As Lebanon braced for the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Beirut on Wednesday, the Arab media outside the country was able to say explicitly what the Lebanese media on both sides of the political divide could not.

Israel's warning that the Iranian leader's trip to southern Lebanon was a "provocation" put Arab commentators on the defensive, citing Lebanon's right as a sovereign nation to host an official visit from the head of a neighboring state.

But many Arabs accuse Iran of undermining Lebanese stability and stoking sectarian tensions by arming the militant Shiite group Hezbollah. Arabian Peninsula countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in particular, have voiced concerns that Iran's nascent nuclear program could tip the regional balance of power.

The local media, bound by internal diplomatic considerations, tended to be more tempered in their approach, while the mostly Saudi-funded pan-Arab outlets largely went straight for the jugular.

"The best description of the meeting between [Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan] Nasrallah and Ahmadinejad I heard from a Lebanese figure who hinted to me that it would be 'a meeting between two wanted criminals,'" wrote Tariq al Hamid, writing in the Saudi-funded pan-Arab paper Al Sharq al Awsat.