Nawaf Salam, President of the International Court of Justice at the Hague, has been chosen to serve as Lebanon's Prime Minister by the Lebanese Parliament today (Monday). He will be replacing caretaker Prime Minister Nagib Mikati, who has served in that position for over a year and a half, now.
Unlike President Joseph Aoun, who required the votes of pro-Hezbollah and Shiite parties to get elected due to the two-thirds threshold required to elect a President, Salam only required a simple majority to be chosen and thus did not require Hezbollah support or court it.
Just as Aoun was the favored candidate of the United States, Salam is the favored candidate of Saudi Arabia, which is seeking to increase its influence in the country at the expense of Iran and its proxies in the region.
In his role as President of the ICJ at the Hague, multiple commentators have noted Salam's hostility towards Israel in his statements, as he has accused Israel multiple times of committing "apartheid" and also took up the UN request for a legal advisory opinion regarding Israel's ban on UNRWA operating in its territory or working with Israeli security agencies operating in the Gaza Strip or in Judea and Samaria.
The diminished influence of Iran on Lebanon is the latest blow suffered by the pro-Iranian axis of political parties and irregular armies distributed throughout the region.
Pro-Iranian militias in Iraq have also held their fire against Israel in the past few weeks, avoiding firing drones at Israeli territory following intense US pressure and a stated desire by the state of Iraq to not be involved in the war between Israel and Iran.
The fall of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, an ally of Iran's, to rebel Sunni forces was a serious blow to Iranian influence in the region, at least according to one senior Iranian military officer.
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