Nasralla's New Speech: A Sign That He is Bending ?
A little while earlier, Nasralla showed his bearded, turbaned, war crazed face again, to deliver yet another speech. Like many other times, he sent signals in all directions to all parties involved or affected by this war. Below are some of the key points of his speech, followed by a brief analysis:
- Stressed that HA has worked for an internally unified Lebanon as well as politically and on a government level.
- Asked the refugees and the displaced (mainly Shias) to refrain from activities that provoke their hosts (mainly non-Shias), especially that they have treated them with dignity.
- Stated that the US and Israel are trying to break internal unity.
- Priority is to hang in there and achieve political support
- Don't believe the enemy when they say that members of the Lebanese cabinet have communicated with them
- Everybody in the cabinet agrees to Siniora's seven point plan
- The French-American resolution is unjust and gives Israel more than it asked for and more than what it has achieved on the field
- The lebanese army is already south of the Litani but not at the border
- Our previous objection to the depolyment of the army did not stem from fear of it, but from concern for it
- We agreed to its deployment but worry for it still
- Sending 15000 troops south relieves pressure on the governemnt and allows amendments to the UN resolution
- Sending the army south is an honorable exit startegy
- The US will shoot down any resolution that gives lebanon its rights
- Accused the US of stalling a cease-fire resolution
- The enemy's bombing of infrastructure and it committing massacres is a sign of its failure on the field
- Lebanese civilians are being killed on purpose to pressure the resistance
- We are still on the field fighting strong on the villages at the border
- Security Council cannot protect Lebanon
- Fighting still raging in border towns
- Our survival and steadfastness is a defeat to Israel in itself
- 60 tanks destroyed, 100 soldiers and officers killed, 400 injured
- Israel has failed to diminish the rocket power of the resistance
- Israeli media "iron curtain" to hide their military losses
- We will turn our precious south a burial ground for the Israelis
- I tell the Israelis that you can reach any point in Lebanon but will suffer tremendous losses and you will leave eventually
- changing Commander of northern front big development wiht implications
- I ask the arabs of Haifa to leave the city
So as far as I can read, the man is willing to concede several points to the Lebanese government as long as none of his actions are perceived as a defeat. So far, their mere survival is a victory to them, but they are willing and probably capable of fighting hard for a while to come. He offered again to move the battle strictly to the field, i.e. no rockets in exchange for no airstrikes. More on this as I think about what he said some more :).
2 comments:
Thanks R.
Ya dougjnn, that seems pretty reasonable. I mean Nasralla would be delusional to think that he is gonna come out of this any stronger strategically or militarily on the ground, and generally the man is far from delusional. On the other hand, their so-called "steadfastness" added to the proposal that the Lebanese army would deploy south should give lebanon some leverage in the amended resolution.
I think that disarming HA is still a thorny issue, tho I am sure some type of solution could be achieved by a combination of international effort that does not seem to anti-lebanese and lebanese internal politics. Again, though, that depends largely on the extent that HA is willing to be "realistic".
I disagree with the arguments that say that HA is mainly a military orginization that cannot survive without its armed wing. I mean its true that they have largely relied on the "resistance" (and its successes ) as a mechanism to secure Shia backing, but that has always been coupled with big spending on social aspects. I tend to think that they will still be able to secure Iranian money for those social aspects. My point here is that HA is not under any existential threat as long as they read the political situation intelligently and don't self-destruct. That gives them maneuvering room to disarm for a price, so to speak.
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