"Did anyone prevent you from opening the front on the Golan? No, but it is easier to use the Lebanese front," he told a press conference.

Jumblatt hailed the unprecedented army deployment in southern Lebanon, but warned that "dangers could be looming ... and Lebanon will remain a battleground" for regional conflicts unless Hezbollah is integrated into the regular army and respects the 1949 armistice agreement with Israel.

"Why can't instead the army be responsible for holding the balance of power? Why can't the rockets be under the command of the army?" he said.

He said the army's deployment south of the Litani river was in line with an "ambiguous and unclear" formula because the military does not have the mandate to disarm Hezbollah fighters there.

He said in 2000 there was Lebanese "consensus" when Hezbollah liberated southern Lebanon from Israeli occupation. But added that Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah did not consult anyone before kidnapping two Israeli soldiers on July 12 2006. The capture unleashed an Israeli offensive on Lebanon that lasted for more than one month.

Jumblatt also said that he believed the U.S. interest was primarily Israel's security.

"We don't want Lebanon -- or south Lebanon specifically -- to be a testing ground of pre-emptive wars by America and Israel against Iran and Syria or the other way around," he told reporters.

Jumblatt said the Iranians were trying to improve their negotiating position over their nuclear program "on the rubble of the (Lebanese) people." Assad, he said, wanted "to avoid accountability through an international tribunal" in the Hariri assassination.

"This is the objective convergence between (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad and Bashar Assad," he said.

An ongoing U.N. investigation has implicated high-level Syrian officials and Lebanese allies in the murder of former PM Rafik Hariri, a charge Damascus denies.

Jumblatt 's attacks came hard on the heels of a press conference by majority leader Saad Hariri who accused Assad of trying to rob Lebanon of its "victory" against Israel while failing to fight for the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

Yesterday Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh also lashed out at Assad during a press conference in Beirut. Similarly MP Boutros Harb another leader of the March 14 alliance slammed Assad for his speech in Damascus

Sources: Naharnet, Ya Libnan