If the Americans expected submission, they didn’t get it in Beirut yesterday afternoon. President Mohammad Khatami of Iran – whose election gave him a far more convincing majority than George Bush received in America – insisted that Tehran’s support for the Lebanese Hizbollah would remain firm, that Israel must leave the last square miles of Lebanese territory and that – here was the old, familiar Khatami refrain – there must be a “dialogue” of civilisations. The Shia Muslims of Lebanon, the largest if largely unacknowledged community in the country, flocked to see their hero in Beirut, women in chadors and great bearded men weeping with delight at the mere sight of the thin, ascetic but humane cleric who once offered a real hope of democracy in Iran. Full Story
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