Balloons bearing pictures of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad float over Beirut International Airport on Tuesday.Hassan Ammar/The Associated Press
Israelis can be forgiven if they wish Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ill on his two-day visit to Lebanon this week. The outspoken Mr. Ahmadinejad is Israel's worst nightmare and his plan to visit the predominantly Shia south of Lebanon on Thursday, peering over what used to be known as the "good fence" between Israel and Lebanon, sends shivers down Israeli spines.
Already, south Lebanese towns that were overrun by Israeli forces in the summer of 2006 are displaying huge billboards welcoming the Iranian President, who is scheduled to open a lavish garden that includes a giant replica of Jerusalem's golden Dome of the Rock.
Wednesday evening, Mr. Ahmadinejad will be feted at a massive outdoor rally staged by a grateful Hezbollah, the militant Shia political organization funded in large part by Iran. Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah says his militia now possesses some 40,000 missiles capable of striking Israel; most, if not all, of them coming from Iran.
With Mr. Ahmadinejad's popularity reportedly plummeting in Iran - even among his erstwhile supporters in the Revolutionary Guard - Lebanon is the one place where the man is sure to be embraced.
Hezbollah is, after all, "perhaps the only significant foreign policy success of the Islamic revolution in Iran," says Rami Khouri, the former editor of Beirut's Daily Star newspaper. With Iran's help, Hezbollah has become a major force in Lebanese politics and a significant player in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
But if the Iranian visit is good for Mr. Ahmadinejad and for Hezbollah, it's not so good for Lebanon as a whole.
A surging Hezbollah is making increasingly threatening noises against the government of Saad Hariri.
Two years ago, Hezbollah fighters took over the streets of several neighbourhoods in West Beirut in a two-week show of force. The group's goal was to maintain some of its privileges of power and to increase its role in the government. It succeeded on all fronts.
Today, the goal is to discredit, if not disband, the United Nations Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) investigating the 2005 assassination of Mr. Hariri's father, the former prime minister Rafik Hariri, and 22 others.
The inquiry, headed by 58-year-old Canadian Daniel Bellemare, a former chief prosecutor for Canada's Justice Department, is expected to hand down its first indictments before the end of the year, and Hezbollah names are rumoured to be at the top of the list.
The tribunal initially named Syrian officials as suspects and detained four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals for four years, before releasing them last year for want of evidence. While Syria still is viewed as the culprit by many Lebanese, Prime Minister Hariri has publicly assured Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that he accepts this is not the case.
Hezbollah is determined not to take the blame for the February, 2005, roadside bombing, and accuses the STL of basing its indictments on "false witnesses" and questionable "Israeli intelligence." It is using its presence in parliament to hold up Lebanon's budget until the annual $50-million funding of the STL is dropped, and it demands that the matter of "false witnesses" be taken up by the Justice Ministry before the STL proceeds further.
So far, Mr. Hariri remains firm in his support of the inquiry, a UN mission his government requested in 2005. Considering that Mr. Hariri is strongly backed by Saudi Arabia, and Hezbollah by Iran, the two parties appear headed for a serious showdown.
Hezbollah "will start with rhetoric and political pressure, like we have now," says Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Beirut, "and escalation might then include civil disobedience, demonstrations, closing of roads, of the airport."
So tense has the atmosphere become that Mr. Nasrallah felt compelled on the weekend to disavow rumours he was planning a coup d'etat.
"If we wanted to do so, we would have done that in 2005, but we don't want that," the Hezbollah leader said.
From his vantage on a mountaintop 80 kilometres to the east, Syrian President al-Assad is looking on with not a little trepidation.
While Syria is perceived as an ally of Iran - Mr. al-Assad made a high-profile visit to Tehran earlier this month - the Syrian leader is not comfortable with Iran staking a primary claim to influence in Lebanon. That's a role Mr. al-Assad covets for himself.
As such, he can be expected to try to play Hezbollah off against Mr. Hariri, then offer Syrian assistance in resolving the political crisis.