HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025020.jpg

24 East. The Iranians evidently hoped that militancy against the west, above all on behalf of the Palestinians, could counteract the league-of- outsiders aspect of their alliance. For a while, this project appeared to be working. The Iran-created and sponsored Hezbollah movement managed to precipitate Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, and then avoided defeat in a subsequent round of fighting in 2006. In a poll of Arab public opinion taken in 2008, the three most popular leaders were Hassan Nasrallah, Bashar al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, in that order. But this sense of inexorable ascendancy in which the Iran-led bloc liked to cloak itself has fallen victim to the Arab spring. First, the Saudis crushed a largely Shia uprising in Bahrain which the Iranians backed. But more importantly, Iran's tooth and nail defence of the brutal Assad regime in Syria is progressively destroying its already shallow support Sunni Muslims. Thus, a recent poll by the Arab-American Institute asked more than 4,000 Arabs their view of Iran. In Saudi Arabia, 6% had a positive view — down from 89% in 2006. In Jordan, the positive rating fell from 75% to 23%, in Egypt from 89% to 37% in the same period. The uprising in Syria placed Iran in an impossible position. Maintaining its ally in Damascus formed an essential strategic interest. Iran hoped, following the US departure from Iraq, to achieve a contiguous line of pro-Iranian, Shia states stretching from Iran itself to the Mediterranean. But keeping this ambition alive in recent months required offering very visible support to a non-Sunni regime engaged in the energetic slaughter of its own, largely Sunni people. This has led to the drastic decline in the standing of the Iranians and their friends. Such a decline was probably inevitable. Outside the core areas of Shia Arab population, Iran's support was broad but shallow. It is noteworthy that since the Arab Spring, Hamas appears to have distanced itself both from Assad and from the Iranians. According to HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025020