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New Lebanese President – It's All about Iran

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JERUSALEM, Israel – For Israel, the election of 81-year-old Michel Aoun as Lebanon's new president is more about Iran than Lebanon.

In order to understand the election in context, it's necessary to "zoom out" and take a broader look at the region, an Israeli expert, who asked not to be named, told CBN News.

Aoun, a Maronite Christian, was sworn in as president this week after a more than two-year vacancy in the post. Most notably, he did so with the backing of Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon.

Iran considers the election a victory for the "Islamic Resistance" movement in Lebanon, i.e. Hezbollah, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to Iranian leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, told the Iranian Tasnim news agency.

Aoun's election is part of the "land bridge the Iranians are building from Iran to the Mediterranean Sea," the Israeli expert said.

The Iranians are getting stronger in Iraq and the battle against ISIS for Mosul is important to them, he explained. They are backing President (Bashar) Assad in Syria and now they have Aoun aligned with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The expert said it's "very scary" because Iran is using in an "intelligent way" – the "incapacity" of the U.S. and Europe – to deal with the situation to further their goals.

"The Shiite crescent is becoming a reality from Tehran to the Mediterranean," he emphasized.

ISIS is "so bad" that it's easy to be in a coalition against it. But the day ISIS falls, that's when the "big trouble" will start. With all the players involved, the situation "could easily get out of control," he concluded.

 

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About The Author

Julie Stahl
Julie
Stahl

Julie Stahl is a correspondent for CBN News in the Middle East. A Hebrew speaker, she has been covering news in Israel full-time for more than 20 years. Julie’s life as a journalist has been intertwined with CBN – first as a graduate student in Journalism, then as a journalist with Middle East Television (METV) when it was owned by CBN from 1989-91, and now with the Middle East Bureau of CBN News in Jerusalem since 2009. As a correspondent for CBN News, Julie has covered Israel’s wars with Gaza, rocket attacks on Israeli communities, stories on the Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, and the