Nasrullah to Iraqis: Now is your testing time

Hasan Nasrullah, following the swearing-in of the new Lebanese president, congratulated Lebanese on the agreements reached at Doha last week, reaffirmed the role of Hizbullah as an armed group in defense of the nation, and he also talked in his speech about armed resistance and politics elsewhere in the region. Here is what he said on the subject of Iraq:

To summarize very briefly about Iraq, where the American occupation controls the land and its assets, they have been playing in recent years the game of occupation and democracy, and today we are starting to see what are the aims of the American democracy in Iraq, and what are they? To go back to the period right after the occupation, the Iraqi people, who had been one entire people before that, split into two parts, those that believe in the political process, and those who believe in resistance, especially armed resistance. We in Hizbullah naturally lean in favor of the resistance, from the point of view of our beliefs and our convictions, and from the point of view of our political and real experience also. At a certain point they provisionally supported the political process, but now they have arrived at the difficult and decisive testing-point, namely the stance vis-a-vis the treaties and agreements that America wants to impose on Iraq and its people, and America is demanding that the government and the parliament sign them.

The aim of the American game of democracy now stands exposed. They have opened up the case in front of everyone, Islamists and nationalists, so that they now know who are their friends, and who are their allies. They have shown what the game is, setting up a "parliament" and deriving from that an "elected government" so that everyone says "parliament" and "elected government", and now the day comes when they demand of this government and of this parliament that they legalize the occupation, by agreements that will give America sovereign authority over Iraq, putting security, political decisions, oil, and all the assets of Iraq at the disposal of the Americans--this is the Americans, and this is where the believers in the political process, whether Shiite Islamists, or Sunni Islamists, or nationalists of any kind, will face their test: You say you participated in the political process to minimize damage; and you say you participated in the political process to deter the occupation. But now comes the test: Will you hand over Iraq to the Americans forever and forever? Or will you take up the position that is demanded of you by your religion and your Islam, and your Arab nature and your morality, and your humanity?

Today in the name of all those that are assembled here, and in the name of all free people in the Arab and Islamic world, I call on all Iraqis, and all their religious and political leaders, to take up the strong and historic position and prevent the ultimate fall of Iraq into the hands of the occupation. Like the Lebanese resistance, and the Palestinian resistance also, the Iraqi resistance in its many factions has been able to inflict loss after loss on the American army, and now it is time to adopt the strategy of liberation by resistance, just as the Lebanon and Palestine have done. This strategy is the only means available for the recovery of the wounded Iraq, wealthy and strong in its people and its ummah.