Shortly after Lebanon¡¯s army chief Joseph Aoun was chosen this month as the country¡¯s next president, giant banners of him and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman were unfurled on a building¡¯s facade in the northern Lebanese province of Akkar, hailing Saudi Arabia¡¯s de facto ruler as the ¡°leader of the Arabs.¡±
The oil-rich kingdom and its 39-year-old leader ¡ª who backed Aoun to get the presidency ¡ª are emerging as one of the biggest winners in the fallout of the 15-month conflict in Gaza, which has tilted the balance of power in the Middle East against its longtime rival Iran. As a fragile ceasefire deal came into effect on Sunday, Tehran¡¯s influence has been crippled, for now: its proxies in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories decimated, its Syrian ally Bashar Assad deposed and its enemy Israel emboldened. Saudi Arabia is wasting no time filling the void.
¡°This is a clash between an ambitious young man who realizes the world is changing and an elderly cleric clinging to an outdated ideology that brought him to power,¡± said Mustafa Fahs, a Beirut-based commentator who hails from a clerical family critical of the Islamic Republic, referring to the Saudi crown prince and Iran¡¯s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, respectively.
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