Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has accused the parliamentary majority of having planned for a larger multinational force in the south and warned of street demonstrations if dialogue fails. In an interview on Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV station, Nasrallah said Tuesday the "party in power is seeking to make UNIFIL (the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) ... occupy Lebanon and disarm the resistance."
"This plan is dangerous and of the sort that could transform Lebanon into another Iraq and another Afghanistan," he said. "This plan was already hoped for by the (leadership) before the Israeli aggression. It is an American-Israeli demand."
The Hizbullah chief also accused the country's leadership of seeking to sow fear among the populace by harping on insecurity in the country. "The party in power is weak and frightened," he said. "It has lost all credibility in the street.
In the interview Nasrallah said Hizbullah would call demonstrators into the streets if needs be. "If dialogue does not result in a government of national unity, we will resort to demonstrations. It is our constitutional right, our democratic right to express out opinions in the street."
Nasrallah also said during the interview that United Nations Forces in Lebanon would not be able to disarm his group. "The assembly of UNIFIL forces does not hint to anything that should inspire fear. This is not an ensemble with a goal of disarming us, nor would they be able to do so," he said.
Nasrallah said the countries that had sent forces to Lebanon had established contact with the Hizbullah before deciding to deploy their troops. "We told them that we have no problem with them coming to help the [Lebanese] army," he said.
Nasrallah also said in the three-hour taped interview that "serious negotiations" were under way over the fate of two Israeli soldiers whose July 12 capture sparked the Israeli recent offensive. He said a negotiator appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been meeting with Hizbullah and Israeli officials.
He told Al-Manar, "We have reached a stage of exchanging ideas, proposals or conditions." "They are serious negotiations ... It's better to keep it away from the media ... this issue is on track. We are moving ahead. How long does it take? It's up to the nature of the negotiations," Nasrallah said.
Additionally, Hizbullah leader said that Israel had been defeated in the recent war, and would have to "think a thousand times" before starting another war in Lebanon. He said his group had well prepared itself over the last six years for a war of seige with Israel. "We had more than 33,000 missiles," he said, adding, "and what we had is still in our possession.
Nasrallah also said that the U.S. has failed in Iraq. "Afghanistan is a failure ... In Iraq, there is clear failure on the security, military and political levels ... Who shoulders responsibility? It's the American administration and the occupation forces in control of the situation," Nasrallah said.
He said America's plans in the Middle East face "failure, frustration and a state of collapse," and predicted the U.S. would be forced to leave the region in the future - just like it left Vietnam after the war there three decades ago. The U.S. has "no future" in the region, Nasrallah said. "They will leave the Mideast, Arab and Islamic worlds just as they left Vietnam, and I advise those who are counting on them to draw conclusion from the Vietnam experience." This would happen "within years, not months," he predicted.
