Nasrallah: U.S. Afraid of Going to War With Iran

Date: 09 February 2022 - 21:58

News ID: ۹۹۸۸۴

BEIRUT (Dispatches) -- Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said that the United States fears going to war with Iran, while the occupying regime of Israel’s threats against the Islamic Republic are not serious.
“The United States is afraid of going to war with Iran since the Islamic Republic is a strong and sovereign country,” Nasrallah told Iran’s Arabic-language new channel Al-Alam in an interview.
“Neither is the U.S. capable of stopping Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program,” he added.
As for the Zionist regime, any military action by Israel against Iran would be met by a “a very intense and harsh” response, he said. “Hence, the Israeli regime is afraid of Iran’s reprisal.”
Nasrallah said, “Iran is not on joking terms with anyone. It will retaliate.”
“Iran is a strong regional state and any war with it will blow up the entire region,” he added.
The occupying regime of Israel is also afraid to go to war against Hezbollah, Nasrallah said.
“Were the Israeli regime certain that it would be victorious in a war with Hezbollah, it would not hesitate for even a moment,” he said.
The resistance movement, however, is not afraid of war, he said, asserting that the resistance’s approach lies in “deploying whatever weapon to confront the Israeli threats”.
Hezbollah’s precision-guided missiles, he said, are spread all around Lebanon, so the Zionist regime would need to launch a full-scale war in order to destroy them.
Israeli drone flights over Lebanon have been “greatly reduced” due to Hezbollah’s improved air defenses, he added.
Nasrallah said what links Iran and Hezbollah is the issue of resistance, which is a “national interest”.
He denied the Iranian embassy in Beirut was involved in Hezbollah’s decision-making, dismissing claims to such effect by pro-Western and pro-Saudi circles in Lebanon.
He challenged anyone to “tell us about a single act that Hezbollah did for the sake of Iran rather than for the sake of Lebanon”.
Nasrallah said Iran’s Islamic Revolution is rooted in the “true Islam” because “it is the true Islam that stands up to oppression and atrocity”.
“This is the exact thing that the U.S. does not brook,” he said, noting that Washington’s enmity towards Tehran is also rooted in the emergence of an independent establishment in Iran that enjoys popular sovereignty.
“The Islamic Revolution pushed Israel and the U.S. out of Iran,” Nasrallah said, celebrating the 43rd anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution which toppled the U.S.-backed Pahlavi regime along with Iranians.
“Today, the Islamic Republic is the model of independence and freedom across the Islamic world and the entire world, while before the Revolution, Iran was controlled by the U.S.,” he said.
The Hezbollah chief said the Islamic Republic is today a “great regional power” that cannot be simply ignored or fought off.
Nasrallah said he opposes sharing offshore gas with Israel and does not really care
about negotiations between Beirut and Tel Aviv over determining exclusive economic zones of the two sides.
“We do not consider ourselves to be concerned with the technical discussions about the sea border demarcation with Israel,” he said.
Nasrallah’s remarks come several weeks after both Israel and Lebanon announced their intentions to resume talks over an area of about 860 square kilometers (330 square miles) of the Mediterranean Sea that both sides claim as being within their exclusive economic zones.
The U.S. envoy mediating the talks has since met with Israeli and Lebanese officials.
The two sides started indirect negotiations through a U.S. mediator in 2020 at a UN peacekeeping base in Lebanon’s Naqoura, but the talks have stalled several times. The last round of talks on the matter was held last May.
Lebanon, Nasrallah said, is under “destructive American political, economic, and financial pressure”.
The U.S. also tries to intervene in Lebanon’s security and military affairs, he added, calling the American embassy in Beirut the CIA’s “headquarters for the entire region”.
Hezbollah, Nasrallah revealed, rejected an offer of financial support by the United States to turn its back on Palestine and end confrontation with the occupying regime of Israel.
There were discussions between Hezbollah and Washington via intermediaries, but the resistance group announced that there is no need for negotiations as the United States is an enemy, he said.
“Previously, they (the Americans) sent us a delegation on behalf of (former U.S. vice president) Dick Cheney to negotiate a halt in our support for Palestine and attacks against Israel. In return, they said that they would pay us billions of dollars and even allow us to have our weapons, an offer which we naturally opposed.”
Nasrallah said, “We do not recognize the existence of Israel. This is the land of Palestine.”
He also expressed Hezbollah’s opposition to any attempt by the Lebanese government to normalize ties or cooperate with the Israeli enemy.
Nasrallah said the main objective of the normalization of ties with Tel Aviv is to make the Palestinian people frustrated so that they finally relinquish their rights.
The Hezbollah chief said the equation that ‘an encroachment on Al-Quds means an encroachment on the resistance axis’ still remain true.
He went on to address the ongoing Saudi Arabia-led war on Yemen.
Nasrallah said that since its creation, the United Arabia Emirates has spent billions of dollars on buying advanced missiles, warplanes, and other types of foreign weaponry.
The tiny Persian Gulf state, however, “sounded a clarion call for help” from the U.S., the UK, and France and even the Zionist regime in its first confrontation with the Yemeni defense forces, he added.
“The Emirati government has sought support from the world’s superpowers and the Israeli regime,” Nasrallah said. “They build their hopes on sand and, in the best case scenario, on glass.”
Nasrallah strongly advised Abu Dhabi to wind down its involvement in the Saudi war to resolve the “security crisis” that it has come to face.
The Saudi-led coalition, he added, has been intensifying its attacks against Yemen to prevent liberation of the strategic Ma’rib province.
The joint Yemeni forces have made great strides towards liberation of Ma’rib, whose freedom from the scourge of the invasion is expected to pave the way for what Nasrallah described as “the defeat of the Saudi-American coalition”.
He asserted that Hezbollah does not interfere in the affairs of the UAE and Saudi Arabia or any other country and that it has no problem with Lebanon’s dialogue with Arab states.
In other highlights of his remarks, Nasrallah said the United States does not negotiate with terrorists, but always cooperates with them.
He said, “Some of the targets being bombed in Syria are affiliated with Hezbollah… But, we have set an equation... if any of us is killed, they must wait for our response.
“In their attacks now, they are very careful so that no one is killed,” he aded.
Also in his interview, the Hezbollah secretary general hailed as “decisive” the Iraqi parliament’s decision on the U.S. withdrawal from the Arab country.
In Bahrain, Nasrallah said, what is unfolding is a severe repression, the arrest of clerics, revocation of people’s citizenship and a request for help from outside countries.
Nevertheless, the Bahraini people still keep adhering to their ideals and principles, he added.