Challenging Iran

"To the extent that Lebanon works and functions, Hezbollah derives legitimacy from being part of that. As Hezbollah matured and played a more integral role in governance, it wanted to be seen as creating the means for a stronger, more effective Lebanon. Putting together a coalition that served Hezbollah's interest in governance legitimized it."
"Hariri's resignation can be viewed as the opening volley of Saudi Arabia to challenge Hezbollah's dominance in Lebanon. The message to Hezbollah is that Lebanon is not going to be Iraq or Syria, that Hezbollah dominance and Iranian primacy won't be permitted without a challenge."
Brandon Friedman, scholar, Dayan Center, Tel Aviv University 

"I declare my resignation from the premiership of the Lebanese government, with the certainty that the will of the Lebanese is strong."
"When I took office, I promised you that I would seek to unite the Lebanese and end political division . . . But unfortunately, this pushed Iran and its allies to more interference in our internal affairs."
"[Hezbollah’s policies have put Lebanon] in the eye of the storm."
"Iran’s arms in the region will be cut off. The evil that Iran spreads in the region will backfire on it."
Saad Hariri, resigning as Prime Minister of Lebanon

Saad Hariri walks with Saudi Arabia's Prince Khaled al-Faisal in Beirut, Lebanon November 21, 2016. . (photo credit:MOHAMED AZAKIR / REUTERS)

"Hezbollah is an organization with military power stronger than the Lebanese army, and the new development is that Hezbollah has some control over the Lebanese military."
"Saudi Arabia is trying to block Iranian influence in Lebanon, as in Yemen, but it's a lost cause. [Yemen's fate is still being battled out]."
"Saudi Arabia is more concerned than Israel about Iran." 
Hebrew University scholar Yusri Hazran

Saad Hariri's resignation has removed the fig leaf from Hezbollah's protestations that it has only Lebanon's interests at heart. His stature as Prime Minister, aligning himself with the very political terrorist group that arranged the violent death of his father gave Hezbollah the legitimacy that it felt it needed on the world stage, for how could Hezbollah have been responsible for the elder Hariri's death if even his son allied himself with Hezbollah? His father died because, as a hugely respected elder statesman of Lebanon he rebelled against Syria's occupation of his country.

His son has now resigned his post with the government of Lebanon, a complete and total farce in the control of Shiite Hezbollah, representing the interests of Iran in Lebanon, through its control of the 40 percent Shiite element of the mixed sectarian country where Druze, Christians, Sunni and Shiite have lived together in an uneasy truce since Israel's invasion resulted in the banishment of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, coinciding with the al Quds Iranian Republican Guard Corps' formation of a Shiite militia as a martyrdom cult now called the Party of God.

Trained and armed by Iran, Hezbollah earned its spurs as the Islamic Republic of Iran's trusted proxy by planning a suicide mission, when two heavily explosives-laden trucks driven by suicide-prone operatives of the newly-formed terror group blew up the American and French peacekeeping military barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing 241 U.S. marines and 58 French military, and then the group went on to bomb the U.S. and French embassies. Rehearsals for later terrorist exploits striking elsewhere in the world focusing on Jewish and Israeli targets. Now deployed to Syria.

Iran's carefully-laid long-range plans of hegemony in a Shiite crescent has succeeded in giving it total control of Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. Mr. Hariri's justifiably smouldering hatred of his father's killers made him the perfect foil as a Sunni Muslim, and Lebanese patriot for Saudi Arabia to plan its destabilization of Iran's hold through Hezbollah on Lebanon. Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince has his own ideas of dramatic action to counter Iran's growing confidence in the stability of its Shiite crescent.

Saudi Arabia seems on a crash course of desperation to change the atmosphere and the realities internally, as well as regionally, focusing on pushing back effectively against Iran's success in establishing itself as the country in the Middle East with the most influence where it now counts, while the Sunni-majority Arab states flounder in their usual state of political disarray.