Iran Is Seeking Lebanon Stake as Syria Totters

Farther south, in the dense suburbs of Beirut, Iranian largess helped to rebuild neighborhoods flattened six years ago by Israeli bombs — an achievement that was commemorated this month with a rollicking celebration.

“By the same means that we got weapons and other stuff, money came as well,” the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, exclaimed to roars of approval from the crowd. “All of this has been achieved through Iranian money!”

Iran’s eagerness to shower money on Lebanon when its own finances are being squeezed by sanctions is the latest indication of just how worried Tehran is at the prospect that Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad, could fall. Iran relies on Syria as its bridge to the Arab world, and as a crucial strategic partner in confronting Israel. But the Arab revolts have shaken Tehran’s calculations, with Mr. Assad unable to vanquish an uprising that is in its 15th month.

Iran’s ardent courtship of the Lebanese government indicates that Tehran is scrambling to find a replacement for its closest Arab ally, politicians, diplomats and analysts say. It is not only financing public projects, but also seeking to forge closer ties through cultural, military and economic agreements.

The challenge for Iran’s leaders is that many Lebanese — including the residents of Tannourine, the site of the proposed hydroelectric dam — squirm in that embrace. They see Iran’s gestures not as a show of good will, but as a stealth cultural and military colonization.

“Tannourine is not Tehran,” groused Charbel Komair, a city council member.

The Lebanese have largely accepted that Iran serves as Hezbollah’s main patron for everything from missiles to dairy cows. But branching out beyond the Shiites of Hezbollah is another matter.

“They are trying to reinforce their base in Lebanon to face any eventual collapse of the regime in Syria,” said Marwan Hamade, a Druse leader and Parliament member, noting that a collapse would sever the “umbilical cord” through which Iran supplied Hezbollah and gained largely unfettered access to Lebanon for decades.

“Hezbollah has developed into being a beachhead of Iranian influence not only in Lebanon, but on the Mediterranean — trying to spread Iranian culture, Iranian political domination and now an Iranian economic presence,” Mr. Hamade said. “But there is a kind of Lebanese rejection of too much Iranian involvement here.”

That has not stopped Iran from trying. Mohammad-Reza Rahimi, Iran’s first vice president, arrived in Beirut a couple of weeks ago with at least a dozen proposals for Iranian-financed projects tucked under his arm, one for virtually every ministry, Lebanese officials said. The size of the Iranian delegation — more than 100 members — shocked government officials. Lebanese newspapers gleefully reported embarrassing details of the wooing; in their haste to repeat their success in forging closer ties with Iraq, for example, the Iranians forgot to replace the word Baghdad with Beirut in one draft agreement.

Iran offered to build the infrastructure needed to carry electricity across Iraq and Syria into Lebanon. It offered to underwrite Persian-language courses at Lebanon’s public university. Other proposals touched on trade, development, hospitals, roads, schools and, of course, the Balaa Dam in Tannourine.

Yet virtually no substantial new agreements were signed. The Iranian ambassador, Ghazanfar Roknabadi, reacted like a spurned suitor, grumbling publicly that Lebanon needed to do more to carry out agreements. The embassy here rejected a request for an interview, but Iran’s state-run Press TV quoted Mr. Roknabadi as saying, “The Iranian nation offers its achievements and progress to the oppressed and Muslim nations of the region.”

Therein lies the rub. Syria, run by a nominally Shiite Muslim sect, fostered its alliance with Iran as a counterweight to Sunni Muslim powers like Saudi Arabia. The alliance was built more on confronting the West and its allies than on any sectarian sympathies.

In Lebanon, a nation of various religious sects, many interpret Iran’s reference to “Muslim” as solely “Shiite Muslim.” Hezbollah insists that that is not the case and that the money comes with no strings attached and is for the good for all Lebanese.