The south, with its mass of Hezbollah fighters \u2013 armed and paid for by Tehran, its \u201cmartyr\u201d photographs plastered across the walls of every village \u2013 has long been a lung through which Saudi Arabia\u2019s Iranian enemies breathe. But now Saudi Arabia, blundering into the civil war in Yemen and threatening to send its overpaid but poorly trained soldiers into Syria, has turned with a vengeance on Lebanon for its unfaithfulness and lack of gratitude after decades of Saudi largesse.<\/span><\/p>\n After repeatedly promising to spend \u00a33.2bn on new French weapons for the well-trained but hopelessly under-armed Lebanese army, Saudi Arabia has suddenly declined to fund the project \u2013 which was eagerly supported by the US and, for greedier reasons, by Paris. Along with other Gulf states, Riyadh has told its citizens not to visit Lebanon or \u2013 if they are already there \u2013 to leave. Saudi Airlines is supposedly going to halt all flights to Beirut. Lebanon, according to the Saudis, is a centre of \u201cterror\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n Hezbollah leader Nasrallah<\/p><\/div>\n What prompted all this spite was a ferocious attack on the House of Saud by Hezbollah\u2019s chairman, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, whose battalions are fighting and dying alongside Bashar al-Assad\u2019s soldiers in Syria and killing the Islamist rebels who share a Sunni Wahabi faith with the Saudis.<\/span><\/p>\n After pouring billions into Lebanon for decades \u2013 rebuilding the country after successive Israeli invasions and air raids \u2013 the Saudis find that they cannot prevent the Shia, whose government representatives include Hezbollah party members, from expressing their fury at Riyadh, especially after the Kingdom chopped the head off the popular and learned Saudi Shia cleric, Nimr al-Nimr<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. Why, the Saudis say, did Lebanon not even join in the chorus of condemnation against Iran when Saudi diplomats were assaulted in Tehran?<\/span><\/p>\n The Saudis will probably regret this assault. Pulling Lebanon\u2019s financial magic carpet away opens the country up to other \u201cfriends\u201d, not least Iran which, according to the latest Beirut reports, would be happy to fund the Lebanese army to the tune of \u00a37bn \u2013 providing, of course, the newly purchased weapons come from Tehran, and not from Paris.<\/span><\/p>\n The Americans and the British, desperate to prop up the secular Lebanese army with enough weapons to protect the country from Isis \u2013 which briefly took over the north-eastern Lebanese town of Ersal and still holds nine Lebanese soldiers captive \u2013 are pleading with the Saudis to keep their original \u00a33.2bn promise.<\/span><\/p>\n But this latest crisis since the last greatest crisis in the drama of Lebanon \u2013 which currently has no president and no proper functioning parliament and not even a rubbish collection \u2013 is not without its own unique comedy.<\/span><\/p>\n Saudis will find no problem in abandoning Saudi Airlines\u2019s lacklustre hospitality en route to Beirut in favour of the infinitely more luxurious aircraft of Emirates Airlines. And warnings of \u201cterror\u201d are not going to stop Saudis desperate for the fleshpots of the Levant from travelling to Beirut once the temperatures boil up in the streets of Riyadh and Jeddah.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Hezbollah](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Nasrallah.jpeg\")
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