November 22, 2011
Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has good reason to be worried about the future of his organization: his patrons in Damascus and Tehran are facing increased isolation in the international community.

Nasrallah wants Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syria's Assad to stay in power: they are the only two men arming and funding Hizbollah.

In a recent speech, Nasrallah, who has been in hiding since the 2006 Lebanon war, warned that any military action against Iran and Syria will trigger a regional war.

"The US must understand that war on Iran and Syria will not [be restricted] to these two countries but will spread to other countries in the region," Nasrallah declared. "The era of weakness and [submission] to the US or Israel is over. We have entered the era of victories."

In other words, Nasrallah is saying that the entire Middle East will explode if anyone tries to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and Syrian dictator Bashar Assad from continuing to slaughter his people.

These threats underline the urgency of stopping Syria and Iran. Failure to take immediate action will only embolden them.

Like Iran and Syria, Hizbollah's declared goal is to "liberate all Palestine" by destroying the Jewish state. But on the way to achieve their goal, Nasrallah, Assad and Ahmadinejad do not mind also setting the whole region on fire.

They do not care if Lebanon, which is already under the de facto control of Nasrallah, is completely destroyed. Nasrallah's men have already assassinated Lebanon's popular Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, and will not hesitate to kill anyone who stands in their way.

They also do not care if thousands of innocent Arabs and Muslims are killed for the sake of destroying Israel. Once fired toward Israel, Hizbollah's missiles and Iran's nuclear bombs will not distinguish between a Jew and Arab.

Nasrallah and his friends in Tehran and Damascus pose a real and immediate threat not only to Israel and the US, but also to moderate Arabs and Muslims.

Both Syria and Iran have also issued similar threats to set fire to the whole region if they come under attack by the US or any other country.

The first thing Assad and Ahmadinejad will do then is to order Nasrallah to fire tens of thousands of missiles at Israel from Lebanon. The three tyrants will fight to the last Iranian, Syrian and Lebanese.

Brig. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, one of Iran's top military commanders, was quoted earlier this month as saying that "the smallest action by Israel [against Iran] and we will see its destruction."

His remarks were seen not only as an Iranian threat to retaliate with nuclear weapons, but also as a hint that Tehran was planning to use its man in Beirut, Nasrallah, in the next war against Israel.

The threats coming from Tehran, Beirut and Damascus should be taken seriously not only by Israel, but also by the US and the rest of the international community.

The downfall of the regimes in Iran and Syria will have disastrous consequences for Hizbollah. Without these two repressive regimes, Hizbollah would not be able to survive for one day.

The demise of Hizbollah will finally allow Lebanon to start focusing on rebuilding the country and strengthening its economy. Without Hizbollah, Lebanon will go back to the heydays when Lebanon was known as "Switzerland of the Middle East" and attracted large number of tourists.

Related Topics: Khaled Abu Toameh

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