Jumblatt: arms should only defend Lebanon

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt said Monday arms should only exist to defend Lebanon, praising remarks made by the president who said the army should have no partner in defending security and sovereignty. “We want arms to defend Lebanon and only Lebanon and we do not want to defend the straits of Hormuz or any other,” Jumblatt said in his weekly statement to Al-Anbaa newspaper. He also said that a national defense strategy should specify who gives the orders in accordance with the national interest “away from regional and foreign interests,” praising President Michel Sleiman’s remarks last week in which he said that Lebanon was in dire need of a defense strategy that relies only on the Lebanese Army. Sleiman has said he would formulate a defense strategy aimed at incorporating Hezbollah’s arsenal and that his proposal would meet the demands of both the March 14 and the March 8 parties. Jumblatt’s comments Monday come after Hezbollah Chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah proposed his party’s own defense strategy in which he insisted on cooperation between his party and the army. In his speech last week, Nasrallah said that the resistance group could not fall under the command of the army as the state lacked the ability to resolve even the most basic of challenges. The Hezbollah leader also proposed a liberation strategy to free Israeli-occupied Lebanese territory. Jumblatt also noted that the current phase requires a defense strategy in the face of Israel but “without turning Lebanon again, just like previous stages, into a station for the exchange of political and military messages as happened in the days of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Syrian tutelage.” He also took a swipe at Iran’s top security official who is on an official visit to Lebanon, saying that Saeed Jalili, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, should focus on issues facing his own country instead of Lebanon. “It would have been better for Mr. Jalili to be interested in the internal affairs of his country where some areas witnessed popular uprising known as the ‘chicken uprising’ as a result of what poor social factions are suffering from,” Jumblatt said. He added that the price of chicken in Tehran has become more expensive than the price of one rocket and that Iran should focus on that rather than “distribute military arsenal here and there.” From DailyStar