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hira iftikhar rana · #41 Wednesday, August 23, 2006

The Iran-Israel face-off in Lebanon

From Ahmed Quraishi in Beirut
Somewhere between Houla and Adaissa, there is a big lonely Iranian flag staring right in the face of Israel. The flag flutters proudly in the wind, sitting atop a house on a deserted road linking two Lebanese border towns facing Israel.
I heard a lot about how the recent war in southern Lebanon was actually a showdown between Israel and Iran and that Hezbollah was just a pawn. Frankly, I found this hard to believe since every Hezbollah activist my team and I met was Lebanese, not Iranian or Syrian, as Israel claims.
But this changed two days ago when my car was speeding down a lonely road that cut through Lebanon’s hilly border region with Israel. We could clearly see the Israeli territory to our right, lush green Israeli plantations and a Jewish agricultural settlement. Double-storied, well-built abandoned houses were scattered on both sides of the road.
Suddenly, I asked the driver to stop. “Is that an Iranian flag?” I shouted as I got out of the car. Without a doubt, it was the flag of Iran; crispy colours, red and green and white in the middle; a calligraphic design of the word Allah in Arabic was prominently visible in the centre. It was a new flag, not an old one. It was the real thing, not a shoddy imitation. My immediate reaction was, “Man, this takes some guts. This is like rubbing Israel’s nose in the sand.” My television cameraman, Mr. Javed Kazmi, quickly took out his camera and began filming.
I counted at least two Iranian flags hoisted atop abandoned houses in Lebanon’s devastated towns near the border with Israel. In both cases, the flag of Iran was placed on the rooftops of prominently located houses, no shyness here. Whoever placed them made sure the flag was proudly visible to the Israelis. And these flags were nowhere to be seen deeper inside Lebanon. Just on the border with Israel.
But there was one exception. In the night of 14 August, the day Israel and Hezbollah stopped the war, Hezbollah activists made a small victory parade on the seaside in Beirut’s central El Rouche district. The parade passed by a restaurant where our team was having its first meal of the day. The noise generated by the celebrating crowd was so intense that it forced us to come out of the restaurant to see what was happening.
As I came out, I saw a leading car stopping in the middle of the road. Two boys were waving the yellow flag of Hezbollah. Another waved the flag of Lebanon. After a few minutes, a third bearded young man unfolded a third flag. This was a bigger flag. It was the flag of Iran. For TV journalists watching this unfold in the heart of Beirut, we thought this really deserved to be filmed.
So, is Iran trying to show that it is behind everything that happened in Lebanon? I don’t think so. In the Beirut parade, I think it was a case of some overzealous young man trying to prove something. But in the case of those two devastated Lebanese towns on the border with Israel where Iran’s flag was placed where the Israelis could clearly see, I think it was a deliberate act. A message, if you will.
My conclusion is based on the following reasons. Immediately after the U.N.-sanctioned “cessation of hostilities” came into effect in the morning of 14 August, Hezbollah moved fast to win the psychological war. Within six or seven hours after the temporary ceasefire came in effect at 0800 AM local time, the militia activists had placed banners, posters, plaques and signposts across the destroyed areas of south Lebanon and the destroyed southern districts of Beirut that used to house Hezbollah’s offices before the war. And I am not talking about some lousy PR effort. These were fine, professionally made advertisements for a professionally-run militia. Only the most professional of political consulting experts can put up such a splendid, post-war psychological campaign the way Hezbollah did. The credit should go to the militia for a job well done.
So the placing of Iranian flags on Lebanese territory adjacent to Israel can only be a calculated move. The Iranians, and their Hezbollah proxy in Lebanon, know that Israel can use this overt display of power as a proof of Iran’s culpability in the recent war. But apparently the gains from this move far outweighed the dangers.
Iran, whose support for Hezbollah is no secret, is telling Israel and its main ally, the United States, that it knows it might be a target of a military action on the basis of its nuclear program. And since Iran has nothing to lose, it is making it clear it has the guts and power to show the Israelis - right on their border - that Tehran can do something about this situation and with Israel being unable to do anything about it.
The Israelis and the Americans have gotten the message. All future moves in the region will be based on this.