BEIRUT—Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived to cheers from crowds of adoring Lebanese Shiites in this Arab nation for his first state visit, a trip seen as a move to bolster Tehran's ally, Hezbollah.
The trip comes amid growing political tension with the group's pro-Western partners in a delicate coalition government and has put the region on a tense footing. Mr. Ahmadinejad is expected to visit southern Lebanon later this week, perhaps venturing as far as the tense border with Israel. That frontier was the site of a deadly border clash between Israeli and Lebanese forces as recently as August.
That incident sharply raised regional tensions and heightened worry in the U.S. that Lebanon's independent—and partially U.S.-funded—military is being influenced by Hezbollah, the Shiite political and militant group supported by Iran and Syria.
Tens of thousands of middle-class Shiites, workers, children and students alike heeded the call by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to greet the Iranian leader and thank him for the hundreds of millions of dollars funneled from Iran to Shiite communities here after years of discrimination by Lebanese leaders. Underscoring the sectarian divide here, Beirut's main thoroughfares and streets leading through Shiite neighborhoods were lined with slick posters and homemade signs greeting the Iranian leader. In comparison, streets were bare of such adornment in Sunni neighborhoods and other sectarian enclaves elsewhere in Lebanon.
Mr. Ahmadinejad's visit is viewed warily by many leaders of the country's ruling coalition, led by U.S.- and Saudi-backed Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a Sunni Muslim, and a group of Christian and minority Druze politicians that have long dominated political life here.
The Iranian leader arrived Wednesday morning at the Lebanese president's residence after an exuberant ceremony at the Beirut airport. Government officials are taking pains to downplay any political tensions between the factions controlled by Mr. Hariri and Hezbollah.
Mr. Ahmadinejad has a day scheduled full of sedate, official meetings with Cabinet ministers and a large lunch banquet with the Iranian leader. Later Wednesday evening, the Iranian leader is scheduled to appear at a rally in the Hezbollah stronghold Dahiyeh, a southern Beirut suburb attacked ferociously by Israeli warplanes during the war in 2006. Dinner is to be spent with Mr. Hariri, according to Iranian officials.
Mr. Hariri, whose international allies include Saudi Arabia, France and the U.S., has a tense political relationship with the Hezbollah-led opposition, which holds some cabinet positions as a reflection of its political might. That is despite the electoral victory by Mr. Hariri's coalition in parliamentary polls last year.
The power struggle between the two political rivals flared anew over the summer. Hezbollah has said a United Nations-backed tribunal intends to indict some of its members in a probe of the 2005 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the father of the current prime minister. Hezbollah has condemned the tribunal and has pressured the Lebanese premier to do the same, raising worry the group will violently resist efforts to arrest its members.
The Iranian leader isn't expected to address the issue of the U.N. tribunal this week, but analysts say the timing of his visit provides a shot in the arm for Hezbollah as the group ratchets up the pressure against the government to reverse its previous support of the probe.
The two sides have a fundamental division over Hezbollah's militia, the most effective fighting force in the country. The U.S. and Israel classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. After years of civil warfare among Lebanon's multifaith communities, a 1989 peace deal regulated the disarmament of all sectarian militias, except Hezbollah's.
Now, its fighters are considered one of the most proficient armed forces in the Middle East, thanks to its Iranian-sourced arms. In Israel's 2006 war against Hezbollah in the south, the group's arsenal of long-range rockets and defensive tactics helped it mire invading Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah's critics in Lebanon accuse it of flexing its military prowess to pressure other groups for political concessions inside the country, a practice the some fear could draw the country into a new civil war. Lebanon suffered through a 15 years of sectarian fighting that ended in 1990.
Many in the region are anxious about Mr. Ahmadinejad's plan on Thursday to visit the tense southern Lebanese border towns, where Hezbollah fighters for weeks held off Israeli troop advances four years ago.
Iran is expected to sign a $450 million loan agreement to fund Lebanese electricity and water projects, and some officials here say they expect Mr. Ahmadinejad to repeat an offer to help fund Lebanon's army. After the cross-border clash in August between Lebanon and Israel, some U.S. lawmakers said they would block Washington's funding of the Lebanese military.
Since Lebanon's civil war, the U.S. has provided the much of the funding to rebuild the Lebanese army, but Washington has put strict conditions on aid to limit the threat against neighboring Israel and the army is considered ineffective as a result. It lost more than 100 troops during an uprising of al Qaeda-inspired Sunni militants in 2007 in an embarrassing and painful campaign.
If the army is going to surpass Hezbollah's prowess, however, it should be allowed to take the same standard of weaponry as the Shiite group has from whatever source that offers it, said Walid Sukkariyeh, a member of parliament affiliated with Hezbollah's opposition coalition. "Building a strong national army should not be a political issue. If we start by putting our own security first, instead of others, than any country who wants to fund our military should be welcome to do so," said Mr. Sukkariyeh.
However, non-Shiite figures in Lebanon say giving Iran influence over the armed forces is a bad idea for their country, which has struggled to throw off multiple foreign occupiers and meddling neighbors for decades. They fear that Hezbollah would use Iranian influence over the army to increase its domination over Lebanon's levers of power to the detriment of their rival sectarian clans.
"Iran will not provide anything without strings attached. Its goal is to have its ally [Hezbollah] succeed in running the show, not for the good of Lebanon, but for the good of Tehran," said Adnan Chabaan, a retired Lebanese army colonel and military commentator.
