Saudi Arabia Criticizes Iran's Hezbollah Support

I. Citation

Title- Saudi Arabia Criticizes Iran's Hezbollah support
Date Written- 5-13-08
URL- The Indian Express
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SAUDI_LEBANON?SITE=IXPRS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

II. Summary
Saudi Arabia points to Iran as being supporters of the Hezbollah groups situated in Lebanon. Prince Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia made an interesting point at a conference held this Tuesday, he said Iran’s support for Hezbollah groups will change and strain relationships between Iran and other Arab countries. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran told journalist and reporters that Iran is the only country to not step into Lebanon’s political problem. Saudi Arabia and Iran have only had increased tension because Iran is spending most of its money on weapons and training of many Shiite Muslim societies. If money continues to be spent like this Saudi Arabia will not stand a chance if they got into a fight with the Shiite militants stationed in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon. (Saudi Arabia is mainly a Sunni Muslim society) The Saudi political party wants all regional countries to stop intruding into Lebanon’s problems, Saudi Arabia feels that Lebanon should have its independence and should be left alone. If this were to happen there would be less “sectarian violence.” Saudi Arabia and Iran have negotiated and tried to come to solutions upon this problem, yet Lebanon has still not been helped with its various political problems

III. Reaction
This article best relates to the theme, “Impact of interaction among and within major societies.” This is because Saudi Arabia and Iran have tried to come to compromises yet it has not helped the welfare of Lebanon. This has only led to a more strained relationship between two regional societies.

Hezbollah is a group that was first started in the late 1980’s; it acted as a “militia” who sought to help Lebanon during its Civil War and wanted to start an Islamic based government in the area. Hezbollah also acted as a Lebanese political group during times of turmoil in Lebanon. Hezbollah claims there enemy is Israel and must fight them off this causing much sectarian violence between Israel and Lebanon. Only recently have some European countries including the United States have listed Hezbollah as a terrorist group.

The writer of this article is a woman from Saudi Arabia named Abdullah Shihri, this meaning that she is an insider.

The writer refers to the Shiites as Muslims from Iran, and represents the Iranians as bad people. (The writers speak about the Shiite side of the story in a very negative way while talking about the Saudis as good people trying to compromise with Iran.) She represents the Hezbollah terrorist group as bad people killing many, and taking control over cities. The writer also quotes one Iranian official once in the whole article while she quotes Saudi Arabian officials 2 or 3 times. Therefore we are not given a very vivid description as to who should take fault in this situation.

We are missing the point of view of a Lebanese leader, he would be able to inform us on what he think both countries should and shouldn’t do while interfering with Lebanon’s political affairs.

I believe that both sides should stay out of Lebanon’s problems. Lebanon is capable of maintaining their society; if they need help they can ask for it without keeping it a secret between other regional countries. Hezbollah is only making the society worse while it did try to accomplish many of its political fantasies it only led to sectarian violence and strained relationships between other societies. Hezbollah is the main reason why many countries surrounding Lebanon do not have good ties