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Ahmed Al-Asaad, chairman of the Lebanese Option Party, recently said that Lebanon, and especially the Shiite Lebanese, were paying the price for the policy led by Iran in the region. The Hizbullah members killed at Quneitra did not go there to have a picnic, he said, but to prepare an operation at the Syrian-Israeli border.
Following are excerpts from the interview, which aired on the Lebanese Murr TV on January 22.
Ahmed Al-Asaad: The [Iranian] regime still believes that things are like they were in the Middle Ages. It sponsors militias here, there, and everywhere, and these militias exert pressure from within on their countries. In this primitive manner, Iran tries to gain a foothold there.
[...]
I do not consider [the Hizbullah members killed in Quneitra] to be martyrs. They are victims of the policy led by Iran in the region, the price for which is paid by Lebanon, and first and foremost, by Shiite Lebanese.
TV host: But it was Israel that killed them. They were martyred as a result of an Israeli operation. Is it conceivable that we do not consider people killed in a battle with the Israeli enemy to be martyrs?
Ahmed Al-Asaad: If you want to consider them martyrs, you are free to do so. In my view, these people did not go to Quneitra to have a picnic. They went to prepare an operation at the Syrian-Israeli border. Does it come as any surprise that Israel acted this way? It has done so a million times in the past.
TV host: Aren't they allowed to plan such an operation?
Ahmed Al-Asaad: That's not the issue. You know that this is Israel and this is how it operates. What were the Hizbullah members doing there? We, as Lebanese...
TV host: Maybe they went to survey the area. Hassan Nasrallah said: 'It is a single front from Naqura to the Golan.' What, is this forbidden now too?
Ahmed Al-Asaad: As Lebanese, and especially as Shiite Lebanese - how does it serve our interests to go to the Syrian front? How does it serve our interests to go and fight in Syria? It does not serve our interests. On the contrary, we are paying the price every day. We all know that Hizbullah did not enter Syria of its own accord. It did so because it received orders to that effect from the Iranian regime. When the Iranian regime felt that its ally, the Al-Assad regime, was unstable, it asked Hizbullah, its proxy in Lebanon, to intervene.
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Most of the people who join Hizbullah today do so out of necessity. They have nothing else to do. A young man of 15, 16, 17, 18, who sits in his village, has no profession, and cannot go to university - what prospects does he have? How is he going to make a living? Joining Hizbullah is his only way to make $400 or $500.
[...]
We used to say that the Shiite sect suffered deprivation. Today, it suffers starvation.
TV host: Really?!
Ahmed Al-Asaad: Yes, starvation.
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