ATLANTA

WHILE THE WORLD’S diplomatic and media attention focused on the disaster in Burma, and then China, a lightning-quick coup reshaped the Middle East, handing yet another defeat to Washington and the West and a crucial victory to Iran. In the blink of an eye, the Islamic Republic of Iran conquered Lebanon.

Mop-up operations continue, but the key outcome is clear: Hezbollah, the militia created by Teheran, has gained control of Lebanon.

The crisis had been simmering for months, but the boiling point came on May 7, when Hezbollah militias — heavily armed despite United Nations resolutions and assorted intra-Arab agreements — quickly and easily took over West Beirut as a means to resolve a political dispute. Among other things, this method of resolving disputes, at the point of a militia’s guns, demolishes any pretense that Lebanon is anything resembling a democratic country.

Hezbollah’s militant Shiite army, responsible for civilian massacres as far as Argentina and labeled a terrorist organization by half a dozen countries around the world from the Netherlands to Australia, has demonstrated that it is the most powerful force in Lebanon and that it will use that force, even if it means firing its weapons at other Lebanese, to achieve its political aims. This development effectively hands Lebanon to Iran and its ally Syria, because Hezbollah, however strong or independent, obeys Iran and follows its strategic dictates.

The political dispute boiled over when the Lebanese cabinet approved two resolutions that Hezbollah would not countenance. One removed the Hezbollah-allied chief of security at the Beirut airport. The other ordered the dismantling of Hezbollah’s private communications network. The network feeds information to Hezbollah allies Syria and Iran.

Hezbollah asserted that the network was necessary for resistance operations, that is, to protect Lebanon from Israel. But Lebanese politicians said the wireless cameras, particularly those trained on the executive jets runway, could prove useful in a terrorist attack, including possible hits against such politicians as Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who uses it for his trips. Assassinations of anti-Syria, anti-Hezbollah politicians have become tragically commonplace in Beirut.

This, however, was not going to be a dispute resolved by debate. Hezbollah’s well-trained forces immediately blocked the road to the airport. They took over West Beirut, and they engaged in the deadliest gun battles the country has seen since the 1980s civil war. The Lebanese army did nothing to stop the armed militias defying the power of the Siniora government, which is backed by Washington, Europe, Saudi Arabia and some other Arab countries.

The newspaper and television station operations of Saad Hariri, a parliamentary leader and the son of assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, were encircled and burned. The army stepped in only to take over the Hezbollah positions.

Four days into the fighting, the cabinet reversed the offending resolutions.

By last Sunday, Druze leader Walid Jumblat, his forces defeated, was begging Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah not to slaughter his people.

Hezbollah was created by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, 1,500 of whom descended on Lebanon in 1982 to train and organize their ideological Shiite brethren. Since then, Iran has armed and trained hundreds if not thousands of Hezbollah militias, with full logistical and material support from Syria, whose interests in Lebanon Hezbollah diligently protects. Under Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah has grown into the most respected armed force in the Arab Middle East, a region Iran has long sought to dominate.

Hezbollah and Nasrallah’s ideology, following the principle of Wilayat al-Fakih, or rule of the jurist, dictates that religion stands above nationality, and a religious authority, in this case Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameni, is their ultimate ruler.

Among Hezbollah’s major stated goals are the destruction of Israel and the creation of an Islamic state in Lebanon. Hezbollah’s roadmap to success, not coincidentally, dovetails nicely with the goals of Iran.

In the coming weeks, Lebanon’s new political reality, under the continuing fiction of democracy, will manifest itself in the institutions of government. Already Hezbollah’s allies have said they want to see Prime Minister Siniora removed from office and they want Hezbollah to enjoy veto power over all the government’s actions.

Whatever ends up happening to Lebanon — whose blood is repeatedly shed in the Middle East’s proxy wars — there is no question that Iran has scored a major victory, taking an important step toward its revolutionary goals in the Middle East. At the same time, the U.S.-friendly forces of moderation and reconciliation have suffered a dangerous setback.

Frida Ghitis, an occasional contributor, is a long-time foreign correspondent.