Lebanon's senior Shiite authority Sheikh Mohamed Hussein Fadlallah in his weekly address accused the U.S. of "hegemony and imperialism" through its "incessant drive to control the world", AN NAHAR reported Thursday. "The U.S administration is trying to impose its own law on the whole world disregarding all international laws, norms, and values," he said. Fadlallah went on to say that the U.S. uses international law to its own advantage when it can, like it did in the war on Afghanistan. In 2001, the U.S. waged a war to topple the Taliban regime, loyal to the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden and sought the approval of the United Nations before going to war.

"But when it (the UN) does not serve its own interests, it distorts and takes advantage of the gaps in its laws to fulfill its interests and greed, like the war on Iraq, which the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said recently was against UN law," Fadlallah added. "The U.S. is the only superpower in the world waging a hellish invasion on all parts of the globe," he charged, adding that although it was targeting the Arab and Islamic world directly, the rest of the world was not immune to its hegemony and imperial schemes. Fadlallah said what was going on today "was a fourth world war and America was leading it" under the pretext of "the war on terror", agreeing with a previous comment made by a Vatican official.

However, Fadlallah said that with "its entire military might and capabilities, the U.S. had failed in both Afghanistan and Iraq" since it has "no vision for change" except in a "destructive" manner. He pointed to the U.S efforts to draft a UN resolution against Iran's nuclear program, even though Iran has repeatedly said it was using nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, while at the same time doing all it can to establish Israel as a nuclear power in the region.

Fadlallah ended his address by calling on the world community, especially Europe, to counter U.S. plans and defend the human and moral values "violated by U.S. and Israel everyday". He said that UN should not pressure Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon in accordance with resolution 1559, while making no effort to pressure Israel to withdraw from lands it is occupying.