Iran just put a "kick me" sign on Lebanon's back:
Iran's foreign minister offered his country's military assistance to the U.S.-backed Lebanese army on Sunday, saying Iran is ready to cooperate in all sectors should the Lebanese government want it.
Mohammad Javad Zarif spoke to reporters Sunday at Beirut's airport shortly after his arrival in the Lebanese capital for a two-day official visit.
"We are always ready (to support Lebanon militarily) and we have announced that on many occasions. This tendency does exist in Iran, but we are waiting for this desire to be there on the Lebanese side," he said.
And the Lebanese eagerly went along with it, it seems.
The Lebanese realize, do they not, that openly siding with Iran makes it easier for Israel to justify an invasion of Lebanon's territory to destroy the Iranian proxy power Hezbollah that is the dominant force inside Lebanon's formal borders, right?
As a side note, has our effort to back the Lebanese army to counter Hezbollah and Iran failed miserably? But maybe the army will stand aside when Israel battles Hezbollah and Iran on Lebanese territory. That's long been my hope.
We shall see. I keep connecting dots to indicate that Israel will mount a large ground raid deep into Lebanon to seriously gut Hezbollah's state-within-a-state in Lebanon before Hezbollah can redeploy from Syria and recover from the bloodletting it endured fighting there to save Assad's regime on Iran's orders.