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Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml
Israeli Crisis a Smokescreen for Iran's Nuclear Ambitions
[Telegraph-UK] Con Coughlin - However much the Hizballah leadership might claim to be a legitimate, democratically elected political party, the reality is that it is, and always has been, a proxy of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, who finance, train, and equip the militia as a means of maintaining a permanent security challenge to Israel's northern border. In the past, captured Israeli soldiers and airmen have been transported via Syria to Iran for safekeeping while Hizballah undertakes the tortuous negotiating process. By forcibly closing the main exit routes, the Israelis are trying to ensure the soldiers remain in Lebanon. The Beirut authorities have only themselves to blame for allowing Hizballah to maintain a permanent armed presence in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese have singularly failed to rein in Hizballah. As a consequence, Hizballah has been allowed to develop a state within a state, with its own well-equipped private army - all of it funded by the Iranians. Certainly the Israelis are well within their rights to hold Beirut accountable for Hizballah's provocative presence on their northern border, which has effectively become Iran's front line.