Dore Gold on Iran's Role in Mideast Conflict

This is a partial transcript from "Your World with Neil Cavuto," July 18, 2006, that was edited for clarity.

DAVID ASMAN, GUEST HOST: An Iranian official saying today no part of Israel is safe from Hezbollah. My next guest says Iran is behind all this, and it's using the turmoil in the Mideast to become a regional superpower. From Jerusalem, Dore Gold, former adviser to Ariel Sharon and former Israeli ambassador to the U.N.

Ambassador Gold, good to see you here.

DORE GOLD, FORMER ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: Pleasure.

ASMAN: How do you know that Iran is behind all this?

GOLD: Well, it's very simple.

For years, Israel has been observing that Iranian cargo planes land at Damascus International Airport, unload huge amounts of weaponry, including many of the missiles that are going into Haifa, Safed, Tiberias, and northern Israeli cities. These missiles are transported by truck to the Bekaa Valley, where they are sometimes unloaded, sometimes in other places belonging to Hezbollah.

Secondly, we know from the Lebanese press, back in 2002, it reported that Iranian Revolutionary Guards arrived to Lebanon to train the Hezbollah on the use of the Fajr-3 and the Fajr-5. These are missiles that reach up to 70 kilometers in range and can strike the heart of Israel. Some of those are being used against Haifa today.

ASMAN: Now, you — you may have — may or may not have heard my last guest. But he said that what Israel is doing now is an overreaction, bombing civilian targets, maybe inadvertently, but, still, a lot of civilians are being killed in this assault by Israel to protect itself.

Are you at danger of empowering Iran even more by getting the whole Muslim world against you?

GOLD: The problem with the Cedar Revolution is that it wasn't completed. I'm speaking about Iran's — Lebanon's emergence as a free and independent country.

You have had a state within a state run by Hezbollah. Now, U.N. Resolutions 1559, for example, call for dismantling all the militias in Lebanon. How can you have a sovereign Lebanese country if you have a mini- state with its own militia, with long-range missiles that can strike at Israel?

ASMAN: So...

GOLD: So, what Israel is trying to do is essentially dismantle that Hezbollah state within a state.

ASMAN: Understood, but is there no way...

GOLD: So, Lebanon can become free and Israel can be safe.

ASMAN: Ambassador Gold — forgive me for interrupting, but is there no way that you could specifically target Hezbollah, without focusing on civilian targets, like the airport, etcetera?

GOLD: Well, let me explain the airport.

You know, there are two ways to deal with an insurgency, because, basically, what Hezbollah has in Lebanon is an insurgency. One is to cut off the lines of supply of the emergency, so you dry it out and bring it to an end quickly.

And that's precisely what Israel is trying to do. It's cut off the airport, the runways of the Beirut international airport. It has put a sea blockade on Lebanon, and it has cut off main highways, like the Beirut-Damascus highway.

By the way, today, the Israeli air force found more Syrian trucks loaded with munitions moving from Syria into the Bekaa...

ASMAN: Right.

GOLD: ... in eastern Lebanon and destroyed them.

ASMAN: But, Ambassador Gold...

GOLD: So, you have to seal that off.

ASMAN: I understand you have to seal it off.

But, at the same time, there are a lot of civilians trying to use that airport to get out of Beirut, so they don't get bombed. What about them?

GOLD: Well, right now, Israel is coordinating with those powers that are interested in doing so, like the United States, so that American citizens can leave Lebanon through the American evacuation.

But we have to make sure that this war over Israel's security and the freedom of Lebanon is finished quickly.

ASMAN: All right.

GOLD: If we left all these access routes open, this insurgency could last years.

ASMAN: Ambassador Dore...

GOLD: We want it over in weeks.

ASMAN: Ambassador Dore Gold, we thank you very much for coming on.

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