A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Why Are These Men Smiling? Day Two of Ahmadinejad's Excellent Adventure

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Lebanese Prime Minister Sa‘d al-Hariri; Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Syrian President Bashar al-Asad (below): it's pretend-you-aren't-ancient-enemies day!

Seriously though, the visit of Ahmadinejad to Lebanon (he's been speaking in the South, and saying the usual inflammatory stuff about Israel) and of Maliki to Damascus will both be seen as boosts for the Iran-Syria-Hizbullah alliance, because, well, they are. Somehow this doesn't look much like Beirut Spring, or that new, democratic, utopian Middle East the neocons promised.

And yes, everyone is smiling, but does anyone else think Maliki is looking to see if Asad has something up his sleeve?

Then there's this:
I guess he's throwing kisses to the crowd, or something. The blogger Abu Arqala at Suq al-Mal has taken a variant of that picture and riffed on it, here.

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