Western diplomats are expected to hail a new round of sanctions against Iran today as a victorious step toward halting Tehran’s march to nuclear-armed regional hegemony. But in Iraq, Lebanon, and especially now in Gaza — the mullahs can claim decisive victories.

Lebanon is drifting toward an irreconcilable split between its pro-Iranian and pro-Western camps, while President Ahmadinejad made a royal splash yesterday on a flower-strewn visit to Baghdad. Gaza, meanwhile, is dominating the world’s attention. Tehran could not have asked for a better choreographed prelude to today’s U.N. Security Council resolution to address Iran’s nuclear defiance than the “emergency” council session called by Libya on Saturday night to address Gaza. Secretary-General Ban summed up the grim mood at the council with a condemnation of Israel’s actions as “disproportionate” and “excessive.”

The Bush administration’s strongest argument to back up its Annapolis strategy was that the Sunni Arab world now realizes that Shiite Iran poses a greater regional threat than Israel, creating a perfect opportunity to launch a democratic and peaceful Palestinian Arab state.

Tehran’s countermeasure — playing the Israel-Palestinian Arab card — is working perfectly to neutralize that argument. Yesterday in Ramallah, Israel’s Palestinian Arab partner for the peace talks, President Abbas, who years ago wrote an academic paper denying the Holocaust, called Israel’s military air and ground attacks in Gaza “more than a Holocaust.” The Saudi government said in a statement that Israel was “emulating the Nazi war crimes.” In Israel, the dovish vice premier, Haim Ramon, instructed the country’s state attorney yesterday to clear any legal hurdle standing in the way of Israel widening its bombing campaign to include the heart of Gaza’s population centers — a move so far avoided by the military. Few Israelis doubt that the Iranians are devising Hamas’s strategy, or that the arms, personnel, and training for Gaza’s militants come from Tehran and Damascus.

Israelis trace the latest escalation to a single incident last week, in which top Gaza operatives — who according to military sources were on their way to commit a “quality” terror attack inside Israel — were killed in a pinpoint air attack. The Israeli army intelligence chief, Amos Yadlin, identified those men during a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem yesterday as “five military cadets and experts” trained in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. They arrived in Gaza — alongside the Katyusha-type “Grad” missiles and other new and improved weaponry and fighters — amid the chaos created by the breach of Gaza’s border with Egypt last month, which Israelis say Hamas and its Tehran backers had long planned.

As a result of the upgrade in Gaza’s military capabilities, the major southern Israeli port and industrial city of Ashkelon came under an unprecedented missile attack during the weekend. The nearby seaport of Ashdod will soon follow. Haifa, Israel’s largest northern seaport, suffered a major missile attack during the 2006 war with Hezbollah.

Although the Israeli army learned a lot from its failures in the second Lebanon war, the leadership in Jerusalem seems to be suffering from the same malady that plagued it in the summer of 2006: It has yet to launch a major military assault designed to decisively end the growing armed menace presented by Iran’s satellite in Gaza, but it will not negotiate with Hamas. Unless Jerusalem launches an all-out war or full-fledged diplomacy, it will fail at both.

Meanwhile, even as most of the West Bank is undergoing a modest financial boom — its economy has grown by 7.7% since Prime Minister Salem Fayyed assumed office in Ramallah, according to Ha’aretz — militants in Hebron threw stones yesterday at Israeli soldiers to express their solidarity with Gaza. As soon as Israel ends its control of the West Bank, Iran, Syria, and their Palestinian Arab allies will threaten the busy Tel Aviv airport with the same weapons now being aimed at Israeli seaports.

By attacking Israel through its proxies and waiting for the counterattack, Iran is successfully arousing a predictable international sympathy for the Palestinian Arabs. European and U.N. officials have lost any shred of sympathy toward Israel, and many in the American press and the State Department will soon follow, pointing to the daily death tolls as proof that Israel whines too much about its own losses while paying no attention to Gaza’s suffering.

Just as in Iraq, where Iran’s once-hated status is slowly being replaced with awe, and in Lebanon, where its political maneuvers have managed to erase the promise of the Cedar Revolution, Iran is the real victor in the Gaza war. Regrettably, and despite today’s resolution imposing sanctions, Iran is also Turtle Bay’s winner of the week.

bavni@nysun.com