Hezbollah not after stirring up trouble: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Jim W. Dean, managing editor of Veterans Today in Atlanta, about the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf declaring Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, which has been fighting terrorist groups in Syria and Israeli occupation, a “terrorist group.”

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: You have the ones committing the crime of supporting terrorists calling Hezbollah a "terrorist entity". What was your reaction when you heard this?

Dean: Well two things. We have an old saying in the country, in the US, the pot calling the kettle black and then the other one is they are dragging themselves out … by making a statement like this because you are right. If there is any known secret in the world, it is the [Persian] Gulf countries have been up to their eyeballs in the terror war on Syria and under international law if you attack a country which [is] launching terrorists in brigade-sized divisions could be certainly called an attack you have a right to retaliate against them and that cannot be called aggression and it is still a little bit of a haze here, we haven’t had a case legally tried where if someone is running a terror campaign on another country, can that country respond with a counter terror campaign?

So they are really sticking their necks out there because it is just reminding everybody that they are getting away with this because they have got their arms purchases that have neutralized the US, Britain, France and Germany, so they are not going to get any problems there and they have been able to buy off the Arab League and they do not worry about domestic pressure and they do not really care about what the public thinks in countries around the world. So they fear they can say and do pretty much anything they want without any retribution that is a concern to them.

Press TV: And do you think this has anything to do with the fact that obviously Iran … and its support for Hezbollah in terms of some of the causes that are in common and of course we know how tense the relationship is for lack of a better word between Saudi Arabia and Iran?

Dean: It certainly is. I mean they have been defeated with very small numbers and of course Hezbollah is a totally defensive organization. They are not about to waste their man power on stirring up trouble in all these other countries. They have their hands full with defending their territory and they had to defend Syria because they were smart enough to find out, know that if Syria fell they would be next in Lebanon.

So really what the public needs to do here is change the game a little bit. All of these [Persian] Gulf state countries have embassies in your countries, sometimes they have consulates. They are not used to getting protest call by the thousands from the public. They have never done this before and it is a very, very easy thing to call them, let them know that we know they are involved in terrorism ad calling the victims that are targets of their own terrorist campaigns “terrorists” because they are successfully resisting, that that is crossing the red line, that is going to make people active to start petitioning their governments to start stepping away and changing their policy towards these [Persian] Gulf countries.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk