Iran says it will do everything it can to prevent the fall of the Syrian regime, supplying it for this purpose with funds, weapons and experience in repression and its instruments. Yet it is also behaving on the basis of post-Bashar Al-Assad considerations, trying to limit the damage that will result from his departure and the end of his regime. This is why it has begun a campaign to take control of Lebanon and preserve the position of its ally Hezbollah, which will lose major political and military support with the triumph of the Syrian Revolution. Such a campaign is coordinated with Hezbollah, which is in turn waging attacks on several fronts in the Lebanese interior in order to consolidate its hegemony over government bodies and state institutions, including the army and security forces, as well as the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government, with the aim of excluding any effective opposition to its regional ties and their consequences. Thus, the visit of Iranian Vice President Rahimi and the large delegation that accompanied him falls within the framework of Iran seeking to tie Lebanon to the coalition which Nouri Al-Maliki's Iraq has joined. And perhaps the mistake was intended, when the name “Baghdad” was left on the draft copies of the treaties offered to Beirut, in order to make the Lebanese understand that the future of their country would be identical to what has happened and is happening in Iraq, where the survival of the government is contingent on Tehran's support of it – especially as it was Rahimi himself who ratified this set of treaties with Iraqi officials. The Iranians are also offering educational and pedagogical collaboration with Lebanon, as well as the formation of a special committee in order to incorporate the history, geography and culture of the two countries in school curriculums and textbooks. Hezbollah had in fact for some time initiated efforts to change the officially sanctioned Lebanese history textbook. And who knows? It might become compulsory to teach a chapter about the theory of the “Velayat-e Faqih” (Guardianship of the Jurist) in Lebanese schools, since the Iranian suggestion includes writing and printing textbooks and training teachers. This also makes one wonder whether the issue of education was one of the reasons for the assassination of Rafic Hariri, who sent tens of thousands of Lebanese students to European and American universities. In parallel to the Iranian seduction campaign – which stretches from electricity, through building dams, sewers and slaughterhouses, and up to education, the judiciary and the banking sector; i.e. everything that touches on the nature of Lebanese system and the daily life of the Lebanese – Hezbollah and its ally Michel Aoun are, prematurely and strikingly, proposing to amend the legislative election law to ensure obtaining the absolute majority in Parliament. They are also desperately defending “proportional representation”, which would mean turning Lebanon into a single district, allowing for the electors of Hezbollah, the Amal Movement and Aoun's party to elect representatives even in areas in which they have no influence or voters. It would also mean effectively removing a major obstacle that has so far prevented them from taking complete control of the legislative branch of government, i.e. the “centrist movement”. It is that same reason that makes Aoun violently attack the President, who refuses to submit to blackmail and insists on the constitutionality of laws, on the consensual nature of government decisions and on the necessity of keeping the latter away from petty rivalries and policies of vengeance. And if Arab countries, especially those of the Gulf, feel very gravely concerned about what is taking place in Syria, in terms of the systematic killing of citizens on the background of international division, these countries are invited to include in their concern the situation in Lebanon, so as not to leave it an easy prey for the Iranians and their allies to subvert its system and its history. Indeed, confronting Iran's expansion, starting from Yemen through the UAE and Bahrain, and up to Syrian and Lebanon, is a single indivisible battle.
