World
NEWS ANALYSIS
Thumbs Down!
Radicals suffer setback in Lebanon, but remain powerful force.
Leslie Susser
before the elections.
If there is no national unity govern-
ment, the situation easily could deterio-
rate into the kind of internal unrest that
led to the Hariri assassination. Hezbollah
already has warned the March 14 alliance
not to even think of trying to disarm its
militia.
Turnout in the election surpassed 70
percent, with both alliances viewing it as
a crucial vote. The March 14 group feared
a Hezbollah victory could destroy its free
lifestyle through Tehran-like religious
coercion and war with Israel. The March
8 alliance and their Iranian backers saw
a rare opportunity for wresting control of
the Lebanese state. Both sides spent mil-
lions of dollars.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jerusalem
T
he outcome of the Sunday, June 7,
Lebanese elections, in which the
pro-Western alliance led by Saad
Hariri eked out a narrow victory over
the Hezbollah-led bloc, was welcomed in
Israel as a rare piece of good news from
the country's northern neighbor.
The struggle for power between
Hariri's March 14 coalition and the
Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance mir-
rored the regional standoff between
pro-Western moderates and pro-Iranian
radicals.
Tzachi Hanegbi, chairman of the
Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee, hailed it as a "reversal" of the
trend toward radicalism. Relative moder-
ates in the Arab world, including Saudi
Arabia and Egypt, applauded Sunday's
outcome. The victory may help President
Obama in his efforts to build a strong
coalition of Middle Eastern moderates
against Iran.
A win for the radicals could have posed
serious new threats for Israel.
Lebanon's new political map emerged
after the assassination of Prime Minister
Rafik Hariri in February 2005. With
observers blaming Syria for the killing,
Shiite Hezbollah held a huge pro-Syrian
demonstration in Beirut on March 8
of that year. This gave birth to the pro-
Syrian March 8 alliance comprised of
Hezbollah, the Shiite Amal party and
Michel Aoun's Christian Free Patriotic
Movement.
A huge counter-demonstration took
place on March 14, giving birth to a
coalition of Sunni Muslims, Druse and
other Christian factions known as the
March 14 coalition. Led by the slain
politician's son, Saad, the coalition called
for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from
Lebanon. This precipitated the so-called
Cedar Revolution, which forced Syrian
troops to leave the country.
Syria, Iran
Ever since, the fault line in Lebanese
politics has run through a sharp pro- and
anti-Syria/Iran divide rather than the
A24
June 11 . 2009
Saad Hariri, shown with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Beirut
gravesite of his slain father in April, led the pro-Western alliance that won
Lebanon's election June 7.
strict denominational differences of old.
In Sunday's vote, the March 14 alliance
increased its strength slightly, winning 71
seats to 57 for the radicals.
While the outcome of the election is
good news for pro-Western moderates,
it did little to change the status quo: The
split before the vote had been 70-58 in
the 128-seat legislature.
Now, much will depend on the kind of
government the winning alliance forms.
After Hezbollah's 2006 war with Israel,
tensions between the two alliances
reached a fever pitch. Hezbollah called
Prime Minister Fuad Siniora a traitor,
and the moderates accused Hezbollah of
destroying Lebanon.
Just over a year ago, the ruling March
14 alliance formed a national unity coali-
tion with the radicals after a bitter 18-
month standoff. In the Doha Agreement,
which brought the crisis to an end,
Hezbollah won a huge concession: the
right to nominate at least one-third of
the Cabinet — enough, according to the
Lebanese constitution, for a veto on all
key decisions.
If there is no similar compromise,
a new round of factional fighting in
Lebanon cannot be ruled out. Both
Hariri and Siniora have made concilia-
tory approaches to the radicals, but it is
not clear whether they are prepared to
give Hezbollah the veto power it enjoyed
Stuffing Ballots
The March 14 coalition flew in plane-
loads of Lebanese emigres; the March 8
alliance bused in fervent supporters from
Syria. Saudi Arabia and Hariri himself
helped to bankroll March 14, while Iran
funded March 8. Both sides accused the
other of heavy vote buying.
Had Hezbollah won, the consequences
for the region as a whole would have
been far-reaching. It would have solidi-
fied the Shiite Crescent — a region of
Shiite control stretching from Shiite Iran
through Iraq and across Iranian-allied
Syria to Lebanon. Iran would be seen as
having an outpost on Israel's doorstep
with a foothold on the Mediterranean.
Gulf states and others might have seen
Iran as the ascendant power of the future
and joined its orbit, as Qatar already has.
Moreover, with Hezbollah in power in
Beirut, the cease-fire regime in the south
— established by U.N. Resolution 1701,
which brought the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah
war to an end — might have collapsed.
As it is, with more than 40,000 rockets
and missiles, Hezbollah poses a seri-
ous threat to Israel. For the three years
since the 2006 war, the deterrent balance
established by the Israel Defense Forces
has held. Hezbollah did not fire a single
rocket in support of Hamas during the
December-January war in Gaza. The IDF
assessment is that the rockets are being
held in reserve for just one purpose: to
deter Israel from attacking Iran's nuclear
installations.
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