Lebanon war destroyed hope in future -Jumblatt

MUKHTARA, Lebanon, Sep 3 (Reuters) Hizbollah's war with Israel has plunged Lebanon into uncertainty, its fate once again tied to West Asian conflicts most of its people would rather avoid, Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said.

Jumblatt, speaking to reporters at his ancestral home in the Shouf mountains, linked Lebanon's long-term stability to the nuclear dispute with Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

''If the Americans go ahead and press the Iranians with sanctions and if ... they try to strike Iran, it will lead to troubles in Lebanon,'' he said yesterday.

Unless the Israelis learned that brute force could achieve nothing and instead struck a deal on a viable Palestinian state, he said, Lebanon would remain in a vicious cycle. ''Every two or three years we'll have a new round of fighting.'' Jumblatt, 57, who led a formidable Druze militia in the 1975-90 civil war, now sits with some of his former Christian foes in an anti-Syrian coalition controlling a government in which Hizbollah and its allies hold a powerful minority share.

He berated Washington's ''stupid approach'' in backing Israel's blockade of Lebanon, saying plenty of arms were already in the country and the diverted trade benefited only Syria.

He attacked Syria, Iran and their Hizbollah ally for wrecking any chance that after last year's Syrian troop pullout, Lebanon could disengage from regional turmoil and build a state.

''This dream was stolen, kidnapped,'' he said, blaming Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah for picking a fight with Israel by snatching two of its soldiers, provoking what Nasrallah has since admitted was a response he had not expected.

''What's the use?'' Jumblatt said of Nasrallah's regrets. ''The war is over for the time being, but the toll of destruction is terrible.'' Just as bad, he said, was the loss of confidence.

''What's the future of my country?'' he asked. ''I'm stuck here, my destiny's here, but look at the generations ahead.'' Jumblatt questioned how long Hizbollah would keep its pledge to observe a UN truce that halted the fighting on August 14.

''Okay, they want to keep the situation quiet now, and then what?'' he asked, suggesting that Hizbollah might renege on its promise ''if they get orders'' from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

He also said Assad had deceived UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan when he told him on Friday that he would tighten border security to stop the Shi'ite Muslim guerrillas from rearming.

Jumblatt said two weapons convoys had crossed the Syrian border recently. Lebanese security officials have denied this.

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