Iran and Syria Claim Victory for Hezbollah

The leaders of Iran and Syria asserted Tuesday that Hezbollah had defeated Israel in Lebanon, with Syrian President Bashar Assad saying U.S. plans for reshaping the Middle East have been ruined.

The Bush administration dismissed the statements as “blustering.”

In separate speeches, Assad and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ridiculed U.S. hopes for eradicating the guerrillas and belittled Israel’s high-tech military as useless against Hezbollah.

“The Middle East they [the Americans] aspire to has become an illusion,” the Syrian leader said in Damascus, the capital.

Addressing Israelis, he said that “after tasting humiliation in the latest battles, your weapons are not going to protect you -- not your planes, or missiles, or even your nuclear bombs.... The future generations in the Arab world will find a way to defeat Israel.”

In Arbadil, Iran, a few hours later, Ahmadinejad saluted Hezbollah for hoisting “the banner of victory,” and referred to the United States, Britain and Israel as corrupt and criminal.

Tehran and Damascus may be the biggest winners in the 34 days of fighting in Lebanon, buoyed by the ability of ally Hezbollah to stand up to Israel’s punishing assaults.

Hezbollah hasn’t come out unscathed as a fighting force, and its domination of southern Lebanon and attacks on Israel are likely to be hampered by the deployment of the Lebanese army and international troops. But the Shiite Muslim militia appears to have gained strength in Lebanon thanks to broadened support among the country’s ethnic and religious communities.

The popularity of Hezbollah’s chief, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, has grown even among Sunnis in Saudi Arabia, whose strict school of Islam considers Shiites to be heretics.

In Berlin, Germany quickly registered a protest to Assad’s speech, with Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier canceling a trip to Damascus.

In Washington, David Welch, an assistant secretary of State, said at a news conference that Iran and Syria were “trying to pile on popular emotion and anger at a time of tragedy for their own selfish advantage.”

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack dismissed Syria’s claims as “blustering” and said the country was “quite isolated from the rest of the people in the region.”

As for Iran, McCormack said Ahmadinejad’s remarks “simply ignore the facts.”

The cease-fire between Hezbollah and Israel does not propose the eradication of Hezbollah, but it revives a 2-year-old United Nations Security Council demand for the militia’s disarmament, a job the Lebanese government has not attempted on its own. Hezbollah has made it clear that it does not intend to comply.