Two people — identified only as “Senior Administration Official One” (SAO I) and “Senior Administration Official Two” (SAO II) — held a background briefing at the State Department on Friday to address Iran and Hezbollah’s worldwide terrorism. SAO I called Hezbollah a “criminal organization” that has “made an all-in commitment to defend and support the Assad regime,” “throwing whatever resources are required.” SAO II called Hezbollah a terrorist organization “morally bankrupt to its very core,” financed primarily by Iran, part of Iran’s strategy to commit “a significant amount of resources, both financial and otherwise, to the conflict within Syria.”
This produced a three-part question to the SAOs from Ilhan Tanir of BBC Turkish, worth reading in its entirety since it reflects what Tanir calls a “common theme now in the Middle East.”
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