Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah's claim that his group does not want to control Lebanon may reveal how self-defeating its recent armed offensive in Beirut was, a senior US official said Tuesday. "I think their actions belie the statements," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters when asked to comment on Nasrallah's speech to his supporters in Lebanon on Monday. "They (Hezbollah) showed a willingness to use arms to kill their fellow citizens. Perhaps these words are a recognition of the real political damage done to Hezbollah," he said. "Any pretense of it as a liberation organization, or an organization designed to protect Lebanese from outsiders has really been torn away," McCormack added.The Hezbollah-led opposition, which won admiration in the past for fighting Lebanon's southern neighbor Israel, staged a spectacular armed takeover of large swathes of mainly Sunni west Beirut earlier this month. The assault angered many Lebanese but led to negotiations to end an 18-month political feud between the Hezbollah-led opposition and the Western-backed ruling majority that left the nation without a head of state for six months.
As part of a deal brokered in Qatar last week by the Arab League, General Michel Sleiman was elected by parliament Sunday in a first step towards national reconciliation. The following day, in a speech marking the eighth anniversary of Israel's pullout from south Lebanon after a two-decade occupation, Nasrallah pledged that his Shiite Muslim group would not use its weapons for political gains. "Hezbollah does not want power over Lebanon, nor does it want to control Lebanon or govern the country," Nasrallah said. But he also warned that the new government should not try to use the army to tackle the weapons of Hezbollah or any of its political allies.
Analysts give some credence to US State Department arguments that Hezbollah has lost popular support by turning its guns on fellow Lebanese rather than its traditional enemy Israel. But analysts said that, at least in the short term, it was the US-backed government of Fuad Siniora that suffered the political setback, not Hezbollah, which they said achieved political gain through force of arms.