Any Attack on Syria Would Be Illegal, Increase Sectarianism in Middle East

Vijay Prashad: So in that sense, the West, by being obsessed by an anti-Iranian politics, has begun to play alongside the Gulf Arab states in an anti-Shia politics, which impacts not only Syria, but of course Lebanon, from where I’m speaking, where the sectarian situation has already led to a very bloody civil war. And the last thing people in Lebanon want to see is the reopening of those wounds. So the West, in its game of weakening Iran, is opening a tinderbox which it just will not be able to control. […] Hezbollah is a movement that came out of sections of the Lebanese people to fight against the occupation of the Israelis in 1982. So Hezbollah’s principal and only reason for existence is, as the Lebanese call it, the resistance. In other words, they’re principally to fight for the right of Lebanon to exist as a sovereign state and against Israel.
But because this is their politics and because they are relatively isolated along the Mediterranean coast, Hezbollah has relied greatly on Iranian arms support and logistical support. And it’s only because they have been able to get–there’s a pipeline through Syria to bring in the Iranian logistical support and weapons that Hezbollah is so-called tied to Syria and Iran. Hezbollah shares very little ideologically politically with the Syrian Baath party, or indeed with the regime in Iran. It has very much its own view of the world. The weakening of Hezbollah is a grave threat to the fragile peace in Lebanon. And I’m afraid this kind of cynical, simpleminded politics that the West is trying to put forward in this part of the world is going to open the doors of hell. More here.