Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran arrived for a state visit in Lebanon on Wednesday. Much attention has been given to the wild greeting he has received, and his meeting with the Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri, and president, Michel Suleiman, announcing a number of bilateral agreements. While these events are true, when presented in context of a number of trends in global affairs, they no longer portray an image of Ahmadinejad as a popular figure in the Middle East, but an illegitimate politician desperately reaching for anything to hold on to power.
