite populations as much as they do US forces.

Then, on August 2, Jumblatt publically rocked the boat by announcing his departure from the US-backed March 14 coalition, which decisively won the June elections against a Hezbollah-led opposition. To the horror of March 14 and the White House, the former neoconservative darling described his dalliance with the Bush administration as a "black spot" in his political career.

What is the significance of all of this? The wily Jumblatt, who is often referred to in Lebanon as the "weathervane" of local and regional politics because of his penchant for switching alliances according to power shifts, is literally today in the position of kingmaker, whatever the outcome of the new Lebanese government. With 11 parliamentary seats under his control, his defection on any issue leaves the current majority with a slim three-seat advantage over the opposition.

And that, of course, leaves Lebanon's strategic role in the Middle East wide open to external influences - whether from the US, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia or others. Perhaps the crafty Jumblatt has things just as he would like them, providing his minority Druze community with maximum leverage. In one fell swoop, the Druze patriarch has ensured the attention of major powers and regional players alike. How he plays this out will be interesting to watch.

Comments

[altohone]

Sick of the violence
Sick of the gun

[MotherMiasia]

Thank you Ms. Narwani, this is a great read and makes sense of the rather complicated political system Lebanon has. International attention should be spotlighted on the dangerous and villainous state to Lebanon's south.

[greatscot]

Israel continues to steal Arab land using the power of its conventional forces to deter any resistance, and behind the conventional forces is the untimate power - Israel's nuclear weapons. When a country like Iran becomes powerful enough to develop nuclear weapons of its own, Israel cries foul and threatens to attack! Well, the day is fast approaching when Israel's ability to steal land with impunity will end, and that day is when Iran DOES indeed develop a nuclear deterrant with which to hold off the potential use of nuclear weapons by Israel, while the combined CONVENTIONAL forces of the Arab nations and Iran move in to reclaim the Arab land that has been stolen and colonized by Israel. The sole part of the middle-east that Israel has a legitimate claim to is the Jewish area of Palestine partitioned by the United Nations in 1948. Once Palestine has been re-established within its rightful territory, I'm sure the rest of the world will assist both Palestine and Israel (greatly reduced in size and de-militarized) to develop peacefully.

[GZLives]

So lets get this straight. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasraallah threatens Israel as he does at least once a week, and that gets translated by the "it's all Israel's fault" crowd - including the author of this piece, to "Israel threatening Lebanon" ?

No, its Israel stating a fact.
If Hezbollah fires rockets, kidnaps IDF, Lebanon can no longer claim the State and Hezbollah are separate. An attack by Hezbollah is an attack by Lebanon, and the usual Arab tactic of hiding behind the militia who they are "unable to control" is now out the window.

Hezbollah is constantly issuing swaggering threats.
Witness the most recent - yesterday

Is this non threatening rhetoric ?

- Israel is a malignant, illegal entity.

- Making deals and normalisation with Israel is religiously forbidden.

- Israel is a malignant, illegal entity and we will never recognise it, neither succumb to it, and we will not normalise or make peace with it even if the whole world recognizes its existence.

- We do not want any confrontations but if Israel declares war on Lebanon, then we should take advantage of this threat and destroy this cancerous entity.

- Should Israel attack Lebanon, we will smash half of its army.

http://www.tayyar.org/Tayyar/News/PoliticalNews/en-US/128977647450514228.htm

[Rog49Thomas]

It didn't take Brother Walid's claimed defection from 14 March to open Lebanon to outside interference.

That is the sad story of Lebanon and other small countries.
The Saudis poured in roughly $700mm to buy the election for the so-called majority - which funnily enough got many fewer votes than the Opposition. The US sent a couple of high ranking officials to the country to warn of the dangers of an Opposition victory. The Iranians sent in help to the Opposition.

And it's very important to be very clear. Most of the traditional political "leaders" in the country have one overidiing principle - maintain the power of their group and more importantly their predominance within that group. Lebanon is less a modern state than it is a feudal one - with a series of hereditary powerful barons looking after their own fiefs.

[mulegino]

How could a country that has invaded Lebanon twice in the last 30 years be considered its enemy?
I mean, the Israelis have enough trouble on their hands, what with threatening Iran with preemptive nuclear strikes, blasting the population of Gaza back to the stone age, expelling local Arabs from their homes to make way for the settlements, and suborning the U.S. congress for more handouts from U.S. taxpayers-to be able to conduct another invasion of Lebanon this year.
When will this peace loving nation ever get a break from its neighbors, whose only aim is to drive it into the sea?