14 Oct 2010

Iran President Ahmadinejad tours Lebanon

Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s tour of southern Lebanon is as troubling for some Arab countries as it is for Israel, writes International Editor Lindsey Hilsum.

In a move that inflamed his critics, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad toured villages and the Hezbollah stronghold border towns of Bint Jbeil and Qana. Close to Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, this was the scene of some of the worst fighting in 2006, which left 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis dead.

The area is one that has benefitted from half a billion pounds-worth of Iranian aid following that conflict.

To a crowd of thousands the Iranian president praised what he called the Lebanese resistance against Israel and declared that “Zionists are mortal” – according to a live Iranian state television broadcast of his speech in southern Lebanon.

“The world should know the Zionists are mortal…today the Lebanese nation is alive and is a role model for the regional nations,” Ahmadinejad said in the town of Bint Jbeil, close to the border with Israel.

Showered with flowers
The stage-managed tour began yesterday with the Iranian President’s motorcade showered with flowers on its way from Beirut airport to the presidential palace. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Lebanon’s President Michel Suleiman, Mr Amadinejad said Iran supports a strong and unified Lebanon. He then pointedly added that Iran is ready to help Beirut confront any Israeli aggression.

“We will surely help the Lebanese nation against animosities, mainly staged by the Zionist regime,” he said.

Later both Mr Amadinejad and the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah – via video link for security reasons – addressed a huge rally of Lebanese Shia organised by Hezbollah in Beirut, praising Lebanon’s resistance against “the world’s tyrants”.

If there were an international prize for stirring it up, President Ahmadinejad would win hands down, writes our International Editor, Lindsey Hilsum.

His latest exploit is a visit to Lebanon to trumpet how much Hizbollah and its supporters love him. He's going down to the Israeli border this afternoon, and threatens to throw stones over the fence.

The visit is calculated to emphasise Iran's influence in the region, point up the fragility of Lebanon's tinderbox Sunni-Shi'ite-Druze-Christian-Liberal-Islamist coalition politics, and indicate that Israel remains vulnerable on its northern border. He lost no time in claiming that "friends were being framed" (ie: Syria and Hizbollah) for the 2005 murder of the Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, the most explosive issue in Lebanese politics.

Read more at the World News Blog

Today’s theatre has alarmed many moderates inside Lebanon, wary of their country’s fragile politics, past conflicts with Israel and Iran’s umbilical chord linking it with Hezbollah.

It has led US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a visit to Kosovo, to state that Washington hoped that no visitor would “destabilise or inflame tensions” in the Middle East.

Israel, which has accused Iran of supplying Hezbollah with weapons, said the tour of border towns was like “a commander reviewing his troops and the transformation of Lebanon into an Iranian protectorate.”