Report: U.S. Says Israel 'Won't Spark' Lebanon War, But 'Defensives Ready'
After reported claims that Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has warned of an Israeli war on Lebanon in the summer, fearing he could be killed, US sources said “Israel will not be the one to fire the first bullet but is ready to fight back in defense,” the Kuwaiti al-Rai newspaper reported on Monday.
The daily said that US sources have responded to a report published by al-Rai about Nasrallah who predicted a war between his party and Israel this summer, saying: "If the war breaks out, as in 2006, Israel will not be the one to launch the first bullet, but it will not hesitate to defend itself if attacked.”
In its report, al-Rai said that Nasrallah told the region’s Hizullah leaders in a special meeting that he asked his men “not to hide the truth,” raising the possibility of “war,” with Israel and asking that people living in southern villages close to the occupied territories “be informed.”
Nasrallah also said that “he could be killed in this war,” according to the report.
The sources said “Israeli authorities do not intend to wage war on Lebanon, the Israeli policy is no longer distracted by the branches (Hizbullah) of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The only confrontation required is to confront the IRGC and the Iranian regime. Iran's mullahs may try to divert attention from the economic difficulties they face because of renewed US sanctions by igniting side wars.”
They added "the 2006 (Lebanon) war itself was to divert attention from the difficulties faced by Hizbullah and its ally Syrian President Bashar Assad following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri because of the scarcity of Iranian funds. The difficulties have come now to affect the Lebanese state itself.”
“Without Iran abandoning its destabilizing activities in the region, there is no way out of the economic stalemate in which Iran and its ally, Assad in Syria and Hizbullah in Lebanon, are drowning. All the international parties concerned with the Middle East can see this,” they concluded.
Source: Naharnet
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