Arab Reactions to Iran's Election: A View from Beirut

Source: Bloggingheads.tv

The turmoil in Iran following the June 12 presidential election, and the contested victory of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has seen widespread response from Europe and the United States. Iran's neighbors in the Arab world however, have been noticeably silent in their reaction to the events unfolding. Paul Salem sheds light on Arab opinion to the Iranian crisis:

"The events in Iran took Iran down a few notches in terms of its high horse that it sat on in the Islamic world, and in the Arab world, and in the Arab-Israeli conflict - that the Islamic state in Iran is the only legitimate, the only fairly democratic [state]... which a lot of people believed... and it enabled Iran to play this moral high ground role. Now in the region, Iran pretty much looks like most other states in the region and that has already taken down Iran a couple of pegs and might in the end be positive in the sense that it no longer puts Iran on a different plain from other states in the region and that might enable a bit more accomodation in the future, although nothing immediate."