‘Ahmadinejad sends message to US through Lebanon visit’

Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon this week sends a message to Washington that Tehran is a key player in the region and cannot be isolated, Lebanese newspapers said yesterday.

“The Americans are being told: ‘If you isolate Iran, Iran will corner you in Lebanon and elsewhere’,” said an editorial in the independent Arabic-language daily Al-Anwar.

“The message is that if Washington wants solutions in the region... it must knock on Iran’s door.”

The United States and its allies have sought to isolate Iran in a bid to force it to halt its nuclear programme, which Tehran insists is for civilian pur-poses.

Mr Ahmadinejad’s two-day visit to Lebanon, his first since his election in 2005, was widely seen as a boost to key ally Hizbollah, the powerful Shiite militant group that fought a devastating 2006 war with Israel and which is considered a proxy of Iran.

The United States and Israel condemned the trip as a “provocation” while members of Lebanon’s pro-Western parliamentary majority saw it as a bid to drive home the message that Tehran had a base on the Mediterranean.

“For the Iranians, their President’s visit is seen within the context of a great power boosting its presence in the region day by day,” said the daily Al-Akhbar, which is close to Hizbollah.

The pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat for its part questioned whether the visit marked a bid by Iran to impose itself as a key player in the Middle East.

“Can Iran fill the void left in the Middle East after the ‘suicide’ of the Soviet Union and the US withdrawal from certain regions?” the London-based newspaper asked, alluding to the scaling back of the US military mission in Iraq.

“Is Tehran trying to impose itself as the United States’ primary interlocutor as far as security and stability in the region are concerned?”, it added.

Lebanese newspapers close to the parliamentary majority of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, which is locked in a standoff with Hizbollah over a UN probe into the murder of Mr Hariri’s father, did not comment much on the implications of the visit.

The daily Elshark, however, voiced the concerns of many in Lebanon – that once Mr Ahmadinejad leaves the country, the political battle between Mr Hariri’s camp and the Shiite militant group will escalate.

“We doubt that the truce observed for Ahmadinejad’s visit will continue after his departure,” said the Arabic-language daily.