BAALBEK, Lebanon — Charities modeled after Iranian organizations provide healthcare to the poor. Religious schools funded with help from an Iranian bank educate thousands of children. Islamic foundations with ties to Iran make loans to home buyers.
And when a "martyr" falls in battle, posters reminiscent of the ones studding Tehran rise up in the scenery of south Beirut, southern Lebanon and here in the Bekaa Valley. They even appear to have been drawn by the same artist.
A tour of Hezbollah's state within a state in southern Lebanon reveals a replica of the distinctive institutions and styles of the Islamic Republic's ideological machinery, and offers clues to the militant group's powerful hold here.
Iran's relationship with Lebanon's Shiites is a complex web stretching back decades and spanning nearly all facets of religious, economic and social life -- ties that have grown stronger since hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power last year.
"The Americans and Israelis are convinced that they're fighting a terrorist organization and they'll bomb it and the people will turn against it, like you're making a coup d'etat," said a critic of Hezbollah, who asked that his name not be printed for fear of retribution. "But the Iranians have knitted a carpet. You have to have patience to unravel it."
Lebanon and Iran have had strong religious and commercial ties for centuries.
The charismatic Imam Musa Sadr came to Lebanon from Iran in the 1960s to help the then-disenfranchised Shiite plurality, financing a series of schools throughout the country. After the 1979 Iranian revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, those ties were strengthened by blood as Iran dispatched hundreds of Revolutionary Guard troops to the Bekaa Valley to help organize Shiite militants and direct their guns toward invading Israeli forces.
In return, Lebanese guerrillas trained Iranian soldiers, accustomed to American equipment, to use Russian-made weaponry during Iran's 1980s war against Sunni-dominated Iraq, said Hassan Hosseini, a Beirut researcher writing a book on relations between Iran and Lebanon.
The Islamic Republic opened its purse to Hezbollah with the group's inception in 1982, in part because the militants provided direct access to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Iran's new rulers were ideologically committed to opposing Israel and eager to prove themselves as the true champions of the Islamic nation.
