The funeral of two Hezbollah militants killed in a shooting at the organization's demonstration in Beirut was a major show of force.
Thousands gathered in a Shiite neighborhood in southern Beirut to pay their respects to the dead, and militants from the organization marched around the coffins in full uniforms.
Photos taken by news agencies showed in the capitals next to Hezbollah flags and several Lebanese flags, the largest flag waved by the mourners was the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
This large demonstration of loyalty, in the pro-Iranian organization's stronghold to the shores of the Mediterranean, just tens of kilometers from the border with Israel, is an achievement for Tehran's aggressive foreign policy, but it best illustrates the difficulties and challenges facing Iran in their spheres of influence in the Middle East.
The shooting at Hezbollah and Amal Shiite protesters, who rejoiced against a Supreme Court justice entrusted with investigating the Beirut bombing case, well illustrates the disgust of large sections of the Lebanese public over Hezbollah's huge control of the country, which is gradually disintegrating both politically and economically.
The frustration of Hezbollah's choke belt, aided by Iranian funds and oil currently flowing into Lebanese ports, is bringing violence to parts of Lebanese society.
For Tehran, Hezbollah is the key player in its strategy in the region.
The weakening of the organization, or its dragging into internal fighting in Lebanon could have far-reaching consequences for Tehran's ability to continue to direct its interests in Lebanon and Syria.
Without Hezbollah's military presence, the project to assimilate pro-Iranian militias in Syria could go back years and the regime of Assad, Iran's ally, could lose its significance in the arsenal at its disposal.
Hezbollah supporter fires after sniper attack in Beirut,
Hezbollah also fears a civil war, not because there is a political or military force in the country that can defeat the Shiite organization but because the organization believes it can strengthen control of power institutions in Lebanon without being drawn into a civil war that will weaken the organization against its great enemy in the south, Israel.
Therefore, alongside the venomous accusations against Walid Junblatt's Lebanese Forces organization, the members of the organization whose honor was trampled did not take any actual military step, as they would have done in the past.
Lebanon is now waiting with bated breath for Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah's speech, which is expected to take place on Monday evening, to see how the powerful man in Lebanon will react to the event that shook the country.
Hit at the ballot box - actually from the Shiites
It is not just Lebanon that is sleeping away from the eyes of the ayatollahs these days.
Even beyond the southern border of Iran, in Iraq, it has been maturing for more than two years a significant challenge for Iranian control over the country, and unusually, the threat in question comes from the Shiite society in the battle-torn country.
The intricate political map of Iraqi democracy has provided a complex but clear-cut result as the country's 2021 election campaign becomes known.
The one who emerged victorious was Muqtada a-Sadr, a Shiite cleric who for years has been cultivating a political list made up of various forces.
A-Sadr's list now won seventy-five seats in the 283-seat parliament and became its largest party.
Al-Sadr supporters celebrate in Baghdad, Photo: AFP
The fact that a Shiite cleric holds a tremendous position of power in the country sounds like Tehran’s wet dream, but the opposite is true.
Al-Sadr, who led a massive Shiite uprising against the United States in southern Iraq in 2004, has been revealed over the years as an Iraqi nationalist and even as one willing to cooperate with the United States, in order to curb Persian influence over Iraq.
The Shiite public in Iraq still seems to remember the 2019 protests, during which snipers from the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force fired at hundreds of young people rejoicing against government corruption and foreign influence.
Even those who could not bring themselves to vote for the National Sadr simply refrained from going to the polls.
"All embassies are desirable in our country as long as they do not promote interference in Iraq's internal affairs," al-Sadr said in his victory speech to thousands of supporters of the Islamic National Movement in the capital, Baghdad.
A clear hint of the siege imposed by Iranian supporters on the United States Embassy in 2019. The speech stressed that Sadr was willing to extend an olive branch to Washington, in the form of cooperation in curbing Iran's influence in Baghdad, in exchange for complete US military withdrawal To the king of kings.
King of Kings, Muqtada a-Sadr votes in elections
The very idea of a Shiite, religious but hostile to Tehran government deprives the senior members of the Ayatollahs regime of sleep.
Tehran rushed to send the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force commander, Ismail Kaani, to a series of consultations in Baghdad.
But without the predecessor of his predecessor in office, it is difficult to see how the Iranian general will succeed in uniting and bridging the disputes between the divided pro-Iranian factions, which have received a resounding slap in the face from the Iraqi voter.
To the north the insult will open
Iran's northern border has also provided Tehran's foreign relations with a persistent headache in recent weeks.
Iran, fearing that Turkish support and Israeli aid to the Azerbaijani army persuaded the government of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev to help fortify an Israeli presence on Iran's northern border, has decided to launch a campaign of defamation and threats.
The campaign, which initially included scathing and threatening statements by senior members of the regime and the Revolutionary Guards, culminated in a huge military exercise held by the Iranian army on the Azeri border, with the aim of signaling to Baku that it must fold against a rising regional power in its population and territory.
The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, and the Israeli-made suicide bomber Harup,
But in the meantime, it seems that the Iranian move has achieved the exact opposite goal.
President Aliyev spoke last week, and along with denying an Israeli presence in his country, he sent Tehran an unparalleled defiant message.
Aliyev was documented as connecting an Israeli "Uruff" type UAV, hundreds and a kind that helped his country win its war against the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, a few miles from the Iranian border.
It seems that now Tehran has been forced to swallow the insult from the small Shiite state north of it.
A few days after Aliyev's speech, Tehran announced that they were interested in repairing relations with Baku and called on the Azeris to open "confidence-building measures."
It is clear that the last chapter in this geopolitical saga has not been written, but it is clear that as in Lebanon and Iraq, this time too Tehran came out with less than half its lust in hand.