Lebanon army should seek help from Iran, Syria

A member of Lebanon’s parliament has called on the country’s military to expand its defensive capability through extensive cooperation with Iran and Syria.

“Iran and Syria are the only states willing to assist our country in building a powerful military,” Nawaf al Mousawi told lawmakers at the Lebanese Majlis.

Speaking a week after the movement’s Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah indicated a new approach toward Israeli aggression against Lebanon, al Mousawi added that “neither the United States nor Europe will provide Lebanon with what it needs to defend itself from Israel.”

Nasrallah on Tuesday warned that the movement will strike Israel’s infrastructure, including its airports and refineries, in the event of any Israeli attack on Lebanon.

“If you hit Dahiyeh, we will hit Tel Aviv. If you strike Martyr Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, we’ll strike your Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. If you hit our ports, we will hit your ports,” said the leader known for delivering on his promises.

“If you attack our refineries, we’ll attack your refineries. If you bomb our factories, we’ll bomb your factories. If you strike our power stations we will strike your power stations,” Nasrallah continued.

Tel Aviv’s military doctrine requires Israel to maintain absolute military superiority over its neighbors, a belief supported by the occupants of the White House since Harry S. Truman.

“The maintenance of Israel’s ‘qualitative military edge’ over any combination of its potential adversaries has been a cornerstone of US Middle East policy for more than a decade,” Shawn L. Twing, editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs says.

According to a 1979 Memorandum of Understanding, the United States has agreed to “endeavor to be responsive to military and economic assistance requirements of Israel.”

Washington will “continue to impose restrictions on weapons supplied by it to any country which prohibit their unauthorized transfer to any third party… and will take steps to prevent such unauthorized transfer.”