Is Hezbollah's Preemptive Surrender a Tip-Off?
Confederate Yankee blog
It looks liked Iran's hoped for "second front" in the event of U.S. military intervention into the future of its nuclear program development has just signaled a preemptive surrender:
Lebanon's Hizbollah, a close ally of Iran, would not jump to Tehran's defence if the U.S. launched a strike against its nuclear programme but would step in if the conflict spread to Lebanon, its deputy chief said on Monday.
Sheikh Naim Kassem told Reuters that the guerrilla group, which was established by Iran in the early 1980s but has since grown into a political party with 14 seats in parliament, had no plans to get involved in regional battles.
"Hizbollah is not a tool of Iran, it is a Lebanese project that implements the demands of Lebanese," Kassem said in an interview in the Hizbollah-controlled southern suburb of Beirut.
"Iran is a big country with real capabilities and can defend itself if it is exposed to American danger."
Kassem's message is more circumstantial evidence for those of us who feel that Iran is likely to be a nuclear provocateur if allowed to continue uranium enrichment unmolested. His statement of Hezbollah's military neutrality and defensive posture in the event of an Israel-Iran conflagration would seem to indicate that:
1. Hezbollah has reason to believe that a conflict between Iran and Israel is a near term possibility.
2. Hezbollah believes that the conflict will be of sufficient magnitude that a potentially debilitating counterstrike would pose a serious threat to their operations.
But what magnitude or retaliation could be so sufficient as to threaten a decentralized organization such as Hezbollah? The final graph of the article seems to indicate the expected conflict could be a region killer:
"If we assume the worst possible scenario, that Iran was completely cut off, Hizbollah would continue because it is based on faith. We are a political, ideological and jihadist party...," Kassem said. "This is a religion we believe in whether Iran is there or not."
Sheikh Naim Kassem, friend of Iran, speaks of a worst possible scenario that envisions his ally no longer existing.
Determing why he might feel this way, and why he might feel this way now is of the utmost importance.
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