Hezbollah Says Syrian Troops Must Stay in Lebanon

Hezbollah says Syrian troops must stay in Lebanon (CBC)

Lebanon’s most powerful party, Hezbollah, says it does not want Syrian troops to withdraw from Lebanon. It has called for a mass rally in central Beirut on Tuesday in support of Damascus and against what it calls Western meddling. “The U.S. and Israel want chaos in Lebanon in order to find an excuse for international intervention,” said Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah secretary general. The Shiite Muslim group says Syria’s pullout under intense global pressure could spell chaos for Lebanon and push it towards peace with Israel.

Meanwhile, Lebanese officials say Syrian troops will start moving toward eastern Lebanon on Monday, in a pullback that will take two or three days.

Someone’s on the wrong side of history here. Methinks it’s Hezbollah.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. DC Loser says:

    This is the first act in the drama being played out. Of course Syria expected Hezbollah to make a big public fuss over its announcement. Hezbollah is a force to be reckoned with in the area south of Beirut and I don’t think there will be peace unless it goes along with any agreement.

  2. Maggie says:

    Has France declared Hezb Allah a terrorist group YET? Maybe Chirac should cut off the MONEY since he wants Syria out of Lebanon too!

  3. EyeDoc says:

    For some twisted reason or reasons, the EU refuses to add Hezbollah to their list of terrorist organizations. They keep pretending Hezbollah is a legitimate political organization. But the fact that there are Hezbollah representitives in the Lebanese government, which is just a puppet of Syria anyway, should certainly not negate the fact that Hezbollah is a terrorist group. If the EU added them to the list, it would severely limit the funding to Hezbollah and hurt them badly.

  4. r says:

    Let me get this straight; if Hezbollah, the most important party of the most important ethnic group in Lebanon does manage to draw ten times a larger crowd than those malconents in Martyrs Square, does that make them still on the Wrong Side of History?

    They are on the same side as the Sistani people in Iraq. Perhaps by winning the election, they proved to be on the Wrong Side of History too.

    Your Marxist-derived talk about the inevitable march of History where some are on the Right and Wrong sides betrays the Communist roots of neoconservative misthought that denounces “reality-based” analysis in favour of fiction.

    By the way, it seems that to neocons, the essential factor in determining who is on the Right or Wrong side of history has to do with the parties’ devotion to Israel.

    Those who worship Israel are on the Right side of history and those who do not are on the Wrong side. “He who blesses them shall be blessed and he who curses them shall be cursed”, they like to say. The worship of a foreign state is not only unbecoming for the political leadership of the US, but it is treasonous.

    Some even say that the British Empire fell because it fought Zionists in Palestine! Some, like the Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma, said that 911 happened because of insufficient devotion to Israel! This blame America stance was rewarded with his 2002 reelection. Of course the media didn’t lynch him like they lynched McKinney because worship of Israel is to be encouraged, not punished.