Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah and the looming showdown in Lebanon

[bemildred]

Israelis can be forgiven if they wish Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ill on his two-day visit to Lebanon this week. The outspoken Mr. Ahmadinejad is Israel’s worst nightmare and his plan to visit the predominantly Shia south of Lebanon on Thursday, peering over what used to be known as the “good fence” between Israel and Lebanon, sends shivers down Israeli spines.

Already, south Lebanese towns that were overrun by Israeli forces in the summer of 2006 are displaying huge billboards welcoming the Iranian President, who is scheduled to open a lavish garden that includes a giant replica of Jerusalem’s golden Dome of the Rock.

Wednesday evening, Mr. Ahmadinejad will be feted at a massive outdoor rally staged by a grateful Hezbollah, the militant Shia political organization funded in large part by Iran. Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah says his militia now possesses some 40,000 missiles capable of striking Israel; most, if not all, of them coming from Iran.

With Mr. Ahmadinejad’s popularity reportedly plummeting in Iran – even among his erstwhile supporters in the Revolutionary Guard – Lebanon is the one place where the man is sure to be embraced.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/africa-mideast/mahmoud-ahmadinejad-hezbollah-and-the-looming-showdown-in-lebanon/article1754200/

[proteus_lives]

1. He's there to convince another group of Lebanese to piss their lives away.

He's a wretch.

[Alamuti Lotus]

2. Bringing out interesting reactions

Now that Hariri the Lesser has made peace with Assad the Lesser, the "March 14" camp is hiding behind Syria as a means of protecting them from the big bad wolf and his patrons (I suppose it's better than them cowering behind israeli tanks, like they might have done 20 years ago).
Although in this case, it would be difficult to say who has more power and influence in the grand scheme of things, Sayyid Nasrallah or Ahmadinejad.

The towns of South Lebanon have every good reason to celebrate the occasion;--it is largely with funds from the Islamic Republic distributed through Hizbu'llah's construction companies that the towns are rebuilt at all after the zionists systematically destroyed them. For this gratitude, some might make pretensions of the most sinister (perhaps urinary) implications; but, that much can be expected from certain sources.

Also on a random note, the so-called "Abdallah Azzam Brigades" (sacriligiously taking the name of this great martyr) has threatened to make all of Lebanon tremble if Ahmadinejad sets foot in the country. How is it that these shadowy "al-Qai'dah" splinter factions always seem to have US/Saudi/Israeli interests at heart?

[shaayecanaan]

3. I would be grateful to anyone who gave me $12,000 USD

after my house was destroyed. If Iran wanted to polish its image in South Lebanon that was money well spent.

Incidentally, the Israel lobby in the US dropped its normal opposition to US aid going to UNRWA after Operation Cast Lead, mainly because Israel was concerned that if UNRWA was denied reconstruction funds from the US Iran would step in and fill the gap via Hamas. And so it was that the Palestinians got their relief funds.

"How is it that these shadowy "al-Qai'dah" splinter factions always seem to have US/Saudi/Israeli interests at heart?"

According to Seymour Hersh, the Saudis are funding Wahhabi groups in Lebanon, in close collaboration with the United States, presumably to curtail the influence of Hezbollah. Im not entirely convinced but then again the US has done stupider things before.

[azurnoir]

4. something stupid quite recently infact

U.S. lawmakers block money for Lebanon's army after border clash

United States lawmakers said on Monday they were blocking U.S. funding for Lebanon's military after a deadly border clash last week between Lebanon and Israel.

Two key Democrats, Representatives Nita Lowey and Howard Berman, announced they were holding up $100 million that has been approved for Lebanon's army but not yet spent. A senior House Republican, Eric Cantor, said future funding should be stopped too, pending an inquiry.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/u-s-lawmakers-block-money-for-lebanon-s-army-after-border-clash-1.307102

Perhaps Tehran sees a "gap" that could be filled

[oberliner]

6. And therein lies the problem

Everybody is always happy when the Godfather gives them some money or takes care of some problem for them. Eventually, however, they find out that the money or favor comes with some strings attached.

[shaayecanaan]

7. The Lebanese government wishes they had such a "godfather"

rather than the French and American "allies" who tend to fuck off and leave them in the lurch in times of need. Perhaps if they had such benefactor Hariri wouldnt have to run off and kiss hands with Assad, who after all is the man who killed his father.

On the other hand, if it werent for Iran the Shia probably would have lost the war and been forced to take up residence in Syria or alternatively share the fate of the Palestinians in some refugee camp. So the rapturous applause that Ahmadinejad will receive in the South is not entirely without basis.

[oberliner]

5. Abdallah Azzam Brigades are not "shadowy" and do not have US or Israeli interests at heart

In fact they have been actively attacking US and Israeli interests for the past five years.

[txaslftist]

9. Interesting conflation of Israel's and the US' interests there.

Why would you assume they are the same?

[CJvR]

8. I doubt that...

I doubt Amadjihadi is Israels greatest nightmare. He is a talking head needing Khameni's arm up his ass to know what to say and do.

The guy is so incompetent he couldn't even win a rigged election!

Still, to bad the IDF couldn't have an "accident" like the Lebanese had over the "Tree cutting" incident.

[bemildred]

10. In Ahmadinejad's Lebanon Visit, the Ruins of Bush's Mideast Doctrine

As Israeli bombs killed hundreds of Lebanese in the summer of 2006, then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the people of Lebanon that they were simply experiencing "the birth pangs of a new Middle East." That new Middle East was on view during the two-day visit to Lebanon this week by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — and it looks nothing like the vision pursued by the Bush Administration's military-driven strategy of dividing the region into "moderate" and "radical" camps locked in a fight to the finish.

Ahmadinejad is certainly in deep trouble at home, and grandstanding in the international limelight of controversy, whether at the United Nations last month or on south Lebanon's border with Israel on Thursday, certainly offers temporary respite from domestic challenges. Even while his thugs have managed to quiet the streets from protests by the Green Movement, his mismanagement of Iran's economy, amplified by the bite of sanctions, and his alienation of rival conservatives and of the clerics, has prompted vicious political infighting inside the corridors of power. But while Iran's president may be enjoying an opportunity to change the subject, his Lebanon visit nonetheless underscores three harsh truths for the U.S. and its allies. First, Iran is not nearly as isolated as Washington would like; secondly, the Bush Administration efforts to vanquish Tehran and its allies have failed; and, finally, the balance of forces in the region today prompts even U.S.-allied Arab regimes to engage pragmatically with a greatly expanded Iranian regional role. (See TIME's top 10 Ahmadinejad-isms.)

---

Ahmadinejad's visit could, in fact, be deemed something of a belated victory lap celebrating the collapse of the erstwhile U.S. strategy. The Bush Administration may have hoped that its own invasion of Iraq and Israel's attacks on Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in late 2008 would strike decisive blows against Iran and its allies and turn the regional dynamic in favor of the U.S. But in all three places, Iran's influence was actually strengthened. If Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki succeeds in winning a second term in office in Iraq, he'll owe his reelection to Iran's intervention to win him the necessary backing from its Shi'ite political allies. The U.S. may have hoped that Israel's 2006 offensive would finish off Hizballah but the movement is both militarily stronger and more firmly entrenched in Lebanon's body politic than ever before, with an effective veto power over government decisions. And neither the Israeli military campaign that began in the final days of 2008 nor the economic blockade of Gaza has managed to dislodge Hamas, while Washington's own Palestinian ally — President Mahmoud Abbas — has grown steadily weaker.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2025713,00.html