The San Francisco Chronicle, Beirut – On the streets of Harat Hreik, a mainly Shiite suburb of Beirut, the signs of Iranian influence are everywhere. Posters of the late Ayatollah Khomeini adorn storefronts and lampposts. A huge Iranian flag with the names of Iranian soccer players stretches across a major intersection.
These outward symbols are just the most obvious sign of Iran’s presence and influence among Lebanese Shiites, the country’s largest sect. Heading south from this neighborhood and continuing to the Lebanese-Israeli border, Lebanese Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy militia and the country’s largest armed group, is the authority, outgunning even the Lebanese army. Hezbollah run — and Iran funded — charities, hospitals, construction companies and schools provide services that the rural poor of the south and the Bekaa Valley depend on.
"It’s very good, this assistance Iran gives Lebanon," said Hassan Berrou, 35, the owner of a mobile phone shop in Harat Hreik. "It is supporting the resistance (to Israel) and helping southerners in their battles through its institutions or other groups."
Iran’s activities in Lebanon are part of its larger plans for the region. By working through and with local Shiite communities, which are found in Bahrain, Iraq, eastern Saudi Arabia and stretching through Syria to Lebanon and Israel’s northern frontier, Tehran is well on its way to creating a "Shiite Crescent" — a regional axis that allows it to hold most of the cards in any confrontation with the United States or Israel. And nowhere else, with the possible exception of Iraq, is Iran so well positioned as in Lebanon.
"This has been an almost unmitigated success" for Iran, said a Western diplomatic source, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. When Iranian Revolutionary Guard units helped organize Hezbollah in 1982 in response to the Israeli invasion, the source said, Lebanon became the only place in the region where the Islamic Republic was able to successfully export its revolution. That was 24 years ago, and today the ties are tighter than ever.
… Shiites in Lebanon and across the region have fashioned a political identity from the idea of themselves as the underdog, of standing up for justice and ending oppression. It’s a part of being Shiite, said Amal Sa’ad-Ghoreyab, an assistant professor at Lebanese American University who wrote her doctoral dissertation on Hezbollah. And not only is it a sense of identity, the Shiites, being a minority in the Muslim world, are sticking together against the growth in al Qaeda and Sunni fundamentalism, she said. They look to Iran as a protective force. "So it’s no surprise that they look to Iran politically, too."
And not just politically. Iran has been arming and funding Hezbollah since its inception, and recently, an Israeli general claimed that troops from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps were operating on Lebanon’s border with the Jewish state, helping train Hezbollah fighters.
Officials at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut declined to comment. Nawaf Moussawi, head of Hezbollah’s international relations department, acknowledged Iran’s political and military help, but declined to comment on reports of Iranian troops in Lebanon…