President Bush ridiculed Hezbollah’s claim of victory in the monthlong war with Israel on Monday and endorsed Israel’s right to defend itself if Hezbollah violates a fledgling cease-fire.
“Hezbollah, of course, has got a fantastic propaganda machine, and they’re claiming victories,” Bush told reporters at the State Department. “But how can you claim victory when, at one time, you were a state within a state, safe within southern Lebanon, and now you’re going to be replaced by a Lebanese army and an international force?”
He said, “There’s going to be a new power in the south of Lebanon.”
The president was responding to Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah’s claim of a “strategic, historic victory” against Israel.
Nasrallah scoffed at the notion of Lebanese and international troops displacing Hezbollah as the controlling force in southern Lebanon, a key condition of the U.N.-brokered cease-fire.
“Who will defend Lebanon in case of a new Israeli offensive?” he asked. “The Lebanese army and international troops are incapable of protecting Lebanon.”
But Bush emphasized that Hezbollah, not Israel, was the aggressor in the war that killed civilians and soldiers on both sides of the border.
“Responsibility for this suffering lies with Hezbollah,” Bush said. “It was an unprovoked attack by Hezbollah on Israel that started this conflict.”
Bush also blamed Hezbollah’s state sponsors, Iran and Syria, adding, “We can only imagine how much more dangerous this conflict would be if Iran had the nuclear weapon it seeks.”
Bush emphasized that the U.N. cease-fire resolution bars Israel from taking “offensive action,” not “defensive action.”
“If somebody shoots at an Israeli soldier, tries to kill a soldier from Israel, then Israel has the right to defend herself,” he said. “She has a right to try to suppress that kind of fire.”
Bush also alluded to two recent developments that carry potential political implications in advance of the November congressional elections. The events were the victory of anti-war Democrat Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Senate primary last week and the subsequent foiling of a terrorist plot to blow up jetliners between London and America.
“The lessons of the past week is that there’s still a war on terror going on, and there’s still individuals that would like to kill innocent Americans to achieve political objectives,” he said. “And the lesson for those of us in Washington, D.C., is to set aside politics and give our people the tools necessary to protect the American people.”
