Hezbollah backed Lebanon PM-designate: Hezbollah is 'tumor'

Wikileaks reveals Mikati said Lebanon could not survive with Hezbollah mini-state.

Middle East Online

What's Hezbollah's say? BEIRUT - Lebanon's prime minister-designate Najib Mikati describes the powerful Hezbollah, whose backing was key to his nomination, as a "tumour," in a 2008 US diplomatic cable revealed by a Lebanese daily on Tuesday. The billionaire businessman, who was appointed premier in January, is quoted as telling US officials that the Iranian- and Syrian-backed militant party was a "tumor that must be removed", according to the Arabic-language Al-Jumhuriya. The newspaper was citing a WikiLeaks cable filed by the US embassy in Lebanon on January 12, 2008. "Mikati, speaking as a 'statesman', argued Lebanon could not survive with a Hezbollah mini-state," according to the cable. "Regardless of his personal views on the group, Mikati said he was expecting Hezbollah to bring Lebanon to a 'sad ending,'" it added. "He assessed that Hezbollah was just like a tumour that, whether benign or malignant, must be removed." Mikati's office had no immediate reaction on Tuesday concerning the WikiLeaks cable. Mikati's criticism of Hezbollah surfaces at a sensitive time as he struggles to form a government amid bitter rivalry between opposing camps in Lebanon. Hezbollah toppled the Western-backed government of caretaker premier Saad Hariri in January over his refusal to disavow a UN-backed court probing the 2005 assassination of his father, ex-premier Rafiq Hariri. The Netherlands-based tribunal is expected to indict members of the Shiite group in the case.