News

Iran is winning and Israel is losing. That is the startling conclusion we reach if we consider how things
have changed in the Middle East in the two years since most of the
WikiLeaks State Department cables about Iran’s regional difficulties
were written. Lebanon’s Sunni prime minister, once a virulent critic,
quietly made his pilgrimage to the Iranian capital last week. Israeli
hopes of separating Syria from Iran have been dashed. Turkey, once a
strong ally of Israel, is now seeking better relations with Iran and
with Lebanon’s Shiites.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s visit to
Iran was in part an attempt to reach out to a major foreign patron of
his country’s Shiite Hezbollah Party. Hariri’s father, Rafiq, was
mysteriously blown to kingdom come in 2005, and a United Nations
tribunal is now rumored to be leaning toward implicating Hezbollah. Many
Lebanese are terrified that the tribunal’s findings might set
Kalashnikovs clattering again in Beirut, given that the Hariris are
Sunni Muslims linked to Saudi Arabia, and their followers could attack
Lebanese Shiites in reprisal. Lebanon, a small country of 4 million, is
more than a third Shiite, but Christians and Sunni Muslims have formed<... >>>