Hezbollah’s Nasrallah says US using Lebanon protests as a tool to pressure Iran

Lebanese Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said that the mass protests in Lebanon were being used as an American tool to pressure Iran.

In a televised speech on Friday, the Hezbollah leader also said that the Lebanese government had made the wrong decision to increase fees, referring to a government revenue-raising measure unveiled in October in which a charge of 20 cents a day would be levied on calls via voice-over-internet protocol.

“The Americans see the protests in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and now they’re also talking about Yemen, that they are tools to pressure Iran. These are tools according to them and that they [the Americans] say they have other tools to pressure Iran on its militant behavior,” Nasrallah said in his speech.

“The Americans are interfering with any movement that takes place in the world. They are rushing to try to exploit the popular movements in a way that serves their interests and not what serves the interests of the protesters,” Nasrallah added.

Nasrallah’s statements on Friday came more than a month since his previous speech.