By Tom Perry and Ghaida Ghantous BEIRUT (Reuters) – Already mired in economic collapse, Lebanon is facing a blast of Gulf Arab anger after a prominent broadcaster-turned-minister levelled blunt criticism at Saudi Arabia, in a row that has further strained Beirut’s ties with once generous benefactors. Many ordinary Lebanese fear it is they who will pay the price for the diplomatic deep freeze provoked by the latest spat, which has roots in a long-running rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran that underpins conflicts across the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and its fellow Gulf Arab monarchies once spent billions of dollars in aid in Lebanon, and still provide jobs and a haven for much of Lebanon’s huge diaspora. But the friendship has been strained for years by the growing influence of Lebanon’s powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.
Gulf Arab ties with Lebanon hit a new nadir last week when George Kordahi, a former gameshow host recently appointed information minister, appeared in an interview speaking in support of Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis and criticising the Saudi-led forces they are fighting. For Riyadh, whose sway in Lebanon has waned as Tehran’s has grown, Kordahi’s comments were just a symptom of Hezbollah’s continued dominance of the political scene, though they were recorded before he took office. Coming as the Houthis advance in Yemen, the fallout of his comments underlines the depth of Iranian-Saudi rivalries. Gulf concerns about Tehran have been stoked by a lack of progress in U.S.-led efforts to revive a deal curbing Iran’s nuclear work. Saudi Arabia and other U.S.-allied Gulf states have long struggled to counter the influence Tehran has carved out across the region by arming, training and financing Shi’ite Muslim groups modelled after Hezbollah, which it founded in 1982.
