"Let’s hope Hizbullah wins: This will worsen its strategic position"

Link

In YNETnews, here

.".... the results are still unclear and the Hizbullah-led Shiite bloc may ultimately win. Yet this could be a positive development for Israel.

.....Local strategists must be calculating the implication of such political situation in the event of a war erupting between Israel and Iran. After all, we can assume that under such circumstances, Lebanon would powerfully attack Israel. There is no doubt that if all hope is lost, such war will break out. Hizbullah will attack, whether it is part of the government or not. There is also no doubt that most arms used in such war would in any event be taken out of Hizbullah’s arms warehouses, rather than from the Lebanese army, which mostly possesses defensive equipment and does not threaten Israel in any way.

The possibility of Hizbullah taking power does not change the threat against Israel to a large extent. Yet it critically changes the organization’s strategic position – for the worse. Until today, most of its power was premised on what it refers to as “al-Muqama,” or “the resistance.” Naturally, the resistance is based on guerilla warfare and is a tactic adopted yb organizations, rather than by sovereign governments. ........There is no real justification in attacking the Lebanese army, the presidential palace, or the country’s infrastructure as long as they are not part of Hizbullah and do not support it. .."

Posted by G, Z, & or B at 12:22

Obama effect in Lebanon?

In FP, here

"I hate to burst the bubble, but there's simply no evidence yet that Obama had any impact on the outcome. As Paul Salem explained Friday for FP, there were plenty of indications - such as the fact that it only ran 11 candidates -- that Hezbollah didn't really want to win and give up its cozy seat in the opposition. And further, it was Hezbollah's coalition partner, the mostly Christian Free Patriotic Movement, that seems to have underperformed expectations. In any case, the AP story on HuffPo flatly declares, "Obama's speech did not resonate in the election campaign."

Nor should we breathe a sigh of relief just yet. Now comes the ugly business of negotiating ministries, and it's likely that Hezbollah (whose power is measured in more than just parliamentary seats) will again demand a veto in a cabinet of "national unity" -- to the extent that such a thing exists in fractured Lebanon. It could be months of agonizing negotiations before a new government is formed.

The good news, of course, is that the Hezbollah-FPM coalition didn't win, which could have led to ugly recriminations, or worse, if the ruling Sunni-Druze-Christian alliance didn't accept the results. But I don't think we can chalk these results up to any "Obama effect" just yet, if ever."

Posted by G, Z, & or B at 9:19 AM