High-ranking Iranian officials have hailed the election of Lebanon’s new president Michel Aoun as a boon for the Islamic Republic, with a top adviser for Iran’s parliamentary speaker saying that Aoun will advance “the resistance against the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state-owned PressTV reported on Wednesday.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also claimed that Aoun’s election will “play an important role in … the strengthening of regional stability and security, and the fight against terrorism.”

His remarks echoed sentiments expressed earlier this week by Ali Akbar Velayati, the top foreign policy adviser for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “The election of Michel Aoun as president shows new support for the Islamic resistance (against Israel),” Velayati told Iran’s Tasnim news agency, according to Reuters.

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah, similarly expressed his satisfaction with the election of the former general. “We were honest since the very beginning in our endorsement of Michel Aoun as president, and we spared no effort for the election to achieve its goals,” he said in a televised speech on Friday, PressTV reported.

Nasrallah also expressed umbrage over accusations that Hezbollah had blocked the selection of a Lebanese president for the past two and a half years. However, Nasrallah’s second-in-command, Naim Qassem, confirmed in September that Hezbollah was determined to prevent the election of any candidate aside from Michel Aoun. “The days have proved that there is a specific path for the presidency. Those who want to elect a president have only one route to take and it leads to General Michel Aoun,” Qassem said. “The global and regional powers, the Security Council and the Arab League will not be able to alter this course. They have been trying for two years to no avail.”

In the wake of Aoun’s election, a video emerged of Hezbollah-affiliated students at Lebanese University in Beirut pledging allegiance to Iran’s supreme leader. “We are the children of Khomeini and we cried allegiance to Ali Khamenei,” the students sang, according to the Arabic-language news site Al Arabiya.

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad also hailed Aoun’s election, saying that he hoped it would “contribute to reinforcing stability in Lebanon and to bringing about a better future for the Lebanese people.”

Aoun, for his part, stated immediately after his election that his goal as president would be to “not spare any efforts to protect Lebanon from Israel and liberate the remainder of our lands; we will address terrorism in a preemptive manner.”

Israel completed its withdrawal from Lebanese territory, which it occupied after the 1982 Lebanon War, in May 2000. The total withdrawal was recognized by the United Nations Security Council, which affirmed in June of that year that “Israel had withdrawn its forces from Lebanon in accordance with Security Council resolution 425.”

Aoun’s vow to “liberate” Lebanese territory from Israel is a reference to Shebaa Farms, also known as Mount Dov, which was captured by Israel in 1967 from Syria and had never been considered part of Lebanon. (A UN envoy revealed in 2006 that, after studying 81 different maps, the UN found no evidence to support Lebanese claims to the territory.)

[Photo: Tasnim News ]