'How do you feel with Ahmadinejad so nearby?' a farmer from Moshav Avivim, on the Lebanese border, was asked, as if an actual Iranian nuclear bomb had been laid right next to the border. But it is not Ahmadinejad's proximity that should worry the farmer, or the dramaturges that accompanied the spectacle. Because this visit evinced no new threat, no declaration that had not been heard before, no new revolution threatening to destroy Lebanon.
Bint Jbail, like most of southern Lebanon, has been under Hezbollah control for years. Images of the ayatollahs Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei have long been a ubiquitous part of the Lebanese landscape. Iranian aid to Hezbollah needs no new 'proper disclosure' from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the Lebanese government - which is of no particular interest to the Iranian president - cannot refuse a visit from him, not after Lebanese President Michel Suleiman was given such a solicitous welcome in Tehran."
