Epstein Secrets

Respond To a Western Strike on Syria? By: An Al-Monitor Correspondent in Beirut August 31. -- About three months ago, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah decided to send his elite military units to Syria to support the military efforts of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in facing opposition f

yria, Libya, Morocco, and Palestine "We are not against Hamas as a resistance movement , but we are against its complicity in seeking to spearhead [Muslim] Brotherhood projects in the region, and dissolve national issues, including the Palestinian cause. We are against Hamas's policies because they aim to scrap a

disarm, forge new strategic alliances or end its military struggle against Israel. In fact, in a rare public appearance this month, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah declared that his party will remain defiant, side with Assad's Syria and never relinquish its arms. If Hamas, an ally of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran

ng-term interests. Having operated in the Iranian strategic orbit in the past, Hamas might now wish to embrace its old identity as a branch of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas's decision, if real, will take time to implement. Since its founding in 1987, the organization's bread-and-butter stance has been armed res

ors to that point. But to the Saudis, not to mention Bahrain's ruling family, even the occasional appearance of posters of Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah amid crowds of Shiite protesters pumping their fists and chanting demands for regime change was too much. They saw how Iran's influence has grown in

ims the opposition is either too HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_023470 --- PAGE BREAK --- 14 divided to form a government, or might fall under the domination of the Muslim Brotherhood. Pro-democracy activists reject those claims. They tell me that they've been trying to establish formal contacts with both the US and EU to help the

al leadership also sought by Iran. In Egypt, too, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist forces look set to reap an ele

nd then avoided defeat in a subsequent round of fighting in 2006. In a poll of Arab public opinion taken in 2008, the three most popular leaders were Hassan Nasrallah, Bashar al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, in that order. But this sense of inexorable ascendancy in which the Iran-led bloc liked to cloak itself has