March 14 Secretariat warns Hezbollah against dragging Lebanon into Syrian-Iranian game
The March 14 General Secretariat issued a statement on behalf of the pro-government movement saying they were not surprised by Hezbollah’s repeated accusations.
Earlier today, the Hezbollah media relations office announced that “the team in power was clearly embarrassed in dealing with the scandalous intervention and threat to national stability, sovereignty and security exercised by their American master.” The statement came after Washington’s decision to deploy a guided-missile destroyer, the USS Cole, off the Lebanon coast. Hezbollah also said the US announced that it consulted with the Lebanese government on a regular basis.
The USS Cole has been the center of hot debate, with Syria claiming the deployment was an attempt to cripple any solution to the presidential crisis in Lebanon, and the pro-government alliance in Lebanon refusing to comment. Parliament Speaker and head of the Amal movement Nabih Berri last night said the Cole aimed at distracting international attention from the massacres in Gaza. The US said it was a show of support for the Lebanese government.
March 14 responded to Hezbollah’s accusation of complicity in the USS Cole deployment by saying that Hezbollah’s position was continuous with their general rhetoric, which revealed mistrust, incited political and civil unrest, and disrupted public order. “Hezbollah bears direct responsibility for the abduction of Lebanon and making the nation accessible to foreign powers and their battles.”
If the USS Cole was in fact a message to some regional axes, the March 14 statement continued, then Hezbollah was pushing Lebanon into the “game” in an attempt to involve Lebanon in the Syrian-Iranian battle.
“Luring foreign fleets towards the Lebanese and Syrian shores was not the act of the majority in Lebanon, but the responsibility of the Iranian leadership, which does not want to confront the United States in Iran, but shifts the battle to Lebanon through Lebanese tools and at the expense of the Lebanese people,” the statement added.
The March 14 Secretariat said that sacrificing the Lebanese people was justifiable to Hezbollah, but defending their rights was an act of treason by the ruling majority. “Hezbollah does not say a word about the negotiations between Israel and the Syrian regime, nor has Hezbollah ever dared to uncover what goes on between them and the Syrian regime.”
“Hezbollah did not dare to inquire about the assassination of one of its most prominent leaders in Damascus inside a high-security area,” the statement continued.
Imad Mugniyah, a top Hezbollah operative, was assassinated by a car bomb in Damascus on February 12.
Hezbollah accused Israel of planning and executing the murder, and while Israel welcomed the news of Mugniyah’s death, it did not claim responsibility for the act.
“Syria refused to get involved in the investigations in the Mugniyah assassination, although the Syrian Foreign Minister said the investigations would be completed within two days of the assassination,” March 14 said. Iran also sidestepped involvement in the Mugniyah murder investigations.
The pro-government bloc noted that Hezbollah did not declare a position regarding the visit of Syrian envoy Ibrahim Sleiman to Israel and the Knesset announcement that Syria was prepared to abandon its support for Hezbollah should an agreement on the Golan Heights be reached.